Women's Beit Midrash – Winter 2, 5783 – Nedarim – Lesson 10

Table of Contents

• Handles: abbreviated speech versus alternative wording
• Oaths and the requirement to invoke God's name
• The Mishnah on page 9: “Like the vows of the wicked” and the difficulty with an oath
• Tosafot on page 2: substitute terms yes, handles no
• The Meiri: Geonim, distinctions between different kinds of oaths, and sacrifice versus lashes
• Maimonides and the Raavad in the laws of oaths
• The Ran: proof from substitute terms for oaths and God's name
• “A prohibition without lashes”: “he shall not profane” as an explanation in Maimonides and in Kiryat Sefer
• The view of Nachmanides/Rosh: handles work for an oath in all its laws
• Rabbi Naftali Tropp: an analysis of the role of God's name and a mapping of the views
• Resolving the difficulty in Tosafot: “handles in an oath” only for “he shall not profane”

Summary

General overview

The text raises the basic question in the topic of handles of an oath: how can an oath take effect if God's name was not mentioned, when according to the usual understanding an oath requires invoking the name. It distinguishes between handles as abbreviated speech that gets completed, and handles as alternative wording that clarifies intention, and stresses that in the case of oaths the problem is sharper, because an oath is understood as involving desecration of God's name. From the Mishnah on page 9a about “like the vows of the wicked,” it seems at first glance that an oath takes effect even without the name, and the text presents disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim): Tosafot denies handles in the case of an oath, the Ran and what is cited in the name of the Geonim infer from substitute terms for oaths that the name is not required, and the Meiri brings answers and distinctions between an oath of testimony / deposit and an oath of utterance, and between a sacrifice and lashes. Later the views of Maimonides and the Raavad in the laws of oaths are presented, along with an explanation by Rabbi Naftali Tropp, who places the focus of the dispute on the role of God's name: is it the wording of the oath, or the essence of its severity? On that basis, the question of “a prohibition without lashes” is also explained as connected to “he shall not profane.”

Handles: abbreviated speech versus alternative wording

The text defines handles in the usual way as abbreviated speech in which only part of the formula is said, and the law of handles completes what is missing until a “full statement” is formed, treated as though it had been said in full. It presents another possible understanding of handles, according to which there is no need for a complete statement in itself; rather, it is enough to have wording that clearly clarifies the intention, so that the speech serves as an indication of intention and not as an essential condition. It states that in the Mishnah on page 9a we are dealing with handles of the type that are not abbreviated speech, but rather alternative wording that is not the standard language of a vow/oath, yet whose meaning is clear as the imposition of a vow or an oath. It connects this to the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) as to whether this kind of wording is also called handles. It explains that according to the view that the main thing is clarifying intention, even alternative wording can suffice, because it clearly expresses that the person intends to obligate himself.

Oaths and the requirement to invoke God's name

The text presents the straightforward rule that an oath requires God's name, and explains that here the problem is not only one of clarifying intention, but that if God's name was not actually uttered, then seemingly there is no desecration of the name and no “God's name in vain.” It simply rejects the possibility that completion through “as though he said it” could create a situation in which the person is considered to have uttered God's name in vain, because the question is whether God's name was actually spoken. It brings an example heard in the name of Rabbi Ovadia about someone who says amen after a blessing through which he already fulfilled his obligation, and presents a theoretical possibility of comparing that to handles in an oath, but says that as a matter of logic it does not sound right to him. It notes that Tosafot on page 2 assumes that handles do not apply to an oath, and distinguishes between substitute terms and handles: with substitute terms one can understand that God's name is present in some form, whereas with handles God's name itself may be missing.

The Mishnah on page 9: “Like the vows of the wicked” and the difficulty with an oath

The text interprets the Mishnah, “Like the vows of the wicked—he has vowed with regard to a Nazirite vow, a sacrifice, and an oath,” as a case of handles, and stresses that the case of an oath raises a difficulty because the formula “like the vows of the wicked” does not include any mention of God's name. It explains that “like the vows of the upright” does not take effect because upright people do not make vows and oaths rashly, and “like their voluntary offerings” takes effect for a Nazirite vow and a sacrifice but not for an oath, because upright people do not “volunteer an oath.” It says that the focus is the first part, because there it is stated explicitly that it also takes effect for an oath, and from there it would seem that an oath without God's name does take effect. It places this difficulty against the position of Tosafot on page 2b, which assumes that handles are not effective for oaths, and frames the question of how Tosafot would deal with the Mishnah here.

Tosafot on page 2: substitute terms yes, handles no

The text quotes Tosafot: “And one can say that since handles do not apply to it, they were not concerned to mention them,” and explains that Tosafot holds that substitute terms do apply to an oath, but handles do not. It presents the simple reasoning for why handles in an oath are impossible: handles may omit God's name, and an oath without God's name is ineffective. It sharpens the point that with substitute terms for an oath one can understand that the oath is stated in a more proper way, whereas with handles the omission of God's name undermines the very possibility of the oath taking effect. It notes that the later discussion will also address the possibility that a substitute term may be a substitute for God's name itself, and distinguishes between “substitute terms” as formulations of an oath and “substitute terms” as levels or forms of divine names.

The Meiri: Geonim, distinctions between different kinds of oaths, and sacrifice versus lashes

The text brings the Meiri, who presents “some of the Geonim” as inferring from here that an oath does not require mention of God's name, arguing that if God's name had been mentioned there would no longer be any need for the law of substitute terms. It raises a difficulty from the oath of testimony, which requires mention of God's name based on the verbal analogy of “alah, alah” from Sotah, and brings the answer of “later rabbis” that the requirement for the name applies when one is adjured by others, as in the matter of Sotah. It then cites “the great commentators,” who write that the requirement for the name applies to the oath of testimony and the oath of deposit, but that “an oath of utterance does not require mention of God's name” and includes formulations such as “an oath that I will not eat from yours,” and even “if I eat from yours,” as well as “no, no” and “yes, yes,” and “right” and “left.” It adds that in their words there is a distinction according to which, for a sacrifice in the case of inadvertence, it may be that the name is not required, but for lashes in a deliberate case, or in a vow for which there is no sacrifice, “he is liable only when God's name is mentioned,” because the prohibitions are “You shall not take the name of God” and “You shall not swear by My name.”

Maimonides and the Raavad in the laws of oaths

The text quotes Maimonides, Laws of Oaths, chapter 2, halakhah 12, according to whom an oath that takes effect for liability requires a name or a substitute for God's name, such as “an oath by God” or “by Him whose name is Gracious.” It quotes Maimonides that if “he said ‘alah,’ or ‘cursed,’ or ‘oath,’ and did not mention a name or a substitute,” then the matter is forbidden to him, but “he does not receive lashes and does not bring a sacrifice” unless it includes a name or a substitute. It brings the Raavad’s objection: “This matter does not fit together for me… we have only found the name with testimony and deposit,” and presents the Raavad as expanding that in an oath of utterance, “even if merely expressed… and likewise a prohibition… even though he said neither a name nor a substitute… it is an oath,” but he qualifies that “this is so with regard to a sacrifice… but for lashes we require the name.” It concludes that according to the Meiri and the Ran, even according to the view of the great codifiers there is at least “a prohibition at any rate” without the name, even though there are no lashes, and that between Maimonides and the Raavad the main dispute is whether there is liability for a sacrifice without the name.

