On a Halakhic Loop and a Goyishe Kop (Column 708)
Yesterday my friend Nadav Shnerb sent me a passage from Nekudot HaKesef that contains a halakhic logical loop. It struck me as interesting, connects to previous columns, and is worth further discussion, so I’ll devote this column to it.
The words of the Shach
In Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah §124, which deals with the laws of yayin nesekh (libation wine), the Rema records the following ruling (there in se’if 27):
If a non-Jew touched a Jew’s wine out of spite, in order to render it forbidden to him (Tosafot, Mordechai, and Agudah there), then even if this is known only from compelling indications, the wine is permitted even for drinking; and one should drink it in the presence of the non-Jew so that they not accustom themselves to doing this (Tosafot and Mordechai in the name of the Or Zarua).
Normally, an idolater who touches a Jew’s wine renders it forbidden; but if he does so out of spite, the wine is not forbidden. The rationale here seems related to the idea I developed in my essay on killing a thief, where I explained that if someone cynically exploits halakhah, it “freezes” itself and does not enable that exploitation.
The author of Nekudot HaKesef (the Shach) discusses the following case:
A gentile touched a Jew’s wine to provoke him, etc. This incident occurred while I was in the lands of Mehren, and a non-Jew touched my wine. I did not wish to drink it, and he said to me as follows: “Drink, for the wine is permitted; ask your father and he will tell you that it is permitted, since I did it to provoke you so that you would not drink, and when one does it to provoke it is permitted.” Thus far his words.
The gentile touched the wine and told him it was permitted to drink because his touch was only to provoke him, and in such a case the wine is not forbidden.
There the Shach writes that he indeed asked his father, who answered him so:
And I asked my revered father (z”l) what the ruling is, and he said that the wine is forbidden. For the reason for leniency is that he acted to provoke; but since he knows the law, then he did not act to provoke, and it reverts to the original prohibition, as if he had not acted to provoke.
The claim is that there is a loop here: if indeed the wine is permitted, then there is no act of provocation, from which it follows that the gentile did not truly act to provoke, and therefore the wine is forbidden.
Now he objects:
[Even though when done to provoke] it is permitted to drink even not in the presence of the non-Jew—because his intention was not to perform a libation but only to provoke—so here too his intention was not to libate but to show that he knows the law.
In his words he assumes that the wine is not forbidden because the gentile did not intend to libate it but only to provoke, and not for the reason I suggested above (the “freezing” of the law). This is a bit puzzling, since there would still be room to forbid the wine rabbinically as stam yeinam (ordinary gentile wine), which is forbidden upon touch even without an act of libation and even when it is not a bona fide idolater involved.
In any case, the Shach argues that although he did not intend to provoke but rather to show that he knew the law (to taunt him), that too is not an intention to libate, and therefore the wine is not forbidden. Of course, according to my approach there is no room for this claim, since if he did not intend to provoke, there is no “freezing” of the law. In any case, on his own terms this ruling is indeed difficult.
And he resolves:
However, one can explain that since he knows that “to provoke” is permitted, he never acted to provoke at all but did it to libate; and his telling the Jew to ask the law about “to provoke” being permitted was to cause the Jew to stumble so that he would drink libated wine. This is unlike one who does not know, where the non-Jew acts only to cause the Jew to lose his wine so that he won’t drink it—therefore it is permitted. Not so here, for he knows that “to provoke” is permitted; therefore he acts to libate and it is forbidden. This requires further analysis.
There is a concern that he did it in order to libate, and that his sending the Shach to ask his father was only to ensnare him so that he would drink the wine even though it was forbidden (apparently this gentile was a Talmudic prodigy). Here it already seems that there is doubt (perhaps he did it to libate, perhaps not). Thus, in a rabbinic prohibition (such as stam yeinam) there is room to be lenient, and only in actual libation, which is a Torah prohibition, should one be strict. The question is whether this prodigy-gentile also knew all that…
The difficulty
His father’s reasoning is a bit odd, since for some reason he stops and does not continue the loop onward. For if the wine is again forbidden, then clearly he did act to provoke, and the wine should not be forbidden—and so on ad infinitum. This resembles two loops we saw in columns 406 and 617, which I’ll briefly recall here.
