Objectivity and Subjectivity in Halakha and in General – Lesson 3

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to Tosafot, does this take effect? No, it doesn’t take effect. But not because these are betrothals not fit for intercourse. For a different reason: because betrothal does not take effect in forbidden relations. But not because… this is not called betrothal not fit for intercourse, since the prohibition is one that doesn’t depend at all on the act of betrothal. This reminds me of some pilpul I once saw… interesting. There is… in Bava Kamma 11, the Talmud discusses the placenta. When a woman gives birth, there is a fetus inside the placenta, and once the fetus emerges the woman becomes impure with the impurity of childbirth. Okay? Now if part of the placenta came out, then you don’t know whether the fetus has already begun to emerge or not, and therefore out of doubt she is impure or not impure. Okay? If… if part of the placenta came out, then the Talmud says as follows: if there is no placenta without a fetus, then clearly she is impure. But if there is a possibility of a placenta without a fetus, then it’s… then it’s a doubt. Right? That’s what the Talmud says there: if there is a placenta… if there is a possibility of a placenta without a fetus, then we don’t know whether it’s a doubt or not a doubt. Now the Talmud says there that there is a case of double doubt, where there is doubt… if it is part of a placenta, that exists, right? There is doubt regarding part of a placenta, and also… and also on the side that a fetus emerged, there is doubt whether—I just don’t remember right now, I just remembered this as an association—whether most of it emerged. Huh? Whether most of the fetus emerged. And only when most of the fetus has emerged does the woman become impure with the impurity of childbirth. So then the question is whether a fetus emerged, and if so whether most of it emerged. Why is that called double doubt? Because it doesn’t reverse; not important, that’s a different issue. So… Tosafot asks there, and Tosafot says there… that’s what the Talmud says. And Tosafot asks there: what case are we talking about? If it is in a private domain, then with doubtful impurity in a private domain it is impure. And no matter how many doubts you pile onto it—it’s in the Mishnah in tractate Parah, or Taharot, I don’t remember—no matter how many doubts you pile onto it, it is still impure in a private domain. There is no difference between a doubt and a double doubt, or a triple doubt. No difference at all; everything is impure. In a public domain everything is pure, including a single doubt, certainly a double doubt, but even a single doubt. So it turns out that if this were in a private domain, then whether it is a doubt or a double doubt, it should be impure. If it were in a public domain, whether it is a doubt or a double doubt, it should be pure. So how can there be a situation in which with a doubt it is impure and with a double doubt it is pure? That can’t happen in any domain whatsoever. So Tosafot says, “We learned it with regard to forbidding her to her husband.” The discussion is not about whether the woman is impure, but about when she is forbidden to her husband. Because when she is impure with the impurity of childbirth, she is also forbidden to her husband. Tosafot says there are many aspects to this, and it comes out that the woman’s prohibition to her husband is not a result of the impurity, but two laws that come together, though one is not the result of the other. This is Leibniz’s well-known point about the parable of Leibniz’s clocks. When you see two clocks running in perfect synchronization, then either A affects B, or B affects A, or there is some synchronization between them that is not causal synchronization, but something third—the clockmaker, in this case, built them in such a way that there would be correspondence between them. And here too, same thing: many times when we see two things connected to one another, we immediately assume that one is the cause of the other. But that doesn’t have to be so. Correlation and causation do not always go together; for statisticians that’s a first principle. You have to be careful not to confuse correlation with causation. And here too, true, the impurity comes together with the prohibition to the husband, but it’s not cause and effect. They are two things that come as a result of the birth. And here is an example: in a case of doubt, with regard to impurity, the laws of impurity apply—if it’s in a private domain she will be impure, if it’s in a public domain she will be pure. With regard to prohibition to her husband, if it’s a doubt she is forbidden to her husband; if it’s a double doubt she is permitted to her husband, because this is a prohibition. That is what Tosafot says. On this the Avnei Nezer asks. I once saw this; I used to greatly enjoy reading books of pilpul by Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschitz on Sabbaths. That’s real Sabbath pleasure. He strings things together there, unbelievably sharp, weaving together midrashim and making wild pilpulim. Some of the midrashim he invents—when the line of reasoning doesn’t work out for him, he invents one. But really, true pleasure; it is an art to produce a beautiful pilpul. In any case, on Parashat Chukat, down below there is a note. The one who brought it to print—it was the book Nefesh Yehonatan, among all the writings of Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschitz. Nefesh Yehonatan on the Torah; there is Divrei Yehonatan, which is the most famous. Nefesh Yehonatan is another book there. On Parashat Chukat it is brought there that the one who brought it to print was a grandson of the brother of the Sochatchover, of the Avnei Nezer. And he says that he once heard from his great-uncle, meaning from the Sochatchover, that he had a difficulty with Tosafot in Bava Kamma. He says: what does Tosafot say? Tosafot says that here we learned “to forbid her to her husband”; to forbid her to her husband is a matter of prohibition and permission, not of impurity. So the rules of doubt here are like doubts of prohibition: in a doubt you must be stringent, in a double doubt you may be lenient. But in impurity there is no difference between a doubt and a double doubt: in a public domain everything is pure, in a private domain everything is impure. How can you say such a thing? Where do we learn that doubtful impurity in a private domain is impure? From the suspected adulteress. And what is the discussion in the case of the suspected adulteress? To forbid her to her husband. She is not impure there in the sense of impurity and purity; she is impure to her husband, meaning forbidden to her husband. So the whole source for the law of doubtful impurity in a private domain or a public domain comes from the suspected adulteress, and that is a law about forbidding her to her husband. How can you tell me that if we are speaking about forbidding her to her husband, then this is not under the rules of impurity but under the rules of prohibition? How do you derive the laws of doubtful impurity from the suspected adulteress?