The Ran: proof from substitute terms for oaths and God's name

The text quotes the Ran on page 2, who infers from the Mishnah “and oaths are like oaths” that “an oath does not require the name,” and bases this on the claim that if the name had been mentioned there would have been no need for the law of substitute terms for oaths. It explains that the Ran sees it as necessary that the Mishnah deals with a case where God's name is not mentioned, because otherwise “it would already follow from the mention of the name.” It adds that the Ran cites the Raavad, who distinguishes between lashes and prohibition: with regard to lashes, one receives lashes only when God's name is mentioned, but with regard to prohibition there is one even without the name.

“A prohibition without lashes”: “he shall not profane” as an explanation in Maimonides and in Kiryat Sefer

The text presents Rabbi Naftali Tropp’s question: what is the meaning of a Torah-level prohibition when there are no lashes and no sacrifice? It brings proof from Maimonides in halakhah 9 on linking in an oath: “And this loaf is like that meat,” where he is exempt from lashes and from a sacrifice, but “it is forbidden for him to eat that loaf.” It quotes the explanation of Kiryat Sefer that the prohibition is because of “he shall not profane,” and explains that “he shall not profane” does not depend on uttering God's name but on the very acceptance of the commitment, and therefore even if the “severity of an oath” connected to God's name is absent, there is still an obligation to uphold one’s word. It develops the idea that an oath includes two dimensions: desecration of God's name on the basis of “You shall not take” or “You shall not swear by My name,” and the obligation to stand by one’s word on the basis of “he shall not profane his word,” so that without God's name there is no desecration of the name, but there still is “he shall not profane.” It notes the obvious difficulty that Maimonides writes “exempt from lashes,” even though according to this explanation there would seemingly be lashes on the basis of “he shall not profane,” and suggests that Maimonides in the laws of oaths is discussing the lashes of an oath, and does not enter into the lashes of “he shall not profane,” which are discussed in the laws of vows.

The view of Nachmanides/Rosh: handles work for an oath in all its laws

The text brings a view attributed to Nachmanides, as cited by the Rosh in tractate Shevuot, according to which “an oath does not require the name,” and the Rosh suggests that this is possible “because of a handle.” It notes precisely that according to this view the oath is “an oath for all the laws of an oath,” and not only with regard to a sacrifice, in contrast to the Raavad, who requires the name for lashes. It presents this as a view that is prepared to see handles as a completion that treats the oath as though it had been said in full, including the missing part.

Rabbi Naftali Tropp: an analysis of the role of God's name and a mapping of the views

The text presents an inquiry into whether God's name in an oath is merely the “language of an oath,” similar to the language of vows, or whether it is the “core of the oath” and its severity, such that a severe oath exists only when he actually uttered the name. It explains that according to the Rosh, God's name is the language of an oath, and therefore the law of handles can complete the formula, whereas according to Maimonides and the Raavad, mentioning the name relates to the severity of “You shall not take,” and therefore handles will not help to regard it as though God's name had been uttered, even though with respect to “he shall not profane” there is a prohibition even without the name. It presents Maimonides and the Raavad as agreeing that without the name there is “he shall not profane,” but no lashes of an oath, and their dispute concerns liability for a sacrifice in an oath without the name.

Resolving the difficulty in Tosafot: “handles in an oath” only for “he shall not profane”

The text concludes with a resolution in the spirit of Tosafot: even though it appears from the Mishnah on page 9 that there are handles in an oath, this is effective only with regard to “he shall not profane,” and not with regard to the “laws of an oath” of sacrifice and lashes, which depend on “You shall not take” and on God's name. It formulates Tosafot’s intent on page 2—that “in an oath, handles are not effective”—as referring to a full-fledged oath that creates liability for a sacrifice and lashes, and not to the basic commitment that generates a prohibition of “he shall not profane.” It emphasizes that this creates a distinction between a commitment without God's name, which obligates by virtue of “he shall not profane,” and an oath in the sense of desecration of God's name, where there is no room for completion through the law of handles.

We’re dealing with abbreviated formulations of an oath, or the divine name in an oath—right, that’s really two sides of the coin in our topic. The Mishnah on page 9a deals with special kinds of abbreviations. Usually, abbreviations—what we’ve seen until now—meant a kind of shortened speech. In other words, with abbreviations I say only part of the formula I’m supposed to say in a vow, and the law of abbreviations says that we sort of complete what he didn’t say. We complete the shortened speech, and that’s how a complete utterance is created. De facto it’s considered as though I spoke a full statement, and we discussed the question whether partial speech is enough, or whether it’s considered as though there was a full statement. You remember the example I brought from the principle of lavud. Is lavud considered closed, or does lavud mean I don’t care that it’s open? In other words, there are two possibilities. Is it like gud asik? With gud asik, the question is whether I see it as though it continues, or whether I simply don’t care that it doesn’t continue. In all these laws that’s how it works. So here too it’s the same thing, and all of that is with abbreviations that are basically part of the wording. I said only part, and therefore it’s an “abbreviation”—just part of the thing, the “handle” of the thing—and now I need to complete the body, the other part. So the law of abbreviations says that we treat it as though we complete it.

Now, in our case, the abbreviations aren’t of that type. The point of the abbreviation here is not partial speech, but speech formulated differently. I already commented on that a bit when we discussed abbreviations earlier. Even there I said that there are abbreviations of this kind—speech in a different formulation, not partial speech that needs completion, but a different formulation whose meaning is that I’m making a vow. Meaning, it’s clear that that’s the meaning, but the wording itself is not the standard wording of a vow. And there are medieval authorities (Rishonim)—we saw a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—who say that this too is called an abbreviation: not only partial speech, but also speech in a different formulation with the same meaning. Not substitute terms, though. So what’s the difference between that and substitute terms? What’s the difference between that and substitute terms? So that depends on whether substitute terms are just a language that the Sages coined, the language current in their generation—then it’s a different issue. If it’s a different language, you have to understand what exactly “different language” means, and we discussed that a bit.

But for our purposes, in our case the abbreviations being discussed here really are abbreviations of this kind. It’s not partial wording, but wording of a different kind or in a different formulation. And that raises the same question that came up when we discussed abbreviations: for example, we asked why, under the law of abbreviations, even just an abbreviation is enough and you don’t need the full statement. One way to understand it is that I’m sort of completing the statement. You said part of a statement, and I understand that you really meant the full statement, so it’s as though you said the whole thing. I complete the rest of the statement for you.

There’s another possibility: that all we need the speech for is in order to make clear what you mean. Not that full speech is really required, but that the role of full speech is to make your intention clear in an unequivocal way. Now if there’s partial speech from which it’s clearly evident what you mean, then that’s fine. Not because I complete it into a full statement, but because a full statement isn’t really needed. It too serves as an indication that you really mean to make a vow. So that’s enough, because the vow takes effect through intention, not through the speech. The speech is only a means of showing me what the intention is, demonstrating what the intention is, expressing what the intention is. So partial speech can also express it. If it’s really clear that that’s the intention, then fine—that too is enough.