First example: “A yoke came upon it”
The Gemara in Bava Metzia 30a cites a statement of Rav Pappa regarding the eglah arufah (the “decapitated heifer”):
Rav Pappa said: Had it been written “oved” and read “oved,” I might have said even if [the work] occurred on its own; and had it been written “avad” and read “avad,” I might have said only if he himself did work with it. Now that it is written “avad” and read “oved,” we require “oved” similar to “avad”: just as “avad” [implies] that it is pleasing to him (nicha lei), so too “oved” requires that it be pleasing to him.
When a corpse is found and it is unknown who murdered him, an eglah arufah is brought. The heifer must be one upon which no yoke has come (lo alah aleha ol). The Gemara states that the disqualifying “yoke” is only one that was put upon it with the owner’s consent (or at least where it is pleasing to him). One sees there that the same is the law regarding the parah adumah (red heifer; see the Hiddushei ha-Ran there, who discusses whether the whole sugya refers only to the red heifer).
And Tosafot there, s.v. “af oved,” ask:
If a male mounted it, why is it disqualified? Surely it is certainly not pleasing to him to render the cow—whose price is so high—invalidated for the sake of a trifling benefit.
That is, the condition that the yoke must come upon it with the owner’s satisfaction empties the law of content, since the owner will never like the idea that his cow loses all its value (a valid red heifer is extremely expensive).
Tosafot resolve:
One can say: if it were valid, it would be pleasing to him; therefore we cannot validate it.
The owner’s lack of satisfaction stems from the very fact of the cow’s disqualification; such dissatisfaction does not remove the disqualification. The dissatisfaction the Gemara has in mind (that would validate the cow) is objective—independent of the legal consequence that the cow becomes disqualified.
The Ran there also struggles with this and offers two answers:
“If a male mounted it, it is disqualified.” You might ask: why? Since you have disqualified it, it is not pleasing to him—for for a small benefit he will not suffer a large loss, as we say in Perek Ein Ma’amidin. One can say: since the act in and of itself is pleasing to him, we cannot validate it on account of its disqualification [for then the disqualification would be the cause of validation, which is impossible]. And furthermore: if you validate it, it will certainly be pleasing to him.
The first answer resembles that of Tosafot (though in that column I explained there is a difference). But what interests us is the Ran’s second answer: suppose we indeed validate the cow because the owner is not pleased with its disqualification. Once we validate it on that ground, the mounting now is pleasing to the owner, and therefore we should again disqualify it, since it was with his consent.
This second answer raises a difficulty: suppose we take one more step and say there is no justification to validate the animal—so we disqualify it. But then once again the owner is not pleased, and it should again become valid. Why stop the loop specifically at disqualification and not continue? This is parallel to the difficulty I raised above regarding the Shach’s father.
Second example: Psik reisha d’lo nicha lei
A similar example concerns the well-known principle of R. Natan of Rome, author of the Arukh. The Tannaim dispute the case of an unintended consequence. For example, someone drags a bench from place to place and, in the process, creates a furrow (the labor of plowing or building on Shabbat). Is he liable for creating the furrow (R. Yehudah), or, since his intention was only to move the bench and not to dig a furrow, is he exempt (R. Shimon)? The halakhah follows R. Shimon: an unintended act is permitted. But the Gemara adds a caveat: where it is a psik reisha—an outcome that necessarily follows from the permitted act—even R. Shimon agrees one is liable. For example, when the ground is very soft and it is certain that dragging the bench will create a furrow. In such a case, even without intent, he is liable. The Arukh adds a third layer: based on difficulties in several sugyot, he argues that if the person is not pleased with the forbidden outcome (d’lo nicha lei), he is exempt even in a psik reisha. For instance, if the furrow ruins his plans (it damages the ground), then even where it is certain that a furrow will be made—he is exempt.
Some objected to the Arukh along the lines of the earlier question in Bava Metzia: no one is pleased to incur stoning or a sin-offering; therefore in every psik reisha case the person is displeased and should be exempt. The law of psik reisha would thus be emptied of content, since anyone acting without intent would always be exempt, even where the outcome is inevitable.