[Speaker H] In the case of the suspected adulteress they also derive from there the law of every doubt whose end is to multiply, not that it is only a specific law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is probably part of the same issue; I don’t remember right now. Shemaita 1 talks about this; there is some law given to Moses at Sinai there, and the question is what would have happened without the law given to Moses

[Speaker I] at Sinai on this law or on the law of doubtful impurity in a public domain.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The novelty from the suspected adulteress is that doubtful impurity in a private domain is impure, and without that everything would be pure. Where does it come from that everything would be pure? A Torah-level doubt should be treated stringently. Where does that come from? Or the opposite: the novelty is that only in a private domain is doubt impure, and the novelty is really that in a public domain doubt is pure. And Shemaita 1 talks about this. In any case, he asks: what do you mean, “not to forbid her to her husband,” such that it is not judged by the rules of doubts of impurity but only by the rules of doubts of prohibition? After all, the whole source of doubtful impurity really comes from the prohibition of a woman to her husband. He says something brilliant. He brings from the Kuzari. He was a great pilpulist, the Avnei Nezer. There too, sometimes there are pilpulim that make your ears ring when you hear them. But sometimes he has pearls; he was a very sharp man. So he says there is a Kuzari that explains why the laws of impurity belong mainly to Israel. There is a little of it among gentiles too, but mainly in Israel, because Israel is more sanctified, and impurity belongs only where holiness belongs. In a place that is ordinary, there is neither holiness nor impurity; it is disconnected from those things. We do not discuss it in the categories of impurity and holiness. So according to this Kuzari, he says something simple. He says: after all, betrothal—the Talmud in Kiddushin 6, the Talmud says there, this is all by association, I don’t know, I jumped now, it’s just a parenthesis. The Talmud in Kiddushin 6 says there that if one says, “The leg of this one is a burnt offering,” holiness spreads through the whole thing. Meaning, if I consecrate only part of an animal, in the end according to the conclusion it is only a limb on which life depends—but never mind—in principle, when I consecrate part of an animal, the holiness spreads through all of it. There is no such thing as holiness of half an animal. There’s no such thing. Okay? The Talmud says the same would also apply to a woman. Someone who betroths half a woman—basically the holiness should spread through all of her. This is one of the sources some later authorities bring to show that betrothal is not merely called betrothal by accident. It belongs to the category of holiness. It is to sanctify a woman. What?