According to the second conception—and that’s what we did then—according to the second conception, also abbreviations of the kind we’re talking about here should seemingly be fine. Since what difference does it make that you formulated it differently? If from that different formulation it’s clear to me that his intention is actually to create a vow, to impose a vow, then there’s no problem, because the intention was there. What difference does it make what indications I have that there was intention? As long as I have the indication and I understand that there was intention, then everything is fine. And in that sense, that’s how I explained back then the positions of those medieval authorities (Rishonim) who are willing to see even these kinds of abbreviations as a type of abbreviation. They’re basically saying: I don’t need to complete the speech, because if I have to complete the speech, here there isn’t suitable speech—it’s different speech. But if intention is enough, and the speech is only required as an indication that there is intention, then this kind of speech is also fine, because it too serves as an indication of the intention.

Now what’s going on here is basically the same question. Because if what matters is only the intention, then there’s no problem. If speech is required, then you have to understand why this kind of speech also counts as vow-language. But all that can be discussed in the context of vows, in the context of Nazirite status, things like that. The big novelty in our passage here is specifically with regard to oaths. What happens with oaths? With oaths, the simple rule—as is commonly accepted—is that you need the divine name in an oath. Now if you need the divine name in an oath, then this isn’t just a question of what kind of wording expresses unequivocally that your intention is to swear. Since if the divine name is required, it’s not enough that I intended to swear. At the end of the day, I didn’t utter the divine name. So if I violated my oath, I didn’t profane the Name, the divine name. Here, seemingly, my intention shouldn’t be enough. Right? Even if this wording, the oath-language that appears in our Mishnah, shows me that he intends to swear, with a vow maybe I can accept such a thing. But with an oath, for it to take effect you need the divine name. It’s not enough to sharpen the fact that you mean to swear; you have to utter the divine name, otherwise you didn’t utter the divine name in vain.

Wait—if the divine name isn’t said, doesn’t it become neither a vow nor an oath? No, because he used oath-language, so he means an oath, not a vow. For example, if he swears about an action, not about an object. That’s not relevant to a vow; it isn’t defined as a vow. There’s a vow in the language of an oath, an oath in the language of a vow—I commented on that a bit back then—but let’s say he’s not swearing about an object but about performing an action. That’s an oath, not a vow. And if he didn’t utter the divine name, then apparently there’s no oath here. It’s not a matter of abbreviations or not abbreviations. Even if I complete the speech and treat it as though he said the divine name, it’s very hard to say that it’s as though he said the divine name, and if he violated the oath then he profaned the divine name. In practice, he didn’t utter the divine name with his mouth.

It’s as though he said it. It’s as though he said it. Would anyone say that I uttered the divine name in vain because it’s as though I said the divine name? I once mentioned—maybe in one of these classes, I don’t remember anymore—I once heard, I didn’t see it inside, but I once heard in the name of Rabbi Ovadia that he argues that if someone says amen after a blessing that he has already fulfilled his obligation with, that’s a blessing in vain. Even though—we usually solve things that way—if I’m in doubt whether I made a blessing or not, I ask someone else to make the blessing and intend to fulfill my obligation for me, and I answer amen intending to fulfill my obligation. Rabbi Ovadia says that doesn’t help. Because on the possibility that this is a blessing in vain, even if I only said amen, it’s considered as though I myself made the blessing in vain.

How does he understand that? He’s basically saying that saying amen is as though I uttered the blessing myself. So if that’s so, then on the possibility that I didn’t need it, I effectively made a blessing in vain. Okay? Now with a blessing too, on the face of it, a blessing in vain is when you utter the divine name. Without the divine name, if I say “Blessed are You, Lord”—I mean not the explicit divine name, just “Lord”—and I said it in vain, that’s not a blessing in vain. Only a blessing with the divine name is a blessing in vain. Okay? Rabbi Ovadia holds that even if you said—again, this is all secondhand, I didn’t see it inside, but that’s what I heard—Rabbi Ovadia basically says that if you said amen, it’s as though you uttered a blessing containing the divine name. And if it was in vain, then it’s a blessing in vain.

Now that really is a very far-reaching conception, and according to that I have a question: if I hear someone else making a blessing just in general and I’m not obligated in that blessing, no problem. And if you intend to fulfill your obligation, say, with a blessing over a commandment, but you’ve already fulfilled your obligation? Okay, and now someone else makes the blessing and you answer amen intending to fulfill your obligation and he intends to fulfill it on your behalf? Ah, only if there’s intention to fulfill. Rabbi Ovadia’s claim is that you made the blessing again. And once you made the blessing again, it’s a blessing in vain. Okay?

Now if that’s how we understand it, then maybe with an oath too we can say the same thing. Even though with an oath, only by the law of abbreviations do I take the partial wording or the alternative wording and see it as though I uttered an oath, and that “as though” means I uttered an oath including the divine name. And then I’d even be willing to see this as: if I violated the oath, I uttered the divine name in vain—and all of this only “as though.” So it’s like a blessing in vain according to Rabbi Ovadia. Maybe here too one could say that this also counts as uttering the divine name in vain, and even though I didn’t actually say the divine name, by the law of abbreviations I would be transgressing uttering the divine name in vain. But with blessings there’s the rule “one who hears is like one who answers.” Maybe with an oath— But with an oath it’s not the same thing. Not only with blessings; with anything there is “one who hears is like one who answers.” And with vows and oaths there is “one who hears is like one who answers.” If someone swears on my behalf and I agree that it should count for me, then I have vowed and sworn. But when he himself says the formula and doesn’t mention the divine name, then who uttered it? No, no, so he didn’t utter it. I’m not talking about making someone else utter it. But if this counts as though he said the oath including the divine name, and afterward he violates that oath, then according to Rabbi Ovadia one could say that although in practice he didn’t utter the divine name, if it’s as though he uttered the divine name and he violated the oath, then he profaned the divine name, even though he didn’t physically say it, because it’s as though he did. According to Rabbi Ovadia’s conception in the case of a blessing in vain, maybe one could also say that here.

But that’s a novel conception. Meaning, I don’t think that’s correct. From straightforward reasoning it doesn’t sound right to me. In plain logic, if you didn’t actually utter the divine name, then what does “as though” mean? If you didn’t utter the divine name, you can’t say that you uttered the divine name in vain. “As though” won’t be enough here. “As though” can be enough when you want to express a certain content and you expressed it in a different language—it’s as though you said that language, because in the end you expressed what you wanted to express. But here the question isn’t what you wanted to express. The question is whether physically, actually, you uttered the divine name or not. So there’s no “as though” here. “As though” won’t help here.

