Means and Ends – Lesson 6

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But what actually lies behind this? The assumption is this: that the person himself—say, this prince—why did he suddenly become a turkey? He became a turkey because he wanted to be free. Meaning, he didn’t have the strength, he didn’t have the strength to conduct himself according to the rules of human beings. So what did he do? He built himself a theory that he’s a turkey. A turkey—who says only those are turkeys? I can also be a turkey. Today this is even more common—there are lots of people like that today. They can tell you, I’m a man, I’m a woman, I’m a turkey—everyone decides for himself what he is, it doesn’t matter. So he says, yes, me too, I’m a turkey, and everything is fine. And then he builds for himself some theory that allows him to behave in the way he really wants to behave. It begins with impulse. What he really wants is to throw off the burden of all the oppressive rules of human society. So what does he do? Just openly breaking the rules is uncomfortable for him; he can’t do it, it’s hard for him, for all kinds of reasons. So what does he do? He builds a theory. That theory of course convinces no one except himself. But he builds himself a theory that he’s a turkey. And now that gives him some kind of internal justification to behave the way he wants to behave. Deep down he understands that this is a fictitious theory, an imaginary theory. But slowly, through a complex psychological process, a person can convince himself of the theory he developed. I think many of us know this phenomenon. Meaning, you want to do something, you construct some—you want it because of impulse—and you build some theory that this thing, who says it’s bad? It’s actually good. On the contrary, this is how it should be done. And little by little you dig yourself into that theory, until in the end you’re arguing, with such deep inner conviction, against your whole environment—that what are you talking about? This is the pure truth; anyone who says otherwise is simply mistaken. And at that stage you basically become mentally ill. You become mentally ill. But when you become mentally ill, that doesn’t mean that within you there isn’t still some point that knows the truth. It’s just that by then it’s inside, wrapped in many layers, and in your consciousness, in your ongoing functioning, it’s no longer accessible to you, it’s no longer in your hands. And then you need help. That’s why you need help. And there has to be someone to help you find something that already exists, not implant something new inside you. That wouldn’t be healing; that would be re-creation. Re-creation—fine, you can take the person, finish him off, and create him again. Fine, that’s possible. But healing doesn’t do that. Healing takes some point that exists within the person and tries to bring it out. And then what happens—what did this fellow, this doctor of the prince, do? He takes him, behavioristically, and gets him to act like a human being. Externally, okay? Sit on a chair, wear clothes, eat with a knife and fork, speak like human beings, return to human functioning. Once he goes along with him on his own terms and brings him back to normal conduct, then there’s no reason left to keep the theory. After all, the whole reason the theory was created was to let you avoid doing all those things, to avoid acting like a person. That’s why you built the whole theory. Now if I take you on your own terms and corner you—fine, you’re a turkey, but it bothers your father, so what do you care if you sit at the table with clothes and all that? You have no answer to that, right? A turkey is allowed to sit at a table wearing clothes. And then you have no choice, you give in, you put on clothes. At some stage you suddenly find yourself behaving like a regular, normal person. Once you find yourself there, then what’s the theory for? The theory… and the theory was created to enable behavior. The moment you don’t let the person have the behavior, the theory will evaporate. And therefore I think the first question—or the second question I asked a moment ago at the beginning of the story, that he wasn’t sick at all—that’s not true; he was sick. It’s just true that inside he knew he was a human being and not a turkey. That came out when it wasn’t touching him personally, when it was about someone else. When it concerned him, then he was captive, because after all he wanted it—he built and adopted that theory in order to allow himself to behave as he wanted. And indeed, if he still knew—say that within him the correct understanding was there—then what we have is an illness that can be treated. How do you treat it? “Hearts follow actions.” Meaning—what does that mean? Bring him back to acting like a person, and all the theories will dissolve on their own, because all these theories we build for ourselves are meant to enable behavior. Once you don’t allow the behavior, the theory dissolves. And if I return to recalcitrant husbands refusing to give a bill of divorce, then our recalcitrant husband is exactly the same thing. I think what Maimonides says—that we coerce him until he says “I want to”—is the plain straightforward meaning. It’s not mysticism and nothing of the sort; it’s completely simple. The point is that a husband who refuses to give a bill of divorce, in the eyes of the Sages—I’m not talking right now about today’s refusers, because nowadays there are all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds. But think about a person who has observed Torah and commandments, minor and major alike, all his life, okay? Faithful to Jewish law, it matters to him, everything normal. Except for one thing. His wife got on his nerves and he’ll never give her a bill of divorce. He won’t give her a bill of divorce, even though a religious court ruled that he is obligated to give one. We’re talking about a case where Jewish law requires him to give a bill of divorce; otherwise we don’t coerce. Why does he do it? After all, he’s committed to Torah and commandments—why does he do it? So he builds himself a theory: what are you talking about, the religious court doesn’t understand anything, it doesn’t grasp the depth of the matter, she needs to suffer, the Holy One, blessed be He, is with me, what I’m doing is the right thing. And he digs himself into that theory because of this anger. Right now he’s angry at his spouse, at his wife, and his impulse says: I’m not letting her go, I want to screw her to the core. But then they tell him: look, that’s forbidden by Jewish law—and we’re talking about someone for whom Jewish law does matter, okay? So he builds himself some theory. And the theory says: what are you talking about, you don’t understand at all, here there’s even the slightest issue, there’s really no grounds to divorce her, I’m going to make her suffer, that’s obvious, you don’t know, the truth is with me, the Holy One, blessed be He, also thinks so. You build a theory. Now you become so convinced by this theory that no one can persuade you otherwise. What does Jewish law say? We’ll beat you until your soul departs—or until you say, “I want to.” Then you say, fine, but even if I say “I want to,” it’ll only be lip service, it’s a coerced bill of divorce, she won’t be divorced. I say: not true. She’ll be divorced, and I’ll marry her off. I’ll marry her off and I’ll validate her children too. Even though that has no justification, because a coerced bill of divorce is invalid. Okay? You won’t have any choice. I’ll beat you, you’ll give her a bill of divorce, you’ll shout the whole time “I want to, I want to,” you’ll wink and say, but it’s only because they’re beating me—and I won’t notice. Deliberately, intentionally, yes, against Jewish law, and I’m telling you I won’t notice. But if that’s so, then you already know that your stubbornness won’t achieve the result. Right? The woman will get married, I’ll marry her off, she’ll have children and they won’t be mamzerim, I’ll validate them, everything will be fine. I’m with you all the way, okay? In the end you’ll give her the bill of divorce willingly. After all, the whole theory you built, you built because your impulse caused you to build a theory that would justify your conduct. But it’s only a fictitious theory, a result of impulse. Deep down, you’re a person committed to Torah and commandments, and you know that if halakhically you must divorce your wife, then it is right to give her a bill of divorce, no matter what your attitude toward her is. But you build a theory that says no, because of the mutual anger, because of the anger toward your spouse. So if we don’t allow the consequences to happen—the practical consequences for the sake of which you built the theory—exactly like the prince with the turkey, right?—then in the end the assumption is that the theory too will dissolve. And then ultimately, once you do it and see that you’re no longer going to achieve what you wanted to achieve, then why build the theory that this is really right? The religious court tells you it isn’t right, that Jewish law requires you to divorce—not because you’re guilty, not because she’s guilty, but because in such a situation it is not right for the home to continue. That’s all. Uninvolved people are telling you that. So that is the Jewish law. Right now you’re unwilling to listen because you’re dug into your theory. But if, without your listening, we make sure that you do not achieve the outcomes for which you built the theory, then the theory too will dissolve. And therefore one implication, for example, is that if we’re dealing with a person who is not committed to Torah and commandments, you can’t coerce him.