[Speaker J] Isn’t it a doubt in the Talmud there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says that with a limb on which life depends—now a leg is not at all a limb on which life depends—so in the end it rejects it. I don’t remember the whole line of reasoning right now. But the Talmud compares the woman to an offering. So what’s the idea? When you betroth a woman, that belongs to the world of holiness. That’s the concept of betrothal. So if that’s the case—and there is additional proof for this, by the way—then he says: if indeed in the case of the suspected adulteress, why is she really forbidden to her husband? She is forbidden to her husband because “she has betrayed” and “betrayed her husband.” Meaning, she harmed the bond of betrothal. Harm to the bond of betrothal is impurity. In a place where there is holiness, damage to holiness is impurity. Therefore the prohibition of the suspected adulteress to her husband is not a prohibition; it is impurity, because the prohibition there comes from the damage to the bond of betrothal. But a woman who gave birth and is forbidden to her husband, she is forbidden to the whole world, not only to her husband. She simply became impure. This is not connected at all to the bond of betrothal. So there the category is a category of prohibition, not a category of impurity. Impurity is where you damage concepts of holiness, where you remove holiness, where you damage concepts of holiness—that is called impurity. When you act in the ordinary world, it is prohibition. It is forbidden or permitted, but it does not belong to holiness or to concepts of holiness and impurity. Therefore, he says, what we learn from the suspected adulteress is perfectly fine, because there the woman’s prohibition to her husband stems from damage to the concept of betrothal. Therefore there the categories really are categories of impurity. But here, in the impurity of childbirth, the prohibition is simply because she became impure, like a menstruant, for example, or a woman who gave birth, or things of that kind. The prohibition is not connected to the act of betrothal. So there the doubt is really a doubt of prohibition, not a doubt of impurity. Fine, that is what he says there. Why did all this come back to me? Because what he says there is that impurity is only something that comes from damaging the concept of betrothal. A woman’s prohibition to her husband that does not stem from damage to the concept of betrothal is not impurity but just ordinary prohibition. Something like this is what Tosafot says here. Tosafot here is basically saying: when are betrothals called betrothals not fit for intercourse? When the prohibition of intercourse is a product of the act of betrothal. But if the prohibition exists just like that, as with the woman who gave birth, what we saw there—if the prohibition exists because she is divorced and he is a priest, that has nothing to do with the act of betrothal. A divorced woman and a priest are forbidden; so such a thing is not called betrothal not fit for intercourse. There is something behind Tosafot’s definition, and in this he disagrees with Rashi. Rashi says: what are betrothals not fit for intercourse? Betrothals that cannot be consummated. That is called betrothals not fit for intercourse. And then Tosafot asks him, correctly: then what about cases involving prohibitions punishable by lashes? A priest and a divorced woman are also forbidden to have relations—he is forbidden to have relations with her—so how can the betrothal take effect there? Rashi will apparently have to answer: that is not called not fit for intercourse. The intercourse is possible, just bound up with a prohibition. A forbidden relation is such a prohibition that it does not belong to intercourse at all. Meaning, such a thing is excluded from intercourse. It simply does not make sense to have relations with such a woman. Therefore only a forbidden relation is called something not fit for intercourse. A prohibition punishable by lashes means it is fit for intercourse, only it involves a prohibition. Not connected to the yevamah. That is Rashi. And what does Tosafot say? It seems to me that what Tosafot is saying is this claim. Let me perhaps give an example first. You know there is a rule in the Talmud that when you make a condition in a bill of divorce, the condition may not be an eternal condition, because the bill of divorce has to sever between the husband and the wife. A bill of severance. “He wrote her a bill of severance and placed it in her hand.” A document that has to be a document that severs. Now if you set a condition that is eternal, I say, “This is your bill of divorce on condition that you never drink wine.” Now at every point she is still dependent on me, because any time in the future that she drinks wine, the divorce is nullified and she becomes my wife again. So in fact we were never completely severed. And such a bill of divorce is not a valid divorce. Meaning, every bill of divorce must reach a stage—even after ten years or whatever, by the way, and some of the medieval authorities even say after a thousand years. That’s more binding on a person. Never mind—even theoretically, there has to come some point from which onward there is complete severance and there is no longer any bond between the husband and the wife. Meaning, when you give a divorce that does not sever between husband and wife, that is not called an act of divorce. An act of divorce has to cut. Again, even if the cutting happens later, but there has to come a stage where it is cut. What Tosafot says here is the same thing regarding the act of betrothal. Not as Rashi says, that betrothals not fit for intercourse means betrothals that cannot be consummated, and then of course a forbidden relation too. According to Rashi, for example, the reason betrothal does not take effect in a forbidden relation is because of betrothals not fit for intercourse. The question then is why Abaye claims they also do not take effect. Abaye also claims that they do not take effect, but according to his own view betrothals not fit for intercourse are valid betrothals. So that has to be understood. But at least according to Rava, Rashi explains that even in a forbidden relation, the reason betrothal does not take effect is because of betrothals not fit for intercourse. Tosafot says that cannot be. Only a prohibition of intercourse that was born as a result of the act of betrothal will not work. Why won’t it work? Because that is not an act of betrothal. An act of betrothal such that this very act itself created a prohibition against relations with the woman I betrothed—it simply cuts off the branch on which it itself is sitting. After all, the purpose of betrothal is to permit her to me. And if the act of betrothal does the opposite, forbidding the woman to me, then that is not an act of betrothal. Exactly like with divorce, only the reverse. With divorce, it is called a divorce if it severs between me and the woman, but if the divorce does something else, leaving the woman tied to me, then it is not called a divorce. A divorce is supposed to sever. Likewise, betrothal is supposed to connect. And if the betrothal is not merely something that ultimately cannot be consummated—that is not why it is not called betrothal—rather, if the act of betrothal itself creates a problem in the connection, then that is not an act of betrothal. Where?

[Speaker B] How can it be that the act of betrothal creates… wait, I’ll explain.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m just saying this is the principle Tosafot is stating; in a moment I’ll explain. This is the principle Tosafot is stating. Tosafot is really claiming that the problem is not with the situation that the betrothal cannot be consummated. The problem is that an act of betrothal of this kind is simply an act that is not an act of betrothal. The act of betrothal itself is not an act of betrothal. His problem is not with the result of what happened. His problem is that an act that produces results opposite to the nature it is supposed to have—an act that is supposed to connect husband and wife, but itself creates the rupture between husband and wife—is not an act of betrothal. Just as a divorce that does not create a separation between husband and wife is not an act of divorce. Okay? It is the same idea. Where does this happen? Let’s go back to the example we saw in the passage.