But on page 2 it does work. What? On page 2, you referred us to Tosafot there, and from the Mishnah it plainly seems that it does work. I’m just in the introduction to the class now—we’ll get there in a minute. What I’m doing at the moment is setting the pieces on the board. So I’m basically saying: when I look at the situation, at the passage, and I start doing the a priori analysis even before I’ve seen the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and the passages, what are the possible directions at all? In principle, if I’m talking about abbreviations of an oath, where these abbreviations aren’t part of the oath-formula but rather the divine name is missing—if I said the divine name but omitted part of the oath-language, that maybe I’m willing to accept. But if I didn’t mention the divine name, and I want the law of abbreviations to cover for that—to say it’s as though I uttered the divine name—then with an oath that will be very hard. I can understand abbreviations in vows, abbreviations in Nazirite status. With an oath it’s very hard.

That’s why I’m saying that the Mishnah deals with vows, with Nazirite status, and with an oath. Our discussion in today’s class is focused on the oath. And that’s really the main discussion here in the passage. Because specifically with an oath, the wording has significance beyond expressing content. You need the divine name. That’s the whole idea in an oath: that you profaned the divine name, uttered the divine name in vain or falsely. So that’s the special problem here with regard to an oath.

Now of course we’ll see more disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), which is what I referred you to. We’ll still talk about it. No—but on page 2 this whole question didn’t even come up when we learned it. Because there too it says “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths,” and it compares them to vows. “Substitute terms for oaths” straightforwardly means substitute terms for the oath-language together with the divine name. But abbreviations, because they’re partial speech, could also be missing the divine name. Let’s say I say “swota” instead of “shevuah,” or things of that sort—but I did mention the divine name. But with abbreviations, part of the sentence is missing. Now if the missing part includes the divine name, then completing it under the law of abbreviations won’t help. We’ll see. Tosafot itself makes a distinction between substitute terms and abbreviations. Tosafot asks why they didn’t mention substitute terms for oaths. Tosafot says because abbreviations don’t apply to an oath. Which implies that substitute terms do apply to an oath; only abbreviations don’t. Since abbreviations don’t apply, they also didn’t say substitute terms. That’s what Tosafot says there.

There in the Mishnah it says, “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths.” What? I didn’t understand. There in the Mishnah it really does say, “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths.” In the Mishnah on page 2. About abbreviations I don’t think it says that. Substitute terms, yes. No, in our Mishnah it says that— Wait. Not here—on page 2. The Tosafot is on page 2. Right, right—I mean “here” in the sense of the first Mishnah. Wait. Where is the Tosafot? I feel like I don’t have that material. Let me open the Tosafot for a second. I’m saying that the Mishnah there on page 2 says: yes, “All substitute terms for vows are like vows, for dedications like dedications, and for oaths like oaths, and for Nazirite status like Nazirite status,” and so on. Right? It seems to me—from what I understood—that the Ran himself implies from there that you don’t need the divine name, I think. Yes, so we’ll still see, we’ll talk more. But there he’s speaking about the Mishnah in Tractate Shevuot, not our Mishnah. And he says: why didn’t the Gemara ask, regarding the Mishnah in Shevuot, that “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths” weren’t written? He’s not speaking about our Mishnah. He says: let it say “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths,” just as with a Nazirite where it goes back and says “all substitute terms for Nazirite status are like Nazirite status.” And one can say: since there are no abbreviations there, they weren’t concerned to mention them. There, in that Mishnah. Here. What do you mean here? Here in Nedarim. In Shevuot. In Nedarim too I don’t think there are abbreviations there. No, clearly—but here substitute terms are mentioned. He asks why substitute terms aren’t mentioned, not why abbreviations aren’t mentioned. There, I understand. Right. So he says: ask the same question there as well, and let it say “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths.” Why didn’t they say there “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths”? Here they did say it, but there they didn’t. So Tosafot says: because there are no abbreviations in it, they also didn’t say substitute terms. So Tosafot is clearly dealing with the fact that, according to Tosafot, abbreviations plainly do not exist for oaths, but substitute terms for oaths do exist. Only because there are no abbreviations there, they also didn’t mention the substitute terms. But there is a legal difference: substitute terms for oaths do exist—we see in our passage that they do. But abbreviations of an oath do not. Why not? Because abbreviations of an oath mean something without the divine name. Substitute terms for an oath do contain the divine name, just in another language or terminology or something of that sort, in language coined by the Sages—“swota,” yes, and all those things. So that’s exactly the point. That’s why the focus here is on abbreviations. Because abbreviations of an oath are basically an oath without the divine name. So then—if that’s the case—an oath without the divine name is simply irrelevant, there’s no such thing, so the law of abbreviations can’t apply to an oath. And that’s what Tosafot says there.

Tosafot there really says that the law of abbreviations doesn’t apply to oaths. He says it as something obvious; he doesn’t even explain it. Why not? Presumably because with abbreviations the divine name is missing, and that can’t be completed by means of the law of abbreviations. But in an oath, through a substitute term you can give a substitute term for the divine name? No, because he says “swota,” so it sounds as though the substitute term is for the oath itself. That’s why I’m saying: substitute terms for an oath exist because with substitute terms the divine name appears. Why isn’t it just “swota” instead of “shevuah”? No, I’m asking whether with substitute terms you can use a substitute for the divine name. So we’ll see later that Maimonides, whom I referred you to, seems to say yes. But when a substitute for the divine name counts like the divine name, that’s not because the divine name isn’t needed. Because there, when we’re talking about a substitute for the divine name, it’s not the concept of substitute terms in our discussion of vows, oaths, or Nazirite status. Rather, within the divine name itself there is the explicit name and there are substitute names—substitute names and attributes and things like that. There are at least three levels in Maimonides’ view regarding the divine name: the explicit name, a non-explicit name, and substitute names. Okay? So that’s a different concept of substitute names.

With substitute names of the divine name, I swear “by the One whose name is Merciful,” “by the One whose name is Merciful,” right? That’s one of the examples Maimonides brings. Now “the One whose name is Merciful” is the Holy One, blessed be He. The fact that I don’t say the name Y-H-V-H or the name Adnut doesn’t matter. I mentioned the divine name; I swore by God. So Maimonides says that’s considered swearing with the divine name. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about a case where the substitute term or abbreviation is the wording of the oath—not that there is an oath here and the divine name in it is not the proper name but a substitute. Rather, when we speak about substitute terms for an oath, it’s not “an oath with a substitute term”; it’s a substitute term for the oath. Is it clear what I’m saying? With divine names, there are simply names and substitutes. We are speaking about different forms of formulating the declaration of the oath itself, not which divine name I use. Okay? But that too we’ll still see later.

In any event, the Mishnah—our Mishnah—says, wait a second, let me share for a moment. We won’t go into too many details here because our discussion begins afterward. Right: “Like the vows of the wicked”—he made a vow with regard to Nazirite status, an offering, and an oath. “Like the vows of the righteous”—he said nothing. “Like their freewill offerings”—he made a vow with regard to Nazirite status and an offering. What is it basically saying? It says we have three cases: “like the vows of the wicked,” “like the vows of the righteous,” and “like their freewill offerings.” Okay? So freewill offerings—in the freewill offerings of the wicked it doesn’t take effect. In freewill offerings—wait—with the freewill offerings of the righteous, yes, one can vow and donate, but not with an oath. Why? Because righteous people don’t volunteer with an oath. Right? Upright people don’t casually use an oath when there’s no need. So with an oath it doesn’t work. But “like the vows of the wicked” works both for a vow, for Nazirite status, and for an oath. “Like the vows of the righteous” does not, because the problem is not the formulation of the oath; he simply didn’t swear. He neither vowed nor swore, because “the vows of the righteous” is nothing—there’s no such thing as “the vows of the righteous.” So for us what matters is the first part of the Mishnah: “the vows of the wicked.” Because with “the vows of the wicked,” it basically says: he made a vow with regard to Nazirite status, an offering, and an oath. Okay?