Here too one can answer in the two ways we saw above. One can say, like Tosafot and the Ran’s first answer, that the outcome that obligates is one that is pleasing to him if we set aside the legal consequence. Or one can answer like the Ran’s second answer: if we exempt in such a case, we return to a situation where he is indeed pleased, and he becomes liable. But again one can wonder: why is that the conclusion rather than the opposite (that is, how do we decide where to stop the loop)?
A criterion for stopping loops: the Consistency Principle
In column 407 I described R. Shimon Shkop’s “Consistency Principle,” by which one can stop many logical loops. In brief, R. Shimon addresses the following loop: imagine a get (bill of divorce) given on condition that the woman not marry so-and-so. She went and married him; thus the get should be void. But if it is void, then her marriage to so-and-so is void (for she is still the first husband’s wife, and the second’s betrothal does not take effect). But if so, she did not violate the condition, since she is not married to so-and-so—so her get is valid. But if the get is valid, she is free, and her marriage to so-and-so takes effect, and so on ad infinitum.
R. Shimon argues that one can halt such a loop by adopting the following assumption (what I called “the Consistency Principle”): any halakhic effect (chalut) that, if it were to take effect, would thereby uproot itself—cannot take effect at all (in the inelegant yeshiva-student argot: “any chalut that, if it takes effect, doesn’t take effect—then it doesn’t take effect”).
In this case, we trace the iterative process step by step: first, she is divorced from the first husband, and that remains. Next, she marries so-and-so; prima facie that also takes effect, since she is not a married woman. But the moment she marries so-and-so, the get becomes void, and that in turn uproots her marriage to so-and-so. Therefore the marriage to so-and-so cannot take effect (because if it did, it would be uprooted). Here the process stops. Note that the result seems paradoxical: she is divorced from the first husband yet not married to the second—not because she remains the first man’s wife (she does not), but because of the Consistency Principle. This is a halakhic rule that conditions any legal effect: if it would uproot itself, it cannot take effect.
I explained there that this principle is not logical but halakhic (or meta-halakhic). It is a feature of halakhah though there is no logical necessity that it be so. Hence it is not a solution to a logical paradox but a halakhic rule that tells us how to act when faced with this sort of halakhic loop (and there I adduced, and pointed to, many more examples resolved this way).
Is the Consistency Principle relevant to our cases?
It is fairly clear that in the Shach’s case this principle is not relevant. The principle guides us regarding halakhic effects (chaliot) and states that if there is a chalut that would uproot itself, halakhah will not allow it to be created. But in the Shach’s case we are not dealing with chaliot but with a fact (a psychological one): the gentile’s intention. The question here is factual: did the gentile intend to provoke or to prohibit (or perhaps something else, like taunting him with his Torah knowledge)? With facts one cannot say that if facts lead to a paradox they are therefore untrue. What the gentile intended (or not) is a factual question, and we cannot legislate his intentions.
By way of comparison, in the two examples above the situation is a bit different. There the person’s intention arises post factum—it is the result of the halakhic status: if the cow is disqualified, then the person is not pleased with that outcome; and if he incurs a sin-offering or stoning, he certainly is not pleased with that outcome. Therefore, if the outcome does not transpire, that in turn affects the halakhah. But in our case the gentile’s intention is not the result of the halakhic status; it produces it. If the gentile intended to provoke, the wine is not forbidden; if he did not intend to provoke, the wine is forbidden. Thus there is only the question of what the gentile intended, and here there is a single answer and no more (though we may not know it).
The conclusion is that, on the one hand, the Consistency Principle is irrelevant in the Shach’s case (since we are dealing not with chaliot but with facts), but on the other hand the paradox does not truly exist. The gentile’s intention was one thing and only one; we simply do not know it. At most this is a case of doubt, but there is no loop here. Hence the Consistency Principle is unnecessary. By contrast, in the two earlier cases there is a loop, because the halakhic state generates the person’s intention (or satisfaction), and that intention/satisfaction in turn affects the halakhic state. In those two cases the intention/satisfaction is not a simple fact but depends on what happened. Yet since we are dealing with facts and not chaliot, the Consistency Principle does not apply there. Thus in those cases it is needed (since there is a loop) but does not help (since they are facts and not chaliot). Those two are genuine loops.