[Speaker D] Two together.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Before two together, let’s start with one. What happens when I betroth one out of two sisters? I give a perutah to the father and say to him, “One of your two daughters is betrothed to me.” Okay? In such a case, the act of betrothal itself created the prohibition. This is not like the prohibition of a divorced woman to a priest. Because there, why indeed am I forbidden to have relations—say there are Rachel and Leah—why am I forbidden to have relations with Leah? Because of the act of betrothal I did to Rachel. Meaning, the act of betrothal itself created a prohibition. Why am I forbidden to have relations with Rachel? Because the act of betrothal may have taken effect on Leah, in which case Rachel is Leah’s sister. Okay? And therefore what comes out here is that this very act of betrothal itself is responsible for the fact that I cannot have relations with either woman. So the act of betrothal here brought about, instead of a connection between me and the woman, a rupture.

[Speaker B] But that can only happen when you do an act affecting two sides.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, two sides? One of two…

[Speaker B] One of the two, yes, but you are doing an act of doubt. You have doubt here about… it is on both of them. If it were only on one, that could never happen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. You are one hundred percent right. Maybe I should sharpen that, because it will be important later. Suppose I do… suppose there are two sisters and I betroth one of them. Just one, one of them. Instead of connecting a woman to me, it disconnects some woman from me.

[Speaker B] No, it disconnects another woman. Yes. So what’s the problem?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, therefore there is no problem. No problem. When I betroth a particular woman, betrothals not fit for intercourse means that the woman whom I betrothed—the act of betrothal disconnected her from me. If it disconnects other women, what’s the problem? Every act of betrothal disconnects other women from me. Whenever I betroth a woman, her relatives become forbidden to me. So what’s the problem? Every act of betrothal forbids other women to me. That is no disturbance at all. Clearly what Tosafot is saying here is that betrothals not fit for intercourse refers to a case where the act of betrothal done to a particular woman forbids that very woman to me, instead of the betrothal being supposed to permit her to me.

[Speaker G] Meaning, it forbids her to me. It forbids her because of the betrothal of the other one, when I don’t know whom he betrothed, so to speak. But the act with respect to her—toward her—that’s not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a moment we’ll see, in a moment we’ll see, I’m getting to that right away. What happens if I betrothed two women, like the case in the Mishnah? What’s interesting, by the way, is whether to betroth them with one perutah or with two perutot.

[Speaker G] “Your two daughters are betrothed to me.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He can give one perutah and betroth them. There is a dispute among the medieval authorities about this. It may be that even one perutah is enough, because it is one act of betrothal, just betrothing two women. The question is whether you need a perutah for each woman or a perutah for each act.

[Speaker B] But here the act of betrothal I did to A is not what forbade me to her; rather the act of betrothal I did to B.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When I betroth two women,

[Speaker B] true, it is one act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] when I betroth two women, when I betroth two women, then basically I betrothed Rachel and I betrothed Leah. What forbade Leah to me was the act of betrothal I did to Rachel. And with that there is no problem. What forbade Rachel to me was the act of betrothal I did to Leah, and with that too there is no problem. Therefore this is not betrothal not fit for intercourse. That is what I told you earlier: betrothing two women together, simply speaking, is not betrothal not fit for intercourse. The problem is that at first the Talmud says that according to Rava it is betrothal not fit for intercourse, but there are contradictions in the Talmud about this and I’m not getting into that right now.

[Speaker B] So then how can it be? How?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In one of the two. In one of the two, that is betrothal not fit for intercourse.

[Speaker B] I betroth one of the two and don’t know which. I don’t specify which. Why is that… why is that betrothal not fit for intercourse?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because that very act of betrothal itself that I did to her also forbade her to me. Because it is one act of betrothal, and I did not betroth two women; I betrothed one woman.

[Speaker B] No, that’s not the betrothal I did to her. No? Yes! No, if I did it to her then it did not forbid her. If I did it to her, then…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I performed one act of betrothal, and I performed it upon a certain woman.