[Speaker C] Why not? Can’t you imagine a case where someone divorced his wife and still says it isn’t right—that is, they coerced him into the bill of divorce and he said “I want to,” and they beat him until he said it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: there may be such cases, but first of all, what is the mechanism Maimonides is talking about? There may be other cases like the one I’m describing, where it’s a result of a fictitious theory.

[Speaker C] But I think statistically most cases will be that after he takes the beating—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —and says “I want to,” I’m not sure you’re right. Meaning, it may be that during the beating he’s obviously angry at them too, but after she’s already been released and remarried and he’s gone his own way, in the end he understands that he did the right thing. Because that’s what Jewish law says. Forget that she annoyed you. Once she no longer annoys you anymore, it’s over, you’ve separated, she hasn’t done anything to you—ultimately, when you return to cool, cold judgment, you can certainly return to the correct position. I’m not saying that always happens, but I am saying that since such a mechanism can happen, and maybe the estimate is that among people committed to Torah and commandments perhaps even a majority are like this, then I go with that. And I think that’s the logic behind the matter, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the mystical idea that inside everyone there is the will to do… all that—I wouldn’t build even a house of cards on that.

[Speaker C] Another question: Maimonides says this is a coerced bill of divorce, and nevertheless we validate it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, apparently it’s a coerced bill of divorce, but in the end I create a situation in which it won’t be a coerced bill of divorce. I tell him: even if you shout until tomorrow that this is a coerced bill of divorce, I will validate the bill of divorce, I’ll marry her off, and I’ll validate her children. And in the end, once I’ve told him that, I’ve created a situation in which the bill of divorce also won’t be coerced, because he becomes willing to give it—he abandons the theory. And that willingness—

[Speaker B] Is supposed to be before handing over the bill of divorce?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a question of “despair without awareness.” Meaning, the question is when this happens. It may happen afterward, but in the end it reveals what his will was back then. His will at the time was hidden.

[Speaker C] So why get to the stage of beatings? Why not just give the bill of divorce and then he’ll understand on his own?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, first of all because the law says that the person himself has to give the bill of divorce: “and place it in her hand.” Can we do it for him under the rule of acting for someone’s benefit?

[Speaker C] But still, we said there’s a possibility that he still won’t fully intend it at the moment he gives it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That doesn’t matter, but he performed the act.

[Speaker C] And here I’m saying the following thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like in the case of “they hanged him until he sold,” with willingness. But he has to do the act himself—“and place it in her hand.” I can’t give the bill of divorce. There was that ruling about “acting for someone without his knowledge,” not “for someone’s benefit,” from the religious court in Safed under Rabbi Uriel Lavi, where they claimed they gave a bill of divorce to a woman based on acting for the husband’s benefit. The whole discussion of “acting for someone without his knowledge” and not “for someone’s benefit” is a highly dubious business. I’m not talking about that; that’s a different discussion. I’m talking about a case where he himself gives the bill of divorce because he is mentally competent. It’s not like their case, where he wasn’t mentally competent; he was in a vegetative state. I’m speaking about a case where he himself gives the bill of divorce, only apparently what is lacking is willingness. The indication—meaning, what happens in the end, and here I connect to what I said earlier—what happens in the end is an indication of what was already there at the beginning. It was just inside at first, while outside what ruled was the fictitious theory he had built. But it was already there then. And the indication that appears in the future is only an indication that it was already inside him then.

[Speaker B] Even though right now he’s not really willing, since—

[Speaker C] —he did the act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in his conscious awareness he is not willing, but deep down he is willing, and the indication of that is that in the future he too will say so.

[Speaker C] Why not use here the logic of “they hanged him until he sold”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? Who says it isn’t the same logic there too? “They hanged him until he sold”—ah, that because he doesn’t want to absorb the beating, that’s the willingness? Fine, okay, but “they hanged him until he sold,” you know—that’s an English-English dictionary. Meaning, explaining one thing I don’t understand by means of another thing I don’t understand. “They hanged him until he sold” is itself a problematic rule. So I think there too there has to be some willingness that isn’t connected to the beating. Because in the end, after all, he is receiving payment; in exchange for payment he is willing to sell. There is something holding it back, and the beating solves that. Do you understand? I don’t think you can talk about willingness as simply the result of beating, pure and simple. Even in “they hanged him until he sold,” I have difficulty accepting that reasoning.