Back to the Shach’s case
Still, there is a loop there—only not in the case itself but in our reasoning as we analyze it. On the one hand, the gentile intended to provoke, and therefore the wine is permitted. But if he knew that (and of course he did, since he himself said it), then he did not intend to provoke. But if he did not intend to provoke, the wine is indeed forbidden. The question now is whether the gentile made that calculation as well or not. One can, of course, keep going—but this is not a loop about the gentile’s state; it is only an analysis that explains why we end up in doubt about his intention. We do not know how to analyze his intention correctly, but there is only one intention: either he intended to provoke, or he did not. We simply have no way of knowing which, because of our “loopy” analysis; that merely tells us that we are in factual doubt about what his intention originally was. In truth, the doubt is: which chain of reasoning did the gentile run, and where did he stop his own loop? This loop is only our attempt to reconstruct the gentile’s thought process and how far he went in his halakhic calculations.
Goyishe kop
To end, this story in the Shach about the gentile who was a Talmudic prodigy reminds me of a well-known joke about the difference between a Jewish head and a gentile head when it comes to learning Gemara:
One day a priest said to the rabbi, “You’ve taught me many things, but there’s one thing I want to learn and you refuse—I want you to teach me Gemara.” The rabbi said to him, “You’re a gentile and you have a gentile’s head; there’s no chance you’ll manage to understand Gemara.” The priest persisted until the rabbi agreed. The rabbi said, “I’ll agree to teach you Gemara on one condition: you must answer one question.” “Fine,” said the priest, “what’s the question?” The rabbi asked, “Two people fall down a chimney. One comes out dirty and one comes out clean. Which of the two goes to wash?” “Very simple,” said the priest, “the dirty one washes and the clean one does not.” “I told you you wouldn’t succeed,” said the rabbi. “It’s exactly the opposite—the clean one looks at the dirty one, thinks he too is dirty, and goes to wash. The dirty one looks at the clean one, thinks he too is clean, and does not wash.” “I hadn’t thought of that,” agreed the priest. “Ask me another question.” “Fine,” said the rabbi. “Two people fall down a chimney. One comes out dirty and one comes out clean. Which of the two goes to wash?” “Very simple,” said the priest confidently. “The clean one looks at the dirty one, thinks he too is dirty, and goes to wash; the dirty one looks at the clean one, thinks he too is clean, and does not wash.” “Again you’re wrong,” said the rabbi. “I told you you wouldn’t understand. The clean one looks in the mirror, sees he is clean, and does not wash; the dirty one looks in the mirror, sees he is dirty, and goes to wash.” “But you didn’t say there was a mirror,” protested the priest. “That’s what I told you,” said the rabbi. “That’s your head—you’re a gentile and you won’t understand—according to the Gemara you have to consider all possible angles—all the possibilities.” “Fine,” sighed the priest. “Let’s try again. Ask me another question.” “Last time,” said the rabbi. “Two people fall down a chimney. One comes out dirty and one comes out clean. Which of the two goes to wash?” “It’s very simple,” smiled the priest. “If there’s no mirror—the clean one looks at the dirty one, thinks he’s dirty, and goes to wash; the dirty one looks at the clean one, thinks he’s clean, and does not wash. If there is a mirror—the clean one looks in the mirror, sees he’s clean, and does not wash; the dirty one looks in the mirror, sees he’s dirty, and goes to wash.” The rabbi said to him, “I told you you wouldn’t understand—you’re a gentile and you have a gentile’s head—explain to me how it could be that two people fall down a chimney and one comes out dirty and the other clean?!”
For my part, I’d resolve it easily: after the first fellow went down the chimney, he scraped off all the soot onto himself, so the second came out clean. Even a Jew who learns Daf Yomi can’t grasp that—unless he’s an analytical lamdan. Incidentally, I recall hearing a funnier version, but I couldn’t find it now (see here for the various incarnations of this joke. The best version is, of course, Amnon Yitzhak’s video).