Now that’s an abbreviation. “The vows of the wicked” is an abbreviation. So what does that mean as an abbreviation? With a vow, Nazirite status, and an offering, I understand. But with an oath, if you say “like the vows of the wicked” concerning an oath—or “like the oaths of the wicked” or something like that—then in fact you didn’t mention the divine name at all. So true, the meaning of your words is that you intended to swear. There is an abbreviation here in the ordinary sense. But the divine name is still missing. So the question arises: how can this take effect as an oath? The Gemara explains exactly how the formulations work; that’s less important for our purposes. But practically, the oath takes effect even without his having uttered the divine name, and all he said was “like the vows of the wicked,” and that’s it. So that’s what we need to examine.

Seemingly, this passage implies that an oath without the divine name takes effect. Right? That’s what comes out here. That’s a bit strange; we’re used to thinking that it doesn’t. But from the Gemara here it sounds like it does. And in fact Tosafot on page 2b—the one mentioned earlier—says: “This is difficult: regarding oaths, let it ask the same thing and say ‘substitute terms for oaths are like oaths,’ just as regarding a Nazirite, where it returns and says ‘all substitute terms for Nazirite status are like Nazirite status.’ Why didn’t it say there ‘all substitute terms for oaths are like oaths’? And one can say that since there are no abbreviations in it, they weren’t concerned to mention them.’” They didn’t mention the substitute terms because there is no law of abbreviations. The substitute terms exist; they just weren’t mentioned because abbreviations don’t. They couldn’t say abbreviations. Why do substitute terms exist and abbreviations not? As I said before, in the simple understanding, because with substitute terms the divine name is mentioned, whereas with abbreviations the divine name is not mentioned. And an oath without the divine name doesn’t work. Therefore Tosafot assumes—without bringing proof for it, just as something obvious—that there is no such thing as abbreviations in an oath. The law of abbreviations was not said regarding an oath. Substitute terms, yes, but abbreviations, no. Okay? So that’s Tosafot’s assumption, and accordingly Tosafot’s position is that an oath without the divine name is ineffective.

That of course raises the question: what does he do with our passage? Because if an oath without the divine name is ineffective, then how here, when he says “like the vows of the wicked” regarding an oath, does it take effect? Okay? That’s really the question.

Now the Meiri really discusses this, and he says as follows. He brings, basically, a dispute on the question whether the divine name is in fact required in an oath. He says: “Some of the Geonim learn from here that an oath does not require mention of the divine name. It does not require mention of the divine name, and it takes effect even without mention of the divine name. For if one said, ‘By God, I will not eat this loaf,’ he certainly does not need to mention the term ‘oath,’ and similarly with any of the substitute names.” Meaning, if a person said “By God, I will not eat this loaf,” and didn’t mention the word “oath,” then, says the Meiri, what difference does it make? He mentioned the divine name. What do I care? So we are forced to say that the case here is one where he did not mention the divine name. Okay? “And similarly with any of the substitute names”—again, “substitute names” here means not substitute terms for an oath, but a substitute name for the divine name itself. Meaning, there is neither the proper divine name nor a substitute divine name here. “And so too it appears from what they explained: ‘like the vows of the wicked.’” There he brings our passage. The Meiri is over there, but he brings our passage, and again we see that the divine name without the term “oath” really works. “An oath does not require mention of the divine name.” This belongs to our passage too—that’s what he said: “and so too it appears from what they explained: ‘like the vows of the wicked,’” and so on, “and we explained it regarding an oath as ‘like the vows of the wicked, that I will not eat from it,’ and certainly this is without mention of the divine name.” It’s obvious that our case is without mention of the divine name. Why is it obvious? Because he says “like the vows of the wicked,” no? No—the wicked say it with the divine name. Why is it certain that this is without the divine name?

He’s talking about an action. Here he’s talking about an action, not about— So what? In an oath there’s an action, not an object. Fine, I understand, that’s why it’s an oath. But why does he assume there’s no divine name here? How does he know? He says, “and certainly without mention of the divine name.” Why is that so certain?

There are two possibilities. One possibility is that if he says “like the vows of the wicked,” he’s basically saying: what the wicked said—he cut off the whole statement. Okay, what I’m doing is what the wicked did. What do the wicked do? They say an oath in the name of God. But I’m only saying that I’m doing what the wicked do. I’m not saying the oath formula itself. So it could be that the Meiri learned it from the wording itself—not that he has some proof, but simply that that’s how he understands the wording.

But I think it goes beyond that. And it’s written elsewhere. It could be that what the Meiri is really saying—and I think that’s what he also said above—when he says “he certainly does not need to mention ‘oath,’” you see here? “He certainly does not need to mention ‘oath’” in the second line. Why? Because if he had mentioned the divine name, then there would be no discussion as to whether it takes effect. After all, if he mentioned the divine name and then profaned it, what difference does it make whether he said the oath or didn’t say the oath? At the end of the day he uttered the divine name in vain. Therefore we are forced to say that the case here is without the divine name. And now the question is: without the divine name, is there an oath here or not? And it says yes. An oath does not require the divine name.

Maybe the fact that he mentioned “the wicked” in this context—so they’re wicked because they do it with the divine name and not— No, no. The “wicked” that appears here means people who jump in and vow or swear without justification. That’s called wicked. Rashi and all the commentators explain here that it’s not “wicked” in the sense of sinners; it means impulsive people, not careful, not cautious in matters of vows and oaths.

Wait—but the Meiri learned this from substitute terms, right? What? I didn’t understand. He learned the opposite of what we said before, of what we said earlier. Why? What? Because he learned it from the fact that it says “substitute terms for oaths,” and therefore it’s clear to him that it’s not the divine name. Is this Meiri on page 2? Yes. So just from the very concept of substitute terms—after all, at the beginning we said no, substitute terms are not the same thing as abbreviations. With abbreviations it’s obvious that not. And the Meiri himself learns from the fact that it says “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths” that really also abbreviations—not abbreviations, but— Earlier I was speaking according to Tosafot, so I said— I mean, but it’s exactly the same thing. He learns exactly the opposite. What do you mean? No, I said no. I said that in principle there can be a difference between substitute terms and abbreviations. Because substitute terms are not shortened language; they’re just different language. And then the divine name can appear there. So substitute terms work. But abbreviations, by definition, are shortened language. So what happens when the abbreviation comes at the expense of the divine name? The divine name doesn’t appear. That raises the question of an oath without the divine name. Okay? If I decide that with oaths the divine name isn’t needed, fine—like those Geonim said—then with substitute terms too I can say it’s without the divine name.