[Speaker B] But also when I perform one act of betrothal on two?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not the same thing. Here it’s not an act on two; here it is an act on one woman. Not only is it one act, but this woman—after all, if you want to tell me that Rachel is my woman, then in effect the act was done to her. But as a result of this act Rachel is forbidden to me. So it comes out that the act done to her forbids her to me. And therefore this is the classic case of betrothal not fit for intercourse. With two women there is room to debate, but simply speaking that is not betrothal not fit for intercourse. With one woman it is. The Rashba also says the same thing; Rashba and Tosafot are the same approach. That is basically the claim: when an act does this… the act of betrothal itself creates the prohibition, then that is not an act of betrothal. Therefore betrothals not fit for intercourse are not valid betrothals. They are not betrothals simply because the act is not an act of betrothal. This is not a problem of forbidden relations. It is not like the fact that betrothal does not take effect in forbidden relations. Betrothal not taking effect in forbidden relations has nothing at all to do with betrothals not fit for intercourse. There there is simply a prohibition, that’s all; betrothal does not take effect. Okay? Here the problem is that the act of betrothal is simply not an act of betrothal. It is as though I betroth a woman with half a perutah.

[Speaker D] The woman would not be betrothed not because there is some problematic result here, but because I did not perform an act of betrothal. Here too, an act of betrothal that creates a prohibition is not an act of betrothal. Therefore the woman is not betrothed to him; it is not a problem of forbidden relations or things of that sort. Okay? Theoretically, after he made the betrothals, let’s say according to Abaye that the betrothals take effect, now he has to divorce them. But can he remarry one, betroth one again—taking back his divorced wife. One?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he can’t. Why can’t he? Because she is his wife’s sister.

[Speaker D] Not his wife—he divorced! He divorced both of them!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A wife’s sister is forbidden even after divorce. Only after death is she permitted. Fine. Okay. Yes. So now someone asked earlier—I no longer remember who—what happens with the laws of doubt? Because ostensibly when I betroth one of two sisters, or one of two women, doesn’t matter, and I don’t specify which one. Okay? So now either this one is betrothed or that one is betrothed. I didn’t specify who. So therefore this one is forbidden to me because maybe she is betrothed and the other is my wife’s sister. This one is forbidden to me because maybe she is betrothed, in which case this one is my wife’s sister. Okay? So in effect both are betrothed to me. But if I understand this as a doubt, then Shmuel was right in his earlier question. If this is a doubt, then really it is not true that the act of betrothal I did to Rachel forbade… what forbade Rachel to me was the doubt that maybe the act was done to Leah. So not the act of betrothal to Rachel. So why is this called betrothal not fit for intercourse? It is like two women, like someone who betrothed two women. Now another question. According to Maimonides, where a Torah-level doubt is treated leniently on the Torah level and only rabbinically one must be stringent—so why is this betrothal not… betrothal not fit for intercourse is a Torah-level law; we learn it from a verse. Now why is this not fit for intercourse? A Torah-level doubt is treated leniently, so on the Torah level I may have relations with her if she is a doubtful… doubtful sister of my wife. So what is the problem? Why according to Maimonides is this called betrothal not fit for intercourse? Meaning, in practice we rule like Abaye that the betrothal takes effect, but it is still defined as betrothal not fit for intercourse. The question is why that is so according to Maimonides. So here, look in front of you: doubt, a doubt that was not clarified.

[Speaker F] What? Even the Holy One, blessed be He—what happened here, even He couldn’t say.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s actually right, correct? And what in the yeshivot they call a definite doubt and not a doubtful certainty. You should look at Rabbi Shimon Shkop—he writes this in Shaarei Yosher: “And it further appears to me in my humble opinion that in one who betrothed one of five women, and likewise in the case of the exchange of a dog that takes effect on one of the lambs, and likewise one who consecrated a perutah inside his purse”—because if someone consecrates one of the coins he has in his purse without defining which coin, there is a deep inquiry here as to in what manner there is a matter of the legal effect taking hold on one of them. Meaning, what does it mean that the law takes effect on one of the coins, or one of the women, or something like that? “For behold, in one who betroths one woman out of five women, where neither the man betrothing nor the woman being betrothed clarified which of them would be the specific one designated for betrothal, how can one say that in the true reality a particular woman was singled out for betrothal? For what reason or cause would Heaven single out one specific woman so that she be the one betrothed and designated more than the other women? Rather it appears that it is more reasonable to say that in every such case”—in all these situations—“also in the true reality no specific woman was singled out for betrothal. And in such a case it does not make sense to say: if Elijah should come.” He is alluding to the Talmud in Yevamot, “if Elijah should come,” where Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish discuss a woman who turns out to be incapable of childbearing and the problem with levirate marriage. Never mind. But he says, if Elijah were to come and tell me, “This woman is the one betrothed,” then he would solve the problem for me, right? I am in doubt whether Rachel was betrothed or Leah was betrothed. Elijah will come and tell me: Rachel, Rachel was betrothed. He says that cannot be. Here Elijah cannot come. Because in this case… let’s put it more sharply.