Discussion
Unless divorce does not take effect on its own but is rather the absence of the marriage taking effect, and then this is not correct.
In any case this is correct, because there is no other consistent way out. Maybe that itself proves that it depends not on a legal taking-effect but on a consistent status change?
If they are not married, the divorce does not lapse; it is simply irrelevant. In my opinion, this is not considered a legal effect that uproots itself. In other words: the divorce is indeed valid, it just has nothing to do because there is no marriage to terminate.
In such a situation, the divorce would take effect and uproot the betrothal, and then it would have nothing to do. Thus she would remain unmarried (and not divorced. A practical difference: she would be permitted to a kohen). And still, the divorce would not have lapsed.
That’s just dodging the paradox, not solving it. I can formulate the condition this way: Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that I not terminate our marriage.
I don’t understand what difference that makes. Exactly the same thing.
And what about the following case—a man transfers a bill of divorce to a woman on condition that she not be divorced by it. If the bill divorces her, then he did not transfer it to her, and therefore the bill does not divorce. But if the bill does not divorce, then she also cannot acquire anything. It follows that she did not acquire the bill and was not divorced? For example, if he placed the bill in her courtyard, where her bill and her courtyard come simultaneously.
He conditioned the betrothal on an actual termination of the marriage by a valid divorce that changes his wife’s status. That is, as long as that does not happen, she is married to him. How do you get out of that?
That isn’t difficult. A bill of divorce that does not divorce has no meaning. It’s a piece of paper.
Why is our loop regarding libation wine only about the gentile’s intention and not about his ability to prohibit the wine?
After all, libation wine too is a legal effect that the gentile imposes, and ostensibly R. Shimon Shkop’s consistency principle should apply here as well:
The gentile cannot impose a prohibition on the wine if doing so creates a loop. It makes no difference what he intends.
1) That it has no “meaning” if the bill of divorce does not divorce is your own reasoning.
2) This bill of divorce does in fact divorce, but when it divorces, its transfer to the woman is nullified.
I have a layman’s question from someone who has never studied Gemara. I’m not sure it even has an answer. I am impressed by the potential delight found in these dialectical analyses—an intellectual, emotional, and social potential—and I ask myself: is this the core of Talmudic analysis and study? Not the core in a value sense or in terms of religious obligation, but more as an activity that serves very deep human needs. Really like Japanese tea ceremonies or flower arranging. Something deeply existential-aesthetic. Or am I projecting exaggerated baggage onto this world?
A bill of divorce that uproots itself is not a divorcing bill. If you like, this is a reflection of R. Shimon’s consistency principle.
I do not know how to answer such a general question. It is an essential part of Torah study. As for what needs it comes to fulfill—ask psychologists (and then infer the opposite).
He does not prohibit the wine. The Torah prohibits it. He merely establishes the datum of his intention, on which the prohibition depends.
I’m not sure I understood, but even if there is a legal effect here (that terminates another legal effect?), R. Shimon’s principle would apply. So what is the question? How is this different from the case he himself discusses?
I was just saying that there is an interesting implication of creating Catholic marriage.
Ostensibly, the very claim that because the gentile knew the touch does not prohibit, that turns the touch into mere touch, is incorrect, since it is enough that he intended to pressure him in order to permit it.
Hahaha
Another addition to the collection of examples of the liar paradox in halakhah:
The Shakh in Nekudot HaKesef, Yoreh De'ah at the end of §124. Beyond that, it is simply a very amusing incident.
Not the liar paradox but a loop, like an inevitable but unintended consequence that is of no benefit to him, or “a yoke was placed on it with his consent.” The liar paradox is just a sentence that says nothing; these loops ostensibly do say something, except there is no way to stop them. My sense is that here it can be stopped, but I will think about it more.
Many thanks.
In my humble opinion, I did not understand, after all is said and done, how the Shakh’s case differs from the case of the red heifer. Ostensibly in both cases there is one uncertainty, about the intention of the actor (the gentile, whether he acted to provoke or not; the owner, whether he is pleased with the use of the heifer or not). The intent to provoke, or the satisfaction with the yoke, depends on how many steps ahead he (the gentile or the owner) calculated the halakhic loop: if it is an even number, then the result is A; if the number is odd, then the result is B; and if you say that he is aware of the infinite loop, then one would need to assess the intention of someone aware of infinite loops.