But didn’t they learn that from this Mishnah? What do you mean? He wrote, “And some of the Geonim learn from here.” “From here” means from “substitute terms for oaths are like oaths,” no? Okay, right—so what? Meaning, from the very fact that it says “substitute terms for oaths,” they understand— And in Tosafot’s position, after all, the distinction is that with an oath you do require the divine name, unlike those Geonim. You do require the divine name. So how will he explain substitute terms? No problem, because substitute terms are just another language; they’re not something shortened. Those Geonim say no, you don’t need the divine name, so they apparently understand that both with substitute terms and with abbreviations it can be done without the divine name. Did they understand that before it was written in the Mishnah? Not necessarily. It could be that you’re right, that they learned it from the Mishnah, but they have no problem learning the Mishnah that way. Since Tosafot says the divine name is required, then for Tosafot it’s obvious that when the Mishnah says substitute terms, it does not mean that the divine name was omitted. Right—that it’s with the divine name. Fine. Therefore Tosafot certainly won’t infer the inference of those Geonim. But in any case, what I explained earlier—the difference between substitute terms and abbreviations—is according to Tosafot. Even if I were to learn, like those Geonim, from the Mishnah itself, if I held like those Geonim for some other reason too—that an oath doesn’t require the divine name—then when I’d come to read the Mishnah and I’d see “substitute terms,” I wouldn’t necessarily assume the divine name is there. Okay.

So from what follows it seems that only in an oath of testimony do you need the divine name? And if so, we keep reading: “And if so, what they said in the chapter dealing with an oath of testimony—that it requires mention of the divine name, as we explained there, because we derive ‘alah alah’ from the ordeal of the suspected adulteress, a verbal analogy from the suspected adulteress, that one must mention the divine name—this is difficult for that view.” We see that an oath does require mention of the divine name, so how can those Geonim say it does not?

Rather, later rabbis answer that the divine name was required only when one is being made to swear by others, as in the case of the suspected adulteress. Only when I am sworn by others do I have to mention the divine name. If I swear on my own, I can swear even without the divine name. And in an oath of testimony it is always someone who is being made to swear by others. I come to a person and I say to him, “You owe me an oath”—rather, testimony—and I make him swear that he doesn’t know testimony for me. That’s called an oath of testimony. So an oath of testimony requires the divine name, because there he is being sworn by others. But the oaths we are talking about are oaths a person swears himself, not oaths imposed by others, and there the mention of the divine name is not required. That’s his claim.

The essence is his intention? What? As if the essence is his intention. He swears by himself, to himself. Yes.

And the great commentators wrote—by the way, the Meiri uses code names. “The great commentators” means the Ra’avad, and “the great compilers” means Maimonides. I don’t even remember who “the later rabbis” refers to. I don’t remember right now who “the later rabbis” are. You’d have to look in the introductions. Usually in the scholarly editions of the Meiri, like Sofer and those, I think there’s some key at the beginning explaining how to understand all his code names. “Geonim” is a specific person? “Some of the Geonim” probably just means from the Geonic authorities, what we call the Geonim, I think. But “the great commentators” is fixed—that’s the Ra’avad. “The great compilers” is known to be Maimonides. I don’t remember whether “the later rabbis” has some fixed decoding or not. But “the great commentators” and “the great compilers” are standard in the Meiri.

Okay. So “the great commentators” wrote—that’s the Ra’avad—that the divine name was required only in an oath of testimony and an oath over a deposit. In an oath of testimony, because of the verbal analogy of “alah alah” from the suspected adulteress, as we saw above. And in an oath over a deposit, because of the verbal analogy from deposit to testimony in the phrase “and he sins.” A verbal analogy from the oath over a deposit to the oath of testimony. By the way, in an oath over a deposit too, one is sworn by others, so maybe you wouldn’t even need that verbal analogy. But an oath of utterance does not require mention of the divine name. Rather, whenever he said “an oath that I will not eat of yours,” or even “expressed” that “I will eat of yours,” or he said “if I eat of yours,” and similarly “no no” and “yes yes”—as long as his intention is for an oath, if it’s clear to us that he means an oath even if he did not say the divine name, there is an oath of utterance here. An oath of utterance means not an oath over a deposit, not an oath of testimony, but an oath by which he binds himself to something. Okay?

What are these “no no” and “yes yes” and all these games? They’re just expressions that carry the meaning of an oath. And why? Because “no no” and “yes yes” in the Torah are things like “no no” and “yes yes,” where the person intended by them to the “no no” spoken about the Holy One, blessed be He—meaning, “not to continue any more.” The Holy One, blessed be He, swore not to bring another flood upon the earth, “and there shall never again be water for a flood.” So that “no no” is simply oath-language, like the way the Holy One, blessed be He, swore. And it says, “I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall never again pass over…” so we see that when the Holy One, blessed be He, committed Himself not to bring a flood, that was in the category of an oath. Now if a person says some expression like that, which evokes those verses, from our standpoint those are substitute terms for oaths. So it’s simply another way of swearing. And the same with “yes yes,” and likewise if he said “right” and “left,” it doesn’t matter, all of that is not important for our purposes.

But all of that has support from verses—some textual anchor? Yes—not necessarily, otherwise you can’t classify it that way. No, no, it doesn’t have to be that it’s anchored specifically in verses. In this case his intention becomes clear to us through the verses, but if I had some other indication that he means an oath, I assume that would also be good. It doesn’t specifically have to come from a verse. And as was said in the Tosefta: if one says, “By my right hand—an oath; by my left hand—an oath,” he does not need mention of the divine name at all. So we see that all kinds of expressions like these—it’s not important right now exactly how we know they are oath-language—but they are expressions of an oath without the divine name being mentioned, and that is perfectly fine; it is also an oath according to the view of the Geonim and the Ra’avad.

Does the Meiri himself also hold that way? What? Does he also hold that way? No, he brings the opinions; he doesn’t say what he himself thinks.

“In any case, even they only said this regarding a sacrifice in the case of an oath of utterance, where there is a sacrifice for its inadvertent violation.” Someone who swears an oath of utterance and violates it has a sacrifice to bring. But as for lashes in the case of an intentional violation of an oath, or in a vow where there is no sacrifice for inadvertent violation but only lashes—in a vow there is no sacrifice at all. In an oath there is a sacrifice, but if it was intentional then there’s no sacrifice in an oath, okay? So what he says is that in a situation where lashes are involved—meaning either in a vow, where it’s only lashes and no sacrifice, or in an oath with intentional violation, where too it’s not a question of sacrifice but of lashes—there it is clear that one is liable only if the divine name was mentioned. Meaning, even the Ra’avad and those Geonim, who do not require the divine name in an oath of utterance, say that only with respect to sacrifice. But with respect to lashes, punishment, they certainly require the divine name; even the Ra’avad and the Geonim agree.

What’s the explanation? Because the warning regarding an oath is from “You shall not bear the name of the Lord your God…” and similarly “You shall not swear by My name…” and so on. So we see that the divine name is required in order to incur liability. Notice my introduction. What did my introduction say? That if you didn’t say the divine name, maybe we complete it and it’s as though you said it—but you can’t say that you bore the divine name in vain if you violated such an oath. That’s what he’s saying here. Therefore, lashes or punishment you cannot get by virtue of abbreviations; that’s simply irrelevant. Why could there be a sacrifice? Because for sacrifice, he claims, the warning doesn’t come from there. In a moment we’ll spell this out further.