[Speaker C] So there’s something subconscious here, as it were? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it really is what the person wants. Look, when a person has some kind of fit of rage—when a person has some kind of fit of rage, okay—you can understand someone saying: look, that’s not really what he wants; right now too, that’s not really what he wants. You’ll discover that when he calms down, but already now that’s not his true will. That’s basically the claim here. The person—yes, exactly—the person very often regrets things he did. That’s basically the claim. And therefore here too there is a very interesting interplay between means and ends, between means and ends. The claim that… or let me just complete the discussion. What I’m saying is that the implication is, for example, that a person—say today—a person comes before a religious court and everybody shouts, why doesn’t the religious court coerce, why doesn’t the religious court coerce? There is very strong criticism of the rabbinical courts for not coercing—yes, really coercing with harsher measures. They are very reluctant to coerce. There are various explanations for that, not important right now, and many times they aren’t right either, not important, there is criticism of them too. But one needs to know that if the person is not someone who observes Torah and commandments, coercion has no meaning. Meaning, it won’t help; even after the coercion it will still be a coerced bill of divorce. So in that they are completely right not to coerce. By the way, afterward I saw that there are later authorities who write this—I think Maharik writes it—there are several later authorities who write that someone who is not committed to Torah and commandments cannot be coerced regarding a bill of divorce. Because of this explanation. And therefore this is not some mystical idea that inside every Jew there is some desire to serve God or something like that. It is an entirely psychological matter, not mystical. Meaning, if the person wants to serve God, then he wants to; and if not, then not. We don’t decide about a person who isn’t such a person that he is such a person. Rather, if our assessment really is that he is such a person, then the claim is that “the yeast in the dough” is holding him back, fine, and that we can somehow deal with. But that is only when, deep down, it is clear to us that this is really what he wants. So yes, it’s the same idea as with dividing the cake, right? You basically use the behavioral mode in order to drag the psychological attitude behind it. You tell him: you will give the bill of divorce even if you don’t agree, even if you are not willing—we will bring you to the correct behavior, and after you behave correctly, that will draw along with it the psychological willingness. More generally, in giving a bill of divorce there is room to discuss whether this is really like acquisition acts in general—whether the required act is there in order to create the mental resolution, what is called full intention, or whether these are two conditions: you need the act and it needs to be accompanied by full intention. You can analyze this in giving a bill of divorce too, not only in acquisition acts. Therefore you can also carry the analogy all the way and actually say that the act required here—his giving the bill of divorce—its function is only to create the full intention. In the end the goal is the full intention, not that full intention is a means so that in the end there will be a divorce here; rather, in the end the whole divorce process is done so that the person truly resolves in his mind and this really dismantles the home. Because the home needs to be truly dismantled; it needs to be clear that the person no longer wants to live with his wife. Incidentally, that has all sorts of implications; I once wrote about this too. Maybe we discussed it, I no longer remember.

[Speaker C] For the model of this bill of divorce to work, do we need the certainty to be here?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, like in acquisitions. The whole famous analysis in acquisitions—whether the act is required for the sake of full intention, or whether there is an independent requirement for the act together with full intention. In the simple understanding of most halakhic decisors, the act is required for full intention. In divorce I haven’t seen anyone say this, but it seems to me that there too one could say the same idea. By the way, I once wrote about this issue too; there are a few indications of it. For example, Sefer HaChinukh writes regarding the commandment of divorce—he writes that it is a commandment to divorce one’s wife with a bill of divorce, and in the end he concludes that one who violated this and divorced his wife improperly, or something like that—I don’t remember the exact wording—has nullified this positive commandment and his punishment is great. What does “nullified” mean? If he didn’t divorce her properly, then she isn’t divorced, so what does it mean that he nullified this positive commandment and his punishment is great? What positive commandment is there here? This is procedure. Now, there are procedural commandments in the Torah, yes—there is Maimonides in positive commandments 194 and 196. Maimonides writes there about annulment of vows and about impurity, the commandment of impurity. So Maimonides says—and here I will explain at length in the Book of Commandments—here I explain to you broadly, and know that this is how it is in this whole category of commandments: this commandment does not require you to do anything and does not forbid you from doing anything; it is a definition. This is a definitional commandment. One who touches a corpse is impure, okay? That is a definitional question. He did not commit a transgression, he did not fulfill a commandment, he did nothing—it is only a status definition. But according to Maimonides it is counted among the positive commandments. And likewise annulment of vows: if you want to annul vows, annul vows in such-and-such a way; if you didn’t annul them, then the vow is not annulled. There is no commandment to annul and no prohibition to annul. Meaning, it doesn’t impose an obligation or a prohibition on you; it’s a definition. And apparently in divorce too I would have expected the same thing—it’s only the way a home is dismantled, but there is no commandment to do it and no prohibition if you don’t do it. But Sefer HaChinukh writes that one who did not do it properly has nullified a positive commandment and his punishment is great. What does “nullified a positive commandment” mean? What is that? A similar question, now that I think of it, is raised by Birkat Shmuel. Birkat Shmuel in one of the first sections in tractate Gittin. What?

[Speaker C] To say that the procedural principles themselves are like…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are you objecting to? If I didn’t divorce my wife at all, then did I also nullify the positive commandment? So what’s the difference? So I gave her an invalid bill of divorce. No, the Rabbi isn’t saying that those are procedural commandments; he says other things are procedural commandments. He’s only saying that apparently I would have expected this here too.

[Speaker C] Wait a second. Before Sefer HaChinukh it’s obvious that this is a procedural commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s how I understood it too. But Sefer HaChinukh writes that this is nullifying a positive commandment—that’s what I’m asking.

[Speaker C] Fine, before Sefer HaChinukh.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Before Sefer HaChinukh it looks completely like a procedural commandment. Clear?

[Speaker C] Now the question is what Sefer HaChinukh means. So I’m trying to say that maybe Sefer HaChinukh means, look, beyond the fact that it’s a procedural commandment, if you come and start corrupting the line in this whole framework, then that itself is the nullification of the positive commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which positive commandment did I nullify? Can you tell me? Sefer HaChinukh himself explains why the punishment is great. The punishment is great because he leaves the woman chained and unable to remarry. But those are consequences; I’m asking what the nullification of the positive commandment is in this, not what its secondary consequences are.