In particular, I did not understand why “in our case the gentile’s intention is not a result of the halakhic state but the cause of it,” whereas in the case of the red heifer it is a result of the halakhic state. Quite the opposite: in the red heifer case one can imagine a person who wants the plowing even though it disqualifies the heifer (because that plowing is a matter of saving his life, because red heifers have become cheap, and so on), whereas here the gentile’s intention and the halakhic state created depend univocally on each other.
In any event, thank you—wondrous indeed.
Good morning.
It is fundamentally different.
With libating wine, the matter depends on the gentile’s original intention from the outset. If he intended to prohibit it, it is prohibited; if he intended to provoke, it is not prohibited. Even if it turns out after the fact that it did not provoke me, that makes no difference; if he did not know that in advance and thought it would provoke me, it is not prohibited (think of a case where he did not know me and thought something would provoke me, but in practice it did not provoke me at all. Is the wine prohibited? Obviously not). In contrast, with the red heifer we are dealing with satisfaction after the fact. That after-the-fact satisfaction depends on the actual outcome. If what happened turned out well for me, then I am pleased with what happened, regardless of my original intention and regardless of what I was thinking and how far I had gotten in my calculation of the loop in advance. If, factually, something beneficial to me resulted, then I am in fact pleased with it, and therefore the heifer is disqualified.
From this you can also understand the difference in the cause-and-effect relationship between the two cases. They are truly opposite. In libation, what matters is the original intention, and the intention causes the prohibition and not vice versa; therefore there it does matter how complete and correct his calculation was. The prohibition is not the result of the fact that I became angry or did not become angry, but of his intention to provoke. In contrast, with the red heifer, there the satisfaction is a result of what happened, and therefore disqualification is a result of the fact of what came out (which determines whether I am pleased or not), as above.
See all this in article 708.
Correct it to Yoreh De'ah 124.
Yoreh De'ah 24 is the laws of tereifot.
Thanks, corrected.
Is this also somewhat related? From one matter to another (that is not) of the same matter,
In any case, perhaps you have an answer to his difficulty.
Giddulei Horowitz, sec. 12.
And this is his language:
“But it requires investigation from Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim sec. 10: a cloak that is half closed—one may not go out with it into the public domain. This is difficult, for if the cloak is exempt, then by definition he has no need for the fringes, and he does not intend to carry them, except that it is an inevitable consequence, since he goes out with them into the public domain.
And this is difficult: why is it an inevitable consequence? Perhaps the cloak is obligated in tzitzit; if so, then he may carry them, and therefore it is not an inevitable consequence. This requires investigation.
And similarly one should consider regarding the two festival days kept in the Diaspora: since it is uncertain whether today is a festival day or not, perhaps it should be permitted to do an unintended act even though it is an inevitable consequence, because perhaps today is not a festival day, and therefore it is not an inevitable consequence.”
These two are not difficult, because we are dealing with a doubtful inevitable consequence, and that is prohibited. True, this is only according to R. Akiva Eiger and not according to the Taz, but logically it seems obvious that R. Akiva Eiger is right.
Beyond that, on the second festival day the definition is not one of doubt; rather, they enacted it as a kind of certainty. Otherwise, no rabbinic prohibitions would exist on the second festival day. The basis of the matter is that the reason for the enactment is due to doubt, but because of that doubt they enacted with certainty that one must observe a second festival day; for otherwise there would be no need for the enactment at all. We would observe a second festival day under the laws of uncertainty. In particular, at the beginning of Beitzah they dispute regarding an egg laid on the second festival day, and according to your approach it would not be possible to prohibit that at all.
For some reason the article came up again today.
“Personally, I would resolve it easily: after the first one passed through the chimney, he scraped all the dirt onto his body, and therefore the second came out clean. Even the Jew who studies Daf Yomi cannot understand this, unless he is an analytical lamdan.”
Rabbi, could you please explain this also for someone who is not an “analytical lamdan”?