So, the Ra’avad and the Geonim. “Even the great compilers agree”—the great compilers is presumably Maimonides—“that even without mention of the divine name, there is at least a prohibition.” No lashes, but there is a prohibition. Okay? Apparently according to both the Ra’avad and Maimonides. Without the divine name there are no lashes, but there is a prohibition. As for sacrifice, that is the dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad. So they agree that without the divine name there are no lashes; they both agree there is a prohibition without the divine name; they disagree on whether there is a sacrifice without the divine name. The Ra’avad says yes; Maimonides says no. Sorry—Maimonides says no. Maimonides requires the divine name; the Ra’avad says there is sacrificial liability, you don’t need the divine name in order to incur liability. The Ra’avad and the Geonim—that’s what we saw above. Okay? Clear? You have to keep your head here.

“And it follows that between them there is no dispute at all regarding vows.” Regarding vows there is no disagreement, because in vows the discussion is only about lashes; there is no discussion of sacrifice in vows. “And regarding oaths, there is no disagreement except concerning sacrifice.” Except concerning sacrifice. “Nevertheless, according to the great compilers”—Maimonides—“you interpret all the passages…” Since Maimonides requires the divine name, all the passages where it appears to be without the divine name must be interpreted to mean that the divine name was in fact there. “You interpret all the passages as involving mention of the divine name”—that is, “expressed by God,” or “yes yes by God,” all as we explained in Tractate Shevuot, what he also said above. It doesn’t matter—but according to Maimonides the divine name has to appear there in some form.

And then of course, according to Maimonides, in our passage, where it says that if you say “like the vows of the wicked” there is an oath-liability, even though apparently you didn’t mention the divine name—that’s what the Meiri above used as proof that apparently the divine name isn’t needed—according to Maimonides you have to say that the divine name was also present here. Fine. Or according to Maimonides, when he says “like the vows of the wicked,” and the wicked are accustomed to say it with the divine name, then Maimonides will say that—yes. “Like the vows of the wicked,” where in the oath itself he didn’t say the divine name. Didn’t say it? We’re talking about a case where he did say it: “like the vows of the wicked, by the divine name.” That’s how the Meiri explains it, and it really is forced. And that’s what the Meiri says.

So in short, we’re left with a dispute between Maimonides on one side and the Ra’avad and the Geonim on the other. The Ra’avad and the Geonim say: you do not need the divine name regarding sacrificial liability, but you do need the divine name for lashes. Maimonides says: you need the divine name for both sacrifice and lashes. But everyone agrees that if you said it without the divine name, there is a prohibition. You might not get lashes, but there is a prohibition. Okay? Those are the data points.

The source of the dispute is Maimonides, Laws of Oaths, chapter 2, halakhah 12. Maimonides says: “Likewise, one who says, ‘An oath by God,’ or ‘by the One whose name is Compassionate’”—the oath I mentioned earlier. What does “by the One whose name is Compassionate” mean? That’s an oath by a substitute name—not substitute terms for oaths, but an oath using a substitute for the divine name. And that counts as an oath in the divine name. You don’t need the explicit name. Fine? This isn’t just uttering a name. We’re talking here about someone who swears by God’s name and then violates his oath, so he has profaned the Name—not the divine name in the narrow sense, but the Name itself. Therefore you need to swear by God, not by the specific divine name. You can swear even by a substitute name, as long as it’s clear that your oath is by the Holy One, blessed be He. Okay? That’s basically what Maimonides says. But it is still clear that according to him you need a name or substitute name, which is also a name. According to the Ra’avad, you don’t need “by God” and you don’t need “by the One whose name is Compassionate.” For sacrifice you don’t need any divine name at all. For lashes, yes—but not for sacrifice.

Okay? “That I will not eat”—and he ate; “that this is a woman”—and it is a man; “that you have none of mine”—and he does have; “that I do not know testimony for you”—and he does know; “he is liable.” So this is not only about an oath of testimony, but also about an oath of utterance, right? He swore, “I will not eat,” and he ate. “That this is a woman” is about the past, yes—“that this is a woman,” and it is a man. So that’s Maimonides.

Then afterward, in halakhah 4, he says: “If he said ‘These are binding,’ or ‘cursed,’ or ‘oath,’ and did not mention a divine name or substitute name, he is forbidden regarding the thing about which he swore. But he does not receive lashes and does not bring a sacrifice if he violated his oath, unless there is in it one of the unique divine names or one of the substitute names, as we explained, such as ‘by the One whose name is Compassionate.’” Fine, same idea. Meaning Maimonides argues that with regard to both sacrifice and lashes, without the divine name or a substitute name there is no liability—neither sacrifice nor lashes. Fine? So that is Maimonides’ view.

The Ra’avad argues with him there in halakhah 3. He says: “Likewise, one who says ‘an oath by God,’ etc.” Said Abraham: “This matter has not settled with me.” Meaning, I have not found a divine name or substitute name among substitute names in an oath of utterance. “And we have not found a name except in testimony and deposit,” as the Meiri brought. Fine? Meaning, we require the divine name only in an oath of testimony and an oath over a deposit. So he says “alah alah” from the suspected adulteress, and so on—that’s details. Okay? But according to him, clearly you do not need the divine name and you do not need a substitute name in an oath of utterance; only in an oath of testimony and an oath over a deposit.

He goes on: because regarding testimony it says “an adjuration and a voice,” and we derive “alah alah” from the suspected adulteress; and deposit is learned by “and he sins” from testimony. But in an oath of utterance—even if one says “expressed” or “binding oath,” if he said “expressed, I will not eat of yours,” that expression “expressed, I will not eat of yours,” or “oath,” and similarly “binding,” even though he did not say either a divine name or a substitute name—if he said it with intent for an oath, even though he did not mention a divine name, it is an oath. And similarly “no no” and “yes yes,” everything we saw earlier. Okay? “And this applies to sacrifice. And likewise to ‘do not delay.’ But for lashes we require a divine name, as it is written: ‘You shall not bear the name of the Lord your God in vain,’ and with a false oath too it says: ‘You shall not swear by My name falsely.’ One has to swear in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He; one needs the divine name.” Okay? That’s his claim. And that too is what the Meiri brought.