[Speaker C] Okay, but you were supposed to behave like a decent citizen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I behaved like a decent citizen; I didn’t divorce my wife, like every decent citizen. What? You didn’t divorce her—very good. You came and changed something perverse. No, I didn’t divorce her. I gave her a void bill of divorce—what’s the problem? That’s like not giving her a bill of divorce at all; what’s the difference?

[Speaker C] That’s what Sefer HaChinukh is saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sefer HaChinukh says that if I sit at home and don’t divorce her… no, if I give her a void bill of divorce. But what’s perverse about that? What positive commandment is there here? If there’s a positive commandment to give her a bill of divorce, then even by not giving one at all I’ve nullified it.

[Speaker C] He wants to enter here into the whole ex post facto issue, to go beyond the curtain and multiply there rather than choose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you’re explaining to me why it’s bad. I’m asking what the halakhic definition is. Again, I also understand the bad consequences of it.

[Speaker C] But if it’s procedure, then it’s very understandable what’s problematic about this behavior.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no problem. A procedural commandment, by definition, is a commandment you cannot nullify. Therefore this is not a procedural commandment. A procedural commandment cannot be nullified. That’s the whole idea. Can you nullify the commandment of annulment of vows? No. That’s it. A procedural commandment cannot be nullified. If you say there is nullification of a positive commandment here, that means this is not a procedural commandment. Now, what the bad consequences of this are—I can explain those to you too, that’s obvious. I’m asking, in halakhic definition, why is this nullifying a positive commandment, not why you did something perverse or improper here.

[Speaker C] Wait, but if Sefer HaChinukh says this is nullifying a positive commandment—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It implies that as if you divorced, just not properly.

[Speaker C] So I claim that’s exactly what is written there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The claim—the point Maimonides begins with, just as an aside in all this—Maimonides begins at the start of the laws of marriage: before the giving of the Torah, a man would meet a woman in the marketplace and bring her into his house and so on, and then they lived as a married couple. And once the Torah was given, one must first perform betrothal by money, document, or intercourse, and then basically the marriage itself is what existed before the giving of the Torah; it’s just that from the perspective of Jewish law one must precede the marriage with betrothal. My claim is that Maimonides describes the history here because that history is also a halakhic conception. When you betroth a woman, you do two things. You do the legal-acquisitional act, you make the contract between you—not acquisitional in the sense that you own her, but in the sense of creating the legal status, okay? And the second thing is the life together, which also existed before the Torah was given. The Torah only wanted a legal act to precede life together. Okay? That’s what the Torah wanted. And all the prohibitions—for example the prohibition on the woman marrying someone else and so on—that’s of course the legal component, not that other component, and that was introduced after the giving of the Torah.

[Speaker C] And that was also introduced in that a married woman is forbidden to leave her family even before betrothal…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I’m saying: what was introduced after the giving of the Torah is that the same prohibition that existed before the Torah without betrothal, the Torah said no, now it exists because of betrothal. Today, if you live together without betrothal, your wife will not have the prohibition of a married woman. Before the Torah, it was without betrothal. So my claim is that what the Torah said is this: the Torah did not cancel what existed before; it only added something else. Therefore the Torah adds a preliminary stage, which is betrothal. After that it says there is also the building of the home in the normal sense, as a social institution, not a halakhic institution—as a social institution in which you live together as a family. Okay? Now in the stage of building there are two stages, betrothal and marriage; once there were twelve months between them, it was done in two stages. I claim that the dismantling also happens in two stages. Meaning, if a couple decides to dismantle the home, then first of all you remove her from your house, and by that you have dismantled the marriage; you have returned to the state of betrothal. She is still bound to you because betrothal created that status, and the betrothal you have not yet dissolved. What the bill of divorce does is dissolve the betrothal. Right? The bill of divorce is the formal act—which was also introduced after the giving of the Torah—that comes to untie, untie in the sense of loosening a bond, yes? To untie the betrothal.

[Speaker C] There’s a lot of room for this; there aren’t legal restrictions here…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, there are, there are, there are. It’s not metaphorical; it’s halakhic. There are. From the time he set his mind to divorce her, he is forbidden to have relations with her. Right? The Talmud in tractate Gittin, page 17, says that from the time he set his mind to divorce her, he no longer has rights to her produce. But all that is rabbinic law or words of tradition. That he may not have relations with her—that is from words of tradition. And on a Torah level? That’s it, now there is… she may still eat terumah—even a betrothed woman may eat terumah on a Torah level. But yes, I claim that they have returned to betrothal in every respect, meaning at that stage. Once he has decided to divorce her, as long as he has not given her a bill of divorce, they are basically betrothed, not married. There is betrothal without marriage. There is the Rashash in Bava Batra and Rashbam and so on, and they even discuss if she became impure at that stage. Now that is already Torah law, because regarding “to his close relative”—that is no longer rabbinic law. The Rashash comments there on Rashbam, there in the case of one who entered a ruin and set his mind to divorce her—there it’s Rashbam there—so he says that there are Torah-level implications; it is really a return to the state of betrothal. I once wrote an article about this. My claim is that you return to the state of betrothal, and I think that’s what Sefer HaChinukh is saying. Sefer HaChinukh says that when you need to divorce your wife—this is connected to what we discussed earlier—once you have decided, not need to, once you have decided to divorce your wife, then the home is basically dismantled. A woman about whom “he has set his mind to divorce her”—that already means they are no longer living together. There is a legal bond between them; you need to give her a bill of divorce in order to permit her to others, but there is no home here anymore. The home in the pre-Torah sense, that you live together in the same house, “he brings her into his house and they live together”—that is first of all an ordinary social institution, not a halakhic one. That no longer exists here. What remains is a halakhic residue. Sefer HaChinukh says: if you do not properly dismantle the halakhic residue, you have nullified a positive commandment. The positive commandment is this: when you divorce your wife, do it properly. Exactly what you described at the end. But divorcing your wife without a bill of divorce is also divorce. It is divorce. I said earlier that if he did it without a bill of divorce then he didn’t divorce her. That’s not true—he did divorce her. He divorced her in the sense that he dismantled the marriage. But if you dismantle the marriage and do not permit her to the world—if you did not give her a bill of divorce—that is nullifying a positive commandment. Because when you dismantle a home, just as there is a positive commandment when you build a home—to whatever extent betrothal is a positive commandment, yes? There is a positive commandment to do it by way of betrothal; according to Maimonides it is a positive commandment, and everyone thinks there is a dispute between him and the Rosh, and I’m not at all sure about that, because of this Maimonides I mentioned earlier, that there are also procedural commandments in Maimonides. People think that according to Maimonides betrothal is a commandment. And the Rosh, for example—at the beginning of Even HaEzer, the Rosh says that it is only an instrument for the commandment of procreation; it permits procreation. But that is not necessary. It may be that Maimonides also understands it that way; it’s just that for Maimonides there are also procedural commandments, so the permitting procedure itself is called a commandment. He counted it as a commandment; that is the main proof for Maimonides’ position.