The Minchat Chinukh brings the discussion regarding one who slaughters on Shabbat: if his slaughter is effective, he becomes an apostate, and consequently his slaughter is invalid; and if so, he is merely damaging, and his slaughter is valid, and so on.
However, there he also tied it to the sugya of whether a prohibition can take effect through a transgression.
I wanted to ask whether the rabbi thinks this is also related to the reasoning of the Noda BiYehudah (Yoreh De'ah 16) regarding a piece fit to honor guests with: if it will remain prohibited after nullification (because it still requires deveining), then it is not fit to honor guests with. For the whole reasoning that it is called fit to honor guests despite being prohibited is only because once it is nullified it will be permitted and fit to honor guests with.
In Pri To'ar (101:2) he also brought this reasoning regarding a significant piece in meat-and-milk that would be nullified in a majority of carcass meat, though there too he wrote that this is only regarding the prohibition of benefit, and therefore he is lenient.
And ostensibly there is explicit proof for this from Tosafot in Chullin 100, though one could discuss that.
But doesn’t the rabbi think this somewhat contradicts R. Shimon’s principle?
For according to his words, we should stop the wheel by saying that the significance is nullified, and not apply to it the law of something fit to honor guests with, because then the nullification will not take effect.
(I am asking, of course, only according to the reasoning of the Noda BiYehudah.)
I did not understand the Noda BiYehudah’s argument. According to his approach, there is no such thing as something fit to honor guests with, for in all cases, if they are not nullified they will not be fit to honor guests with, and if so then they will be. This is more similar to the liar paradox. There is no way to stop it, because there is no defined directionality here. Both nullification destroys itself and non-nullification does too. And perhaps according to R. Shimon it is not nullified, because in the initial state it exists. Now when you come to nullify it, that will destroy itself, and therefore we leave it un-nullified.
But that is not correct, because both sides destroy themselves. Moreover, if that were correct, then from the outset something fit to honor guests with would not be nullified even on the Torah level.
1. The Noda BiYehudah indeed applied this in cases where the piece would remain prohibited even after nullification and therefore would not become something fit to honor guests with—for example, a piece that has not been deveined, which would remain prohibited even after nullification, or meat-and-milk that would be nullified in carcass meat, regarding the prohibition of benefit.
2. So what is the rabbi actually claiming? That it is not related to the issue? In the end we will still need to explain Tosafot in Chullin 100, who wrote, “For anything fit to honor guests with, if it would be nullified it is considered significant and is not nullified,” and similarly later there, see there.
Will we have to say that he did not accept the principle that Tosafot wrote in Gittin?
Or that one cannot apply the principle. But if so, then we will have to agree with the Noda BiYehudah’s reasoning where it does apply…
3. I really could not understand the last sentence. Why would we say that something fit to honor guests with would not be nullified on the Torah level?
On the Torah level everything is nullified in a majority (when dry). Why should it suddenly not be nullified? A significant piece, a whole creature, something counted individually, etc.—all these are rabbinic inventions and stringencies they created, and they have no connection to Torah law.
A number of mistakes slipped in, and since I do not know how to edit, I will correct them here: a piece that has not been deveined. That would be nullified in carcass meat.
1. But then it would indeed be nullified, because it is not fit to honor guests with. I do not understand what you are writing.
2. Indeed, it is unrelated to R. Shimon’s principle. I explained why. It is not that he did not accept Tosafot’s principle; rather, his words are unrelated to Tosafot’s principle.
3. That is exactly what I noted. If R. Shimon’s principle is operating here and preventing nullification, then that lack of nullification is on the Torah level (just as the woman is divorced or not divorced on the Torah level). And that contradicts the halakhah that something fit to honor guests with is nullified on the Torah level.
1. Right. That is exactly his claim. So do you agree that in such a case it would be nullified?
2. Accepted.
3. R. Shimon’s principle, insofar as it exists, starts only after the rabbinic determination that something fit to honor guests with is not nullified. On the Torah level, where it is nullified, it makes no practical difference whether it was fit to honor guests with before, or only after, or the whole time. It simply enters the category like any piece that is not fit.
4. By the way, do you call R. Shimon’s principle Torah-level? Who says it is not merely a logical consideration that Tosafot inserted into the framework of halakhah?