[Speaker B] Here it’s not that I don’t know—reality is not known to me. I don’t know… there is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ordinary laws of doubt are a situation in which I lack information. And the Holy One, blessed be He, knows everything. I lack information. For example, I sent an agent to betroth a woman for me and the agent died. So I am forbidden to all the women in the world, lest they be my wife’s sisters or my wife’s daughters or relatives of my wife, right? But clearly, if Elijah were to come and tell me whom the agent betrothed—assuming I can rely on Elijah, yes?—then no problem, everything is fine. Then I discover who my wife is and all the others are permitted to me. Right? Why? Because in true reality there is one specific woman who is betrothed to me. I just don’t know who. That’s all. But in the case where he betroths one of two women without specifying at all—not that there is a specific one and he forgot or doesn’t know; there simply is no defined one at all—if I ask the Holy One, blessed be He, or Elijah the prophet: please do me a favor and reveal to me which of the two is my wife—even he could not tell me. Because neither of the two is my wife. There is no one special woman here who is the betrothed one as opposed to the other. This is a different kind of doubt, a very sharp kind of doubt. Most doubts in Jewish law, almost all doubts in Jewish law, are doubts of lack of knowledge. The information exists, the Holy One, blessed be He, knows it, I as a human being just lack information. I don’t know whether this is… whether this is kosher meat or non-kosher meat, whether it is forbidden fat or ordinary fat, all kinds of things like that. There the Holy One, blessed be He, knows whether it is forbidden fat or ordinary fat. There is one truth in reality, I just don’t know it. That is a gap in information. But this doubt, says Rabbi Shimon Shkop in our passage in Kiddushin about betrothals not fit for intercourse, or in the case of one who consecrates one perutah in his purse, is a different kind of doubt. Here there is ambiguity in reality itself, not in my knowledge of reality. Reality itself is undefined. In an ordinary doubt, reality is well-defined; I just don’t know all the information about reality. That’s all. So Rabbi Shimon says: if so, here the doubt really is a different kind of doubt. “And in such a case it does not make sense to say: if Elijah should come. And that which we say that each one is forbidden because of doubt is not like other doubts in the world, where the law of doubt means perhaps this is the one that is certainly the reality.” And this is what is called a doubtful certainty, yes? The ordinary doubt is doubt about who is the certainty in reality. There is one who is definitely the one. I am in doubt who that certainty is—whether it is this one or that one. That is called doubtful certainty. This case is called definite doubt. Meaning, I definitely know that the situation is doubtful; it is not that there is some truth that I don’t know. In yeshiva slang they call this definite doubt and not doubtful certainty.

[Speaker B] Meaning that even before Heaven it is not revealed that one is definitely forbidden and the others definitely permitted.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And here the matter is that the whole legal effect exists because of a cause that brings it about. And the cause of the legal effect of betrothal is the act of betrothal, the giving of the money and the statement. And since he gave the money and said, “One of these five women shall be betrothed to me,” by which it is fitting that one of them should come under the law of a married woman, because of this each one is forbidden by virtue of the act, and not because we are in doubt about her that she is the betrothed one more than the other four women remaining. Rather, since the act was done equally upon all of them, the act causes the application of betrothal to all of them. But these are betrothals that are not full betrothals, because he betrothed only one woman. Yet since I did not define which woman, and they all stand equally, there are in effect five possibilities as to who the betrothed one is—but not that one of them is true and I just don’t know which. There are five possibilities, all equally true. This is postmodernism in its purest form. So there are five different truths here, not that there is one truth that is really the truth and I just don’t know it, but there are five truths here. “And likewise in every case of this sort,” like the doubt of a firstborn.