[Speaker B] But from the wording of Sefer HaChinukh it sounds like she is divorced.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, she is divorced.

[Speaker B] If she comes to another man?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. She is divorced in the sense that there is no home. Obviously she is not permitted to others without a bill of divorce—there is no such creature, what is that? That goes against the whole Talmud; there is no such thing. He doesn’t—it doesn’t need to be said.

[Speaker C] So what does “he nullified a positive commandment” mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The positive commandment is: when you dismantle the home, release her completely. Earlier I asked: someone who didn’t give any bill of divorce at all—did he also nullify a positive commandment? My answer is yes. If he decided that they don’t want to live together, then yes. Therefore the question is not whether you gave an invalid bill of divorce or gave none at all. An invalid bill of divorce is just a shard of pottery; not giving her anything or giving her an invalid bill of divorce is the same thing. The point is that if you have already decided to break up the package, then break it up. In connection with the recalcitrant husband we discussed earlier, that is exactly the point. The recalcitrant husband nullifies a positive commandment—you need to understand this—the recalcitrant husband nullifies the positive commandment of divorce. That is what we coerce him about. When we coerce him to give a bill of divorce, we are coercing him regarding commandments. There is a positive commandment here to divorce, because this home no longer exists. He may not want to, but the home no longer exists. Whether he wants to or not doesn’t matter—the home does not exist. If the home does not exist, you cannot keep her by force when the home no longer exists. In betrothal, in creating the home, it is symmetrical: creating the home does not depend only on him. Meaning, once she does not want the home, there is no home. In betrothal too, incidentally, if she is not willing, there is no betrothal.

[Speaker C] If she doesn’t want it, does that mean that now they are betrothed? Exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Betrothed—and now you need to release her.

[Speaker C] If we understand this as if… right, yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, or if she doesn’t want it—that’s already a question not on the Torah level, but in places where on the Torah level it works that way, if there are sufficient grounds according to the grounds that justify coercing a bill of divorce—“he is repulsive to me” and other things—that’s the whole great debate whether that enters this category or doesn’t enter this category. But at the conceptual level, what Sefer HaChinukh writes—nullifying a positive commandment—I think that is his definition. Nullifying a positive commandment means that when you dismantle a home you also have to untie the halakhic bonds between you, not only remove her from your house. Or what later authorities call “divorced in the heart,” yes? Meaning, basically there is no home. “Divorced in the heart” means that you are already no longer really a home. So if you are no longer really a home, then release her—that’s it, let her go.

[Speaker C] And we said that Jewish law says he is forbidden to have relations with her now until he gives a bill of divorce, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like a betrothed woman. Obviously, because she has not received a bill of divorce. These are explicit Talmudic discussions, not my innovations—that’s obvious. If she hasn’t received a bill of divorce, then the prohibition of a married woman still applies; whoever has relations with her is liable to death.

[Speaker C] But she—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now she is like a betrothed woman, not like a married woman.

[Speaker C] What’s the difference between a betrothed woman and a married woman? There’s a difference in forms of execution. I think one of them is for a daughter of a priest. A daughter of a priest.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For example, what would happen with a daughter of a priest when he has set his mind to divorce her? That could have an interesting implication; I hadn’t thought of that. Now, on the Rashash about this? What? What about the Rashash on this?

[Speaker C] The Rashash on impurity—no, there is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the Rashash talks about impurity, but not now—yes—but I don’t know if you’ll find it. There are all sorts of implications I didn’t find, but in my opinion this is what lies behind the matter. How did we get to this? Through coercing the bill of divorce. Regarding coercing the bill of divorce, my claim is basically that coercing the bill of divorce means that when there is no home, you have to untie the halakhic bonds, and that is a positive commandment. Fine, let’s return to our subject. We can continue this issue of technique versus essence, or operability versus essence, in connection, for example, with someone who intended to eat pork but ended up eating lamb. Fine? There too the Talmud in tractate Nazir says, and Rashi at the beginning of parashat Matot says, that if someone intended to eat pork—he took a piece of meat, thought it was pork and wanted to eat it, and in the end it turned out that not only is he wicked, he’s also lucky: it was kosher meat. But he wanted to eat pork. So it says that he needs atonement. The Brisker Rav, in stencil notes, says that this is actually a full Torah prohibition, just without lashes. There is an innovation that one is not flogged if he did not carry out the prohibition, but if mentally he transgressed a prohibition, then it is a full prohibition. Meaning, he transgressed a prohibition. That is his claim. It’s a big innovation; I don’t know.

[Speaker B] Why did he transgress a prohibition?

[Speaker C] He didn’t do an act.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, no? He really doesn’t get lashes. But it’s still a prohibition. You transgressed a prohibition. The prohibition of eating pork is a prohibition that involves an act. The prohibition of eating pork is a prohibition that involves an act. The question is whether a prohibition that involves an act—if you transgress it without an act—do you get lashes or not? That is a three-way dispute from one extreme to the other. There are views that if there is a prohibition that can be transgressed either with an act or without an act, in both possibilities, then some say you always get lashes, some say you never get lashes, and some say that when you transgress by an act you get lashes and when you transgress without an act you do not get lashes. So it’s a three-way dispute.