1. That is what he says. Whether I agree or not is a different discussion. I am only arguing that it is unrelated to R. Shimon’s reasoning. One can debate the Noda BiYehudah’s reasoning independently. It sounds strange.
3. But on the Torah level it is nullified, and then it is not fit to honor guests with, and consequently it is nullified even rabbinically. So there is no such thing as a piece fit to honor guests with. The principle does not begin after the rabbinic law; it is supposed to be the basis for that rabbinic law. And it is not. Aside from the fact that R. Shimon’s principle simply does not belong here at all.
4. Certainly it is Torah-level. It is a logical argument by whose force we say that the woman is divorced. She is not divorced only rabbinically. That reasoning is Torah-level. Tosafot apprehended this, and in their view it is a Torah-level law. If someone disagrees with them, then they have a disagreement about Torah law.
Before I return to the words of Giddulei Tzion, I will note a typo at the beginning of the article: “the claim that his father’s reason is a bit strange”—it should say “that he claimed.”
And now I return to the words of Giddulei Tzion, and let us say:
A. Regarding what you answered me, that logically R. Akiva Eiger is right,
I will explain why the opposite is true:
For the reason for permitting an unintended act—and we do not say “in Torah law, uncertainty is treated stringently”—as in the case of a piece that is doubtfully forbidden fat or doubtfully permitted fat, there the prohibition already exists in reality; the possibly forbidden piece is present before us, and therefore we apply the laws of uncertainty. But in the case of permitting an unintended act, we are dealing with a prohibition that is yet to come into existence, and therefore the laws of uncertainty do not apply to it; rather, we say that an unintended act is permitted. If so, it should make no difference to us between dragging a chair that may make a furrow and locking a box that may trap what is inside it, for in both cases we are dealing with and uncertain about a prohibition that may come into existence and is not presently before us like a piece that is doubtfully forbidden fat or doubtfully permitted fat.
B. Consequently, here too even according to the Taz it would be prohibited—even the Taz would agree that it is prohibited, because here the doubt is not a factual doubt, i.e. a doubt about something that may come into existence, but rather a legal doubt, and it is before us now. This is more similar to a piece that is doubtfully forbidden fat or doubtfully permitted fat; that is, we are uncertain whether this garment before us, half open and half closed, is legally considered closed or considered open. In such a case we revert to the regular laws of uncertainty and say: in Torah law, uncertainty is treated stringently.
C. And now this is really connected to the present post,
for in truth I did not understand Giddulei Tzion at all, because the initial difficulty is no difficulty at all. What is this that Giddulei Tzion asked, “if the cloak is exempt, then by definition he has no need for the fringes and does not intend to carry them”? After all, in practice he is carrying them. Rather, his intention is to frame it as though there is a side that perhaps he will commit a prohibition and a side that perhaps he will not commit a prohibition, and then it is not an inevitable consequence, and in any event he does not intend to commit a prohibition, therefore it is permitted under the rule of an unintended act.
But this is puzzling, for certainly he does at this moment intend to carry them. And if one says that had he known this cloak was exempt he would not carry it out—to exempt him on that basis is astonishing. For in that way one could turn everyone who intends into one who does not intend, and turn every inevitable consequence into an inevitable consequence that is of no benefit to him. For example, let us say in the case of dragging a heavy chair (which certainly makes a furrow), that had he known that by dragging the chair he would violate the prohibition of plowing, he would not want that. And so too we would exempt every person who commits a prohibition unintentionally, such as someone who actually plows with a plow but did not know it was forbidden, and exempt him from a sin-offering and say that it is an unintended act, since had he known it was forbidden he would not have done it, and it is therefore an unintended act.
I can’t continue with intervals like these. I no longer remember what this is about.
Quite all right, I will do that—in a separate question, bit by bit, because this detail is very important to me.
A situation that just occurred to me as an implication of R. Shimon Shkop’s consistency principle:
A man who betrothed a woman on condition that he not divorce her cannot divorce her. If he divorces her, it turns out retroactively that they were not married, and therefore he cannot divorce her. This creates a situation of her being chained until he dies.