[Speaker B] Here there are five truths of doubt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “For we maintain that each one of them is a doubtful firstborn because only one is fit to receive the status of firstborn. In every such case the law of doubt is not perhaps this is the certain one. And in such a case there is no certainty even in true reality. Rather, for practical conduct we must treat each one according to the law of doubt, because of the cause that generates the law that one of them should be the one, and it is not clarified who the one is, and all of them are fit to be the one. Therefore the law in this is like the law of doubt.” He says: our practical conduct is like the law of doubts, but in truth there is no doubt here. There is no doubt; I am missing no information. I know everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows. He knows nothing more than I do, the Holy One, blessed be He. All of reality is open before me. There is no detail in reality hidden from my eyes in this case. Therefore it is not that there is some doubt as to who the certainty is; rather, we behave according to the laws of doubt because reality dictates this to us. “Therefore the law in this is like the law of doubt. For even before Heaven it is not revealed that one is definitely prohibited and the others definitely permitted. For in true reality too they are all equal, and there is no difference between one and another. And according to this, in such a case it does not make sense to say that there is nullification by majority.” He says: why shouldn’t there be nullification by majority among the coins, for example? That’s a practical consequence. A coin, simply speaking, is nullified by Torah law, yes; rabbinically no. So I have five coins in my purse, and I consecrate one of them without defining which. Let it be nullified by the majority. There are four coins that are not consecrated and one that is. Let it be nullified by the majority. He says: there is no nullification in such a case. Why? What do you need for nullification? For nullification you need there to be two kinds of things in reality itself, except that I don’t know which is the prohibition and which are the permitted ones. In that case, the majority of the permitted overcomes the minority of the prohibited and nullifies it, stripping it of its status. But in order for there to be nullification, there must be some clash between two opposite realities, and then the stronger reality overcomes and negates—with an aleph—the opposing reality. But here all the women are in exactly the same condition. There are not two kinds of women here with a majority and a minority. There is no majority and no minority. Every single woman is betrothed in some weak sense. I don’t know how to put it, something like that. But they are all in the same condition. There is no majority and minority here, so how do you want nullification to apply? Nullification is a clash between two things, one of which overcomes the other. But here there is no clash between anything and anything. All the women are in the same standing, or all the coins. Therefore nullification has no place in such a situation. And that is what he says: “Where the minority differs from the majority, the Torah said, ‘Follow the majority.’ But in such a case, where they are all equal even in true reality, there is here no minority and majority, for they all become forbidden because of the cause that generates that one is fit to be forbidden and it is not clarified who the one is. Which of them will you take out and which of them will you bring in?” Which one will you forbid? “And this requires further study from Yevamot 41 in the case of one who may have betrothed one of two sisters.” That is already another discussion. So he is making a very fundamental distinction here, and this brings us really to the point relevant to us. He is making a very fundamental distinction between subjective doubt and objective doubt. There is subjective doubt—that is our ordinary doubts. In reality itself, reality is completely clear. The Holy One, blessed be He, knows everything. I as a human being lack information, I do not know all the information. And therefore the doubt is subjective: I subjectively do not know, but in reality itself everything is clear. Here there is a situation where reality itself is not clear. This is objective doubt, not subjective doubt. And it has implications—for example, there will be no nullification by majority in such a situation.

[Speaker E] Why do you call it subjective and objective and not doubt in the person and doubt in the object?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is the same idea. Subject is the person.

[Speaker E] Yes, but saying something is subjective sounds more like saying it is something…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Objective means I don’t know.

[Speaker E] No, I mean something like “I like chocolate” is subjective.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, exactly—in the previous two lectures I spoke about two meanings of the term subjective. There is subjective in the sense that it really is just a matter of taste; there is no truth or falsehood here. And there is subjective in the sense that there is truth here, only it is inaccessible to me. That is subjective—for example, like the mental processes inside us, what we were talking about. This is exactly the second meaning of the term subjective. Okay? It is the more interesting meaning, because where there is no truth, who cares—there is nothing to discuss. I want to show that there are discussions about truth even though it is defined as subjective truth. Now where else, what other implications are there to the difference between these two kinds of doubts? One of them is that there is no nullification by majority; that we said. I asked earlier: according to Maimonides, where a Torah-level doubt is treated leniently, why not be lenient here? Why is this betrothal not fit for intercourse? Now it is clear why not. Here they would certainly be stringent even according to Maimonides on the Torah level, because this is not a doubt. With each woman you encounter, she really is your wife’s sister. Both are your wife’s sister—just a weak sister of your weak wife. And the woman is like a weak wife. But both are truly weak wives; it is not that one is a wife and one is not. Both are in the same condition. Only the condition is that only one of the two is betrothed, meaning these are weak betrothals. So each one of them is a weak sister of my wife. This is definite doubt, not doubtful certainty. And in such a situation Maimonides too agrees that one must be stringent, because this is certainly your wife’s sister, only certainly the weak sister of your wife. Maimonides says one may be lenient where it is not certain that you are committing a prohibition. Here it is certain that you are committing a prohibition, only it is a weak prohibition—so what? You are certainly committing a prohibition. If you are certainly committing a prohibition, you have to be stringent. Therefore it does not make sense here at all to ask: according to Maimonides, after all a Torah-level doubt is treated leniently. And another question, what Shmuel asked earlier, which I also raised—that too is resolved in the same way. Shmuel asked: what is the difference between betrothing two women, where this does not belong to betrothals not fit for intercourse, and betrothing one of two women, one of two sisters? Because with one of two sisters, to say if I betrothed this one then she is my wife’s sister, if I betrothed that one then this one is my wife’s sister. Now it is clear what happens if I betrothed both. If I betrothed both with weak betrothals—if I betroth two sisters, both of them for real—then these are not weak betrothals, they are full betrothals. Each one is completely my wife’s sister, and then this really is not betrothal not fit for intercourse, because the prohibition on her stems from her own betrothal. But here there is only one act of betrothal on one woman. So why are both betrothed? Because half of each of them is betrothed, or there are weak betrothals in each of the two. So it comes out that the act of betrothal I did to her is what forbids her. It is not like the ordinary case of doubt. If this were an ordinary case of doubt, the question would be a good question. But since here it is a case of definite doubt and not doubtful certainty, then in a case of definite doubt the act of betrothal I performed is what forbade the woman to me. Therefore this is… therefore this is betrothal not fit for intercourse.