[Speaker C] Which prohibition did he transgress?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He only intended it, after all. Pork—what do you mean? Eating pork. You transgressed the prohibition of eating pork. Eating pork? Yes. That is a claim—a very innovative claim in my view, and absurd. No, from the standpoint of reasoning it is very accepted.

[Speaker C] Let’s say it’s completely Kantian.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously; from the standpoint of reasoning it’s very accepted. In Jewish law it is completely absurd.

[Speaker C] He says that you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He rightly says you don’t get lashes, because of course you don’t get lashes. But he says you transgressed a prohibition.

[Speaker C] The whole point is that you need—you ate pork?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but did he eat pork?

[Speaker C] But you transgressed a prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To transgress a prohibition is informal. In what context? The context of intention. That’s exactly what—you see, for example, Rashi at the beginning of parashat Matot—he brings this Talmudic passage and says the same thing there. The midrash brings it there regarding vows, regarding a husband’s annulment of his wife’s vows. There are two situations there. One situation—it’s Rashi over a few verses—one situation is where the husband annuls his wife’s vow and does not tell her that he annulled it. “On the day he hears it,” and he doesn’t tell her. So the vow is annulled. Now she thought it was forbidden to her and wanted to eat it—she wanted to eat something forbidden—but lucky her, she ate something permitted because the husband had annulled it. He just didn’t tell her. So Rashi says this is like someone who intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb. And there is the opposite situation, where the husband tells her that he annulled it even though that isn’t true—he did not annul it. The reverse. Meaning, he tells her it is annulled, but he didn’t really annul it. Then she thought it was lamb and ate pork—which is basically an inadvertent transgression. Right? That’s the ordinary case of inadvertent transgression, just inadvertence through causing another to stumble. Ordinary inadvertence is where I simply transgress inadvertently, and this is inadvertence through being misled. Rashi says that one who causes his fellow to stumble enters under him for punishment. That is Rashi at the beginning of parashat Matot, and it may be somewhat similar to what Maimonides says at the end of the laws of kilayim. Maimonides says that if someone clothes his fellow in a forbidden wool-linen mixture—the wearer is inadvertent and the dresser is intentional—the dresser gets lashes. Now what do you mean he gets lashes? What, did he wear the forbidden mixture? For what do you get lashes? What prohibition?

[Speaker C] For “do not place a stumbling block”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, there are no lashes for “do not place a stumbling block.” You get lashes for the wool-linen mixture itself, that’s obvious. Meaning, despite the fact that if you were the intentional one here and he had no awareness—he was inadvertent—then basically it’s considered as though you did the act, and you get lashes. That’s what Maimonides says. But this Rashi at the beginning of parashat Matot—or this whole thing, the Sages, yes, it’s a midrash—it’s similar because the Rosh, in a responsum, is very puzzled by this Maimonides; he doesn’t know what his source is. Maimonides repeats it in three places. And also in defiling a priest he says the same thing, and regarding a Nazirite I think there is a verse that excludes it. We would have thought you transgress, but there is a verse saying not. There are three places in Maimonides with this issue. In any event, for our purposes, on the face of it this is similar to attempted murder. Yes—attempted murder always bothers me. Why do legal systems generally treat attempted murder as something less serious than actual murder? It’s basically the same thing; it’s the same offense. The fact that besides being wicked he also happened to be lucky—so because of that he’s less wicked? He prepared everything, loaded the gun, aimed it at the person, pulled the trigger, the firing pin was broken, so the bullet didn’t fire. Okay? From his standpoint he is as wicked as any murderer, completely, absolutely wicked—it’s just that the result didn’t occur. So what? Is he in any way less wicked than a murderer? Then why is attempted murder really treated as less? In Jewish law we’re already used to this, to what you said before: if it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen—why should I care how wicked he is? But I’m asking—leave Jewish law aside—on the level of people who are not fed by Jewish law but only by logic. A legal system, a legal system—people legislate what seems logical to them, right?

[Speaker C] The definition of murder in criminal law has two components: mens rea, meaning intention, and actus reus, meaning the actual practical execution. Yes, but the practical execution—the question is why.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the practical execution of the murder. The question is what you mean. Exactly. The practical execution—I pulled the trigger.

[Speaker C] The practical execution includes the result.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says? That’s the question—who says? The pulling—no, if the pulling of the trigger is the act, I can explain why you need that. Because if you didn’t pull the trigger, then it’s not completely clear that your mind was really fixed, that there is full intent here. The act is the full intent in that context. But the fact that the firing pin is broken—I planted a broken firing pin for you, and basically caused you to fail, I prevented you from murdering. All the criminal aspects here were fully present, including the act; it just didn’t succeed in the end. Why should that be less serious than murder? The truth is people have told me various things; I’m not sufficiently—

[Speaker C] It’s—

[Speaker B] Maybe because of actual damage.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I aimed, I fired, everything was fine—

[Speaker B] I fired, I fired, everything was fine, but in the end the person remained alive.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, doesn’t matter, something like that, yes, same idea.

[Speaker C] But maybe that’s because the punishment has to be proportionate to the harm you caused. But why? Is your very legitimacy to punish really derived from some kind of vengeance for the harm that— or,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So here, really, this brings us into different theories of punishment. The question is why criminals are punished. It’s a big question. If this is a sanction for wickedness, then in fact there’s no difference at all between attempted murder and murder. If it’s protection of society, same thing. Meaning, the person is just as dangerous; next time the knife won’t be broken, okay? The only way to explain the difference is some kind of—what should we call it—atonement, you could say, some kind of thing like what the Torah explicitly says: “No atonement can be made for the land except by the blood of the one who shed it.” Then the result matters, because something has to be cleansed here, as it were, some result that occurred. Because in the end, at the beginning—

[Speaker C] And in the end there are always social components. No, obviously, and therefore also the psychological-social part—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the part of attempted murder.

[Speaker C] There was something here two weeks ago—everyone was sending missiles and shells here. So if they had hit a house and killed twenty people—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, obviously. Well, there it’s just sheer stupidity, obviously, but a person—

[Speaker C] He had the capacity to act in that way, regardless.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Just yesterday I saw—or the day before—I wrote about this on the site. I saw some article yesterday about that woman in Be’er Sheva who saved her children and basically prevented a war. Meaning, because our idiots conduct wars according to whether something hits or doesn’t hit, so it’s just—

[Speaker C] It’s not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The lack of policy is unbelievable.

[Speaker C] Here, in this context—we won’t get into politics here—but the ability to get legitimacy from the nations of the world. Yes, psychologically it’s the same thing in our own perceptions too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I understand,

[Speaker C] That’s what I’m saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if it’s an attempt—so I’m saying, in attempted murder there are only those components. Okay? And in actual murder there’s also the question of—yes—what you called psychology—

[Speaker C] Or the actual result itself, that’s what he’s saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides uses the concept of atonement; there is an element—

[Speaker C] Emotional—of giving—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A person some kind of—

[Speaker C] Revenge.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Never mind. For example, with the blood avenger you can see something like that. There’s also something like this in Jewish law. But yes, certainly. I’m saying, there are certain aspects of punishment theory that alone can explain the difference between attempted murder and murder. Because overall, if you impose punishment on a person because of his wickedness, or if you want to protect society from him, in terms of all those parameters there’s no difference at all.

[Speaker B] There’s no difference at all between attempted murder and murder. No, there is a justification here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In that view, wickedness is the justification and protection is the goal. Obviously you still need the wickedness, although—not exactly. Because for example, in the case of a pursuing aggressor who is a minor or mentally incompetent, you still kill him. There’s a dispute in the Talmud, but Jewish law says you kill him, and that’s how it is everywhere in the world; every legal system in the world works that way.

[Speaker C] But here there’s no longer any pursuit.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but what are you doing—saving him at the cost of another person’s life? Your same argument could apply there too. Why does he have to die in order to save the other one? Why? And here there’s no guilt, because he’s deaf, mentally incompetent, or a minor. There’s no justification here. You see that there isn’t. If you are the source of the problem, then even if you’re not guilty in the full criminal sense, there’s justification for your bearing the consequences, or for your being the one to solve the problem, simply because you are the source of the problem. And that’s what I want to create here—

[Speaker C] Here, a situation in which someone who actually murdered has this special status, where you also punish him a bit more than someone who tried and didn’t murder. To create two classes. Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In order to highlight the change, social education, to show how severe it is that a person died. Fine, so you can add that too as another reason to be stricter in punishing a murderer than someone who attempted murder. I’m saying that from the standpoint of the ordinary aspects of punishment theory, it’s hard to understand. You have to come up with some special rationales here that perhaps allow us to be stricter with actual murder. Now, in Jewish law itself, the basic intuition is the opposite. There is no prohibition on attempt. Only on completion is there a prohibition. Criminal intent is not a prohibition at all, except for the rabbi of Brisk whom I mentioned earlier, but aside from that, that too is a strange novelty. The straightforward view is that there is no prohibition whatsoever. There is no prohibition on criminal intent. There is only a prohibition on doing. That’s it. Same question: so what is the meaning of this? After all, the degree of wickedness is basically the same. Even if you try now to eat pork and what comes into your hand turns out to be lamb, that’s like an attempt. An attempt to eat pork, not attempted murder—it doesn’t matter—but an attempt that failed. You’re just as wicked as someone who eats pork normally; you just didn’t succeed. So why do you deserve less punishment than somebody else? And again, apparently in Jewish law, as far as punishment is concerned, there are these considerations we discussed earlier—atonement or whatever it may be—that do give priority to actual completion. But the question regarding the prohibition is the interesting question, not the punishment. For the punishment I can find an explanation. But why the prohibition? What difference does it make in determining how wicked you are? After all, that is supposedly the criterion of whether you violated a prohibition or didn’t violate a prohibition. I’m not talking now about punishment—don’t punish him. But the question is why he did not violate a prohibition in such a case. So the Brisker Rav really says that he did violate a prohibition, but the accepted and simple view is that he did not. The question is why not. After all, his degree of wickedness is exactly the same. What’s the difference? It’s a very interesting question. I don’t have a good answer to it. But again, there is some sort of play here, I think, between means and ends. And that’s why I brought this example. Because we perceive the wickedness in performing an act of murder as being due to the fact that in the end a person dies. In other words, this is really a result-based prohibition. Now it’s true that I can’t make him die; I can only try to kill him. Whether he dies or doesn’t die is no longer up to me. So therefore people come to me with complaints and say: the prohibition we impose on you is not that he not be dead, but rather the prohibition on you is that you not shoot him. It’s a prohibition on the act. Even though it’s obvious that the reason for the verse, the purpose of the prohibition, is simply that the person not die. Then the question is: which is the means here and which is the end? In the simple definition, apparently the prohibition imposed on me—the prohibition of the act imposed on me—is the means. The goal is that the other person not die. But when we look at it in terms of the wickedness I spoke about earlier, it flips. In the end, from your standpoint, it’s not relevant at all whether he dies or doesn’t die. From your standpoint, from the standpoint of my judgment of you, what matters is what you did; what difference does it make what happened to him? And again, this is that same reversal between means and ends. Meaning, on the operative plane I impose on you a prohibition not to shoot so that the other person won’t die. But on the essential plane, the fact that he died is an indication that you were wicked when you pulled the trigger. Obviously I also don’t want him to die, but I’m saying that from the standpoint of judging you, the point is not that he died; the point is that you were wicked, and the indication of that is that what you did ultimately caused him to die. So here too there is this reversal between the operative plane and the essential plane. Meaning, between means and ends on the operative plane and on the essential plane.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are additional examples. Take the prohibition of incitement, for example. Yes, one does not plead on behalf of an inciter. The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin learns this from the primordial serpent: “When the words of the master and the words of the student conflict, whose words should one obey?” In Jewish law generally, although from Yad Ramah there it sounds as though that’s not true, by the way—but it’s almost clear that that’s not true in Yad Ramah—in Jewish law there is no prohibition at all against inciting, inciting someone to a transgression. There is a prohibition against inciting to idolatry—that is an explicit prohibition, “if your brother, the son of your mother, entices you”—but aside from that, it’s only for idolatry. There is no prohibition against inciting someone to eat pork, maybe “do not place a stumbling block” or something like that, but even there it depends on whether he actually ended up eating the pork or not. But on the incitement itself there is no halakhic prohibition. I said that in Yad Ramah on this passage in Sanhedrin it seems there is a prohibition on any inciter. And in fact, the Talmud there says: From where do we learn that one does not plead on behalf of an inciter? From the primordial serpent. And the primordial serpent did not incite to idolatry. The prohibition he incited to, plainly, was not idolatry; it was defying the Holy One, blessed be He, but—