[Speaker E] There is a case of an eruv where a sage came to town and they say he will come… I’ll get to that. I’ll talk about it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Retroactive clarification, conditions—it all connects. I’ll just finish with one remark; there is no point in expanding too much on this. Really, this is what distinguishes, in physics, quantum theory from other areas of physics. In quantum theory, the case they always use to illustrate the basic idea of quantum theory in the basic sense of the uncertainty principle is the two-slit experiment. In short, you have a barrier with two slits and you send electrons. Usually we understand an electron as a kind of little ball, so either it

[Speaker B] goes through here or goes through there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Simple. Sometimes it goes here and sometimes it goes there; you send them through. Now if you don’t know which slit it passed through, then you don’t know. But it is still clear that either it passed here or it passed here; you just don’t know, right? But in quantum theory it turns out that it is one electron and it goes through both slits. A beautiful analogy. Not only that, it also interferes with itself. And the phenomenon of interference is as though there are two particles here, even though I sent only one particle. Why? It’s exactly like the two women. One for one. This is exactly quantum theory. It’s not a metaphor; it is this. It’s quantum theory itself. It is exactly the same thing. And the quantum logic that seems so incomprehensible in the physical world is very easy to imagine in the halakhic and legal world. Much more understandable in that context. In the legal context I had no trouble explaining to you why this is a different kind of doubt, right? It is clear, self-evident. It’s logical, right? In quantum theory everyone gets tangled up with this issue: what, how, why is this not connected to ordinary statistics, what is the difference between this and ordinary things we don’t know? This is the explanation.

[Speaker B] Even Einstein did not make peace with this until the end of his life.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Now, in the legal world, that same idea itself is so easy to understand. But it’s exactly the same thing. The ball that passes through the slit is like the betrothal that takes effect on a woman. I send one ball and it passes through both slits. But only part of it passes through each slit. That means it passes faintly through the slit. And therefore it interferes with itself. So here a Torah-level doubt would be treated stringently, because it goes through both slits. It doesn’t go through one of them and I just don’t know which one. If it went through one of them and I just didn’t know which one, one thing I can tell you for sure: there would be no interference pattern. Either you would see it there or you would see it there. But here Maimonides would tell us, what do you mean? There is an interference pattern even though this is one ball, one electron. Because it goes through both slits. So it’s like a doubt, but it’s not a doubt. From now on, for the sake of what follows, instead of calling it a doubt, I’ll call it ambiguity in reality, okay?

[Speaker B] It behaves like a wave and not like a particle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. In other words, doubt is basically a situation where I’m missing information. Ambiguity in reality means that reality itself is not unequivocal. There is something not well-defined in reality itself. Now, in physics, this exists only in quantum theory. For example, there are situations that people often get confused about, so people think that chaos is also of this type. Chaos is something that depends very sensitively on the initial conditions.

[Speaker B] Chaos is something you simply don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, it’s hard to calculate.

[Speaker B] Not that you don’t know; it’s hard to calculate.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s very hard to calculate, and therefore you basically can’t know what the outcome will be. But in principle, the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what the outcome will be. Meaning, someone who could calculate with perfect precision and find everything would know what the outcome will be. There is a correct outcome. You just can’t predict it. Deterministic as opposed to quantum. Exactly. Therefore everything except quantum theory is deterministic, including chaos. That’s why many people try to pin things on chaos. There’s a book by Gleick called Chaos, a book that was also translated into Hebrew, and there he brings that the Santa Barbara group, I think, they were the ones who came up with chaos, and one of them says there that maybe through this one can understand free will. That a person’s choice—you can see that you can’t predict in advance what will happen even though the process is deterministic. That is, of course, a misunderstanding. Because that’s not free choice; it’s simply that I don’t know the deterministic process the person is going through. Free choice means that the person really is not dictated in what he will do, not that I don’t know what he will do. And if I don’t know, so what? The fact that a person’s decision-making process is very complex, of course I can’t calculate in advance what he will do. That doesn’t mean he has free will. Free will means that either of the two outcomes can truly emerge, not that I just don’t know. Okay? All these things are going in the same direction. There is a difference between doubt and ambiguity. Doubt is a statement about me: I don’t know, I’m missing information. Ambiguity in reality means that reality itself is an undefined reality. I have all the information; I’m not missing a single piece of information. What the Holy One, blessed be He, knows about reality, I also know—there is no difference. In quantum theory, for example, even the Holy One, blessed be He, does not know through which slit the ball passed, the electron passed, because there is no such slit—not because He doesn’t know, not because He lacks information; there is no such slit. It passed through both. It passed faintly through both. Okay, so from here on let’s call it doubt versus ambiguity, and I’ll continue with this point.