[Speaker C] Not idolatry. It’s incitement to an ordinary prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. That is exactly what Yad Ramah says there, and therefore it applies to every prohibition. But why is there really no prohibition on incitement? Plainly, again, we come back to the fact that what we want to prevent is the result, and in the end the one responsible for the result is the one who performs it. So if I incited, it may be that I had a role or contributory guilt in producing the result, but if I incited someone who is of sound mind, I mean, then the responsibility rests on him. Meaning, he should not have been incited. And therefore, “When the words of the master and the words of the student conflict, whose words should one obey?”—that’s what the Talmud says there. Now let’s say that when I incite, I have obviously increased the chances that the result will occur, right? That’s obvious. And still, at the level of responsibility, only the other person is seen as responsible. Okay. Meaning that in result-oriented thinking, incitement is problematic because incitement does increase the likelihood of achieving the result. But in the essential sense, incitement—again, enticement, I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t say this about such an inciter—but incitement in itself is not problematic, because in the end there is a rational person there who is supposed to make decisions afterward as to whether he does it or doesn’t do it. And the incitement itself—so what? Meaning, it is only problematic because it brings about a result, but if it is not what is responsible for the creation of the result, then it is not itself a problematic thing. In Yad Ramah, when he claims that there is a prohibition of incitement in every matter, he apparently understands that no—the exact opposite. Again, the same calculation we made earlier. He argues that the incitement itself is problematic; the fact that it leads to a result or increases the chance of getting the result is an indication that the incitement is problematic. Therefore, even though “When the words of the master and the words of the student conflict, whose words should one obey?” is an argument for exemption, so that they won’t punish you or something like that, still, the problematic nature exists in the incitement. Maybe because of the severity, I don’t know, big question, no answer. About that the Torah says—so there is a prohibition—but what the idea behind it is, I don’t know. Maybe because idolatry is more severe, I don’t know. What do you mean why shouldn’t it be? I don’t know, good question. Look, with idolatry the incitement is more than just incitement. It’s connected a bit to what we discussed at the beginning of the lesson: incitement is not only incitement to do the act, but also to persuade you into the worldview that leads to doing the act. In murder it’s not a matter of worldview; it’s inciting you to perform an act. So it could be that maybe there the Torah is more exacting about incitement because it really doesn’t want there to be an academy of idolatry. There is no academy for murderers. Meaning, there is an academy for idolatry, where they build a conceptual structure from which idol worshipers emerge, a worldview from which idol worshipers emerge.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe one last comment on this matter. I spoke about procreation too—I mentioned it on one of the previous occasions—but one final note: regarding the commandment of charity in Maimonides, there is a difference between the positive commandment and the prohibition. There is a positive commandment and a prohibition: “Do not harden your heart and do not close your hand” is the prohibition, and “You shall surely give; you shall surely open your hand” is the positive commandment. And Maimonides says that the positive commandment is to provide for the poor, whereas the prohibition is so as not to acquire the trait of stinginess. Meaning, the focus of the prohibition is actually the giver—that he not acquire the trait of stinginess. The positive commandment places the recipient at the center, the result; in essence this is the act versus the result. Okay? And this is very interesting. I think the source for this is a Talmudic passage in Bava Batra. The Talmud there brings that Turnus Rufus asks Rabbi Akiva: if the Holy One, blessed be He, loves the poor, why doesn’t He support them? So Rabbi Akiva says there that it is so that we may be saved through them from the judgment of Gehenna. And that basically means that the focus is the giver, right? And “to be saved from the judgment of Gehenna” is not about the positive commandment; it’s about the prohibition, right? For what do you get Gehenna? For violating a prohibition. Therefore Maimonides derives from here that the prohibition is for the sake of the giver and not for the sake of the recipient. In that same passage, a little earlier, Jeremiah prays before the Holy One, blessed be He, regarding the people of Anatot: “Cause them to stumble with poor people who are unworthy,” okay? So that they should not receive reward. What does that mean? A poor person comes to you who is a fraud. You give him charity. From all the perspectives we discussed earlier, the commandment of charity has been fully fulfilled; you are completely righteous, after all you don’t know that he is a fraud, right? And yet he will not receive reward for it. Why won’t he receive reward for it? Because the result was not achieved. And reward is received—whereas Gehenna is for the prohibition—reward is received for a positive commandment. Therefore, for the positive commandment the focus really is the result, and for the prohibition the focus is the act. And from here perhaps Maimonides derives the difference between the positive commandment and the prohibition. But again, it’s this kind of play between the means—the means are opening the heart and giving—and the result, which is that the poor person will actually be—yes, this has practical implications for someone from a walled city who sends gifts to the poor to someone from an unwalled city, or not gifts of food portions but gifts to the poor, to an unwalled-city poor person—the question is whether to do it on the fourteenth or the fifteenth. If it’s for the sake of the giver, then it should be done on the fifteenth. If it’s for the sake of the recipient, then it should be done on the fourteenth. Gifts to the poor are also a positive commandment from the words of the Prophets, meaning it’s not really a biblical positive commandment, but I’m saying the idea is the same idea. Hm?

[Speaker C] If it’s for the recipient, then it doesn’t matter on which—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it does matter, because you have to do it on your Purim. It says that on Purim you have to do it; otherwise all year you have to do it.