Now the Ran on page 2 writes: “‘And oaths are like oaths’—that is, a substitute term for an oath is like an oath, and it takes effect. And from this we hear that an oath does not require the divine name.” Exactly what we saw before in the Geonim—what Noam, what you described, that they learn it from here. Yes—so in the Ran we see it even more clearly. In the Ran, sorry, we see it even more clearly that he learns it from here, because he understands that the substitute term being discussed there is without the divine name—a substitute term for the oath. Rather, since he said “oath” or “swota,” which is a substitute term for “I will not eat this loaf,” it is forbidden to eat it. “For the Mishnah is dealing with such a case. For if it were dealing with a case where he mentioned the divine name, why would it be specifically because of a substitute term for an oath? Let it follow from the mention of the divine name. For even without ‘oath’ and without a substitute term it would be an oath.” What is his proof? What I said above: he has proof that it must be that there the substitute terms are without the divine name. Why? Because if the case included the divine name, then quite apart from the law of substitute terms, he uttered the divine name in vain. So he would be liable for that regardless of the laws of oaths. And if he said “oath” as well—he uttered the divine name—what does that have to do with substitute terms? You uttered the divine name in vain. If you’re discussing the laws of substitute terms, and you’re saying that only because there is a law of substitute terms therefore it counts as an oath, that implies that the case there is without the divine name. Because if it included the divine name, there’d be no need to resort to the question of substitute terms. Okay? That’s the Ran’s proof. Tosafot didn’t say that; Tosafot claims it’s with the divine name.

In any event, he concludes: “But the Ra’avad of blessed memory said that with respect to lashes one does not receive lashes except when the divine name is mentioned, for in all the prohibitions of an oath the divine name is written.” “You shall not bear the name of the Lord,” “You shall not swear by My name”—it all says “My name,” right? “But regarding the prohibition itself, even without the divine name it still exists.” Fine? Just as the Meiri said in Maimonides—he says also in the Ra’avad. Yes, and in the Meiri too it’s fairly clear. Maimonides and the Ra’avad do not disagree about this point: when I swore without the divine name, there are no lashes, but there is a prohibition. If I swore inadvertently, regarding sacrifice—that’s where there is a dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad. The Ra’avad says one is liable for a sacrifice; the divine name is not needed. Maimonides says there is no sacrificial liability. Okay?

But isn’t that also a substantive disagreement about whether there is an oath at all or not? Or does that not really matter? What do you mean? Basically, the fact that Maimonides says there is a prohibition—does that mean there is an oath? Or does it not really matter? Because if there is no oath, then what is the prohibition? Exactly—so what kind of mixed-up thing is this? Okay, we now need to understand exactly that point, and that’s what we’re about to understand.

So Rabbi Naftali Trop, in section 47, explains it like this. He starts precisely with that question. What is this prohibition when you swore without the divine name? Not about sacrifice—about punishment. So he says: there are no lashes, right? According to both Maimonides and the Ra’avad. But there is a prohibition. According to both Maimonides and the Ra’avad. What exactly is this prohibition? What is going on here?

So he says: indeed, in Maimonides’ view one can say that it is prohibited on a Torah level. When he says there is a prohibition, it’s not a rabbinic prohibition; it’s really a Torah prohibition, but without lashes. Why? For he wrote there in halakhah 9 as follows: “Likewise, if one swore that he would not eat this meat, and then went back and said, ‘And this bread is like that meat,’ he is exempt regarding the bread, because he did not utter an oath with his mouth concerning it, but only made an analogy. Nevertheless, even though he is exempt from lashes or from a sacrifice, he is forbidden to eat that bread which he analogized to the oath.” Remember we discussed the concept of analogical extension? There is analogical extension in vows—but in an oath too? Here he’s speaking about it, exactly now.

What is analogical extension? With analogical extension I don’t vow a prohibition on this loaf itself; rather I say: this loaf should be like that offering. So the rules of the offering take effect on the loaf. I transfer the rules from the offering to the loaf, and that’s called analogical extension. As opposed to a vow where I directly vow a prohibition from this loaf. That is analogical extension. What happens if you make an analogical extension in an oath? After all, analogical extension is without the divine name, right? Analogical extension means: here is a thing about which I’m under oath, and I say that this thing should be like that one. That’s analogical extension.

But analogical extension is done on an object. I can’t hear. Analogical extension is done on an object. No, we’re talking about bread that he swore regarding—sorry, meat that he swore regarding. Not that he vowed from it. Fine. He swore that he would eat the meat or not eat the meat. Now he says, “This bread is like that meat.” So if the meat is under an oath, then the analogical extension to the bread is an analogical extension of an oath, not of a vow. And Maimonides says he is exempt regarding the bread. Why? Because he did not utter an oath; he only said “this is like that.” There is no oath-language here. Maimonides says: yes, so he is exempt from lashes, but it is forbidden for him to eat that bread which he analogized to the oath. What’s the meaning of that? Here we see explicitly in Maimonides—not just inferences by commentators, the Ran and others, or the Meiri. It’s explicit in Maimonides himself—that because he did not utter the divine name he is exempt from lashes, but there is still a prohibition. What is the meaning of this prohibition? If there is a prohibition, let there be lashes; if there are no lashes, then there shouldn’t be a prohibition either. How are you suddenly manufacturing a prohibition without lashes?

And the reason—what? I’m saying that specifically in the Meiri once you said that when someone transgresses something—I don’t remember in what context it was—that before Heaven he still is liable. You were talking about the Meiri in the chapter “HaKones,” where the Meiri discusses indirect damage, where one is exempt in human courts but liable in the judgment of Heaven. There the Meiri says that “liable in the judgment of Heaven” doesn’t mean he is punished; it means he has to pay, but the court doesn’t extract it from him. Fine, but that’s a different discussion.

Okay, so now he explains. “And its reason was explained by the Kiryat Sefer”—that’s the Mabit—“that this exemption is only from ‘he shall not profane.’” Okay. The prohibition is the Torah prohibition of “he shall not profane.” That is: the fact that analogical extension is not like uttering an oath with one’s mouth means only that it is not considered as though he actually swore for all the laws of an oath, like sacrifice and the like. But regarding “he shall not profane,” analogical extension even in an oath is considered like uttering with one’s mouth. And his meaning is that “he shall not profane” is not because he transgresses his oath, but because he accepted upon himself not to eat the bread. And even though the oath does not fully take effect, nevertheless he is obligated under “he shall not profane” because he transgresses what he accepted upon himself.” Do you understand what he’s saying? And regarding “he shall not profane,” he isn’t punished? What? If he violates “he shall not profane,” he isn’t punished? Maybe yes—we’ll see in a second.

He says this: when it says here that if he swore without—he made an analogical extension, right? So he swore, but without the divine name. So the verse “you shall not swear by My name falsely” or “in vain” doesn’t apply here, because you didn’t say the divine name. But on the other hand, after all, you committed yourself not to eat this loaf. So if you ate the loaf, then obviously you violated your commitment. You didn’t profane the divine name, because you didn’t utter the divine name. But the commitment itself has taken hold here, the way it takes hold in a vow. And if you violated it, then you violated “he shall not profane” on a Torah level.

I’ll explain a little more. In the Torah, in Parashat Mattot, in the section on vows—we already saw this—both vow and oath appear there with regard to “he shall not profane.” Vows and oaths both fall under “he shall not profane.” So seemingly—and we already discussed this—how does that connect to “you shall not swear by My name falsely” or “in vain”? What is the prohibition of someone who violates an oath? “He shall not profane”? Or “you shall not swear by My name falsely”? The Kiryat Sefer says: both. There are two prohibitions for one who violates his oath. One prohibition is that he profaned the divine name. The second, exactly parallel to a vow, is: you committed yourself to do something and did not keep your commitment. Two prohibitions.

In principle I would say that maybe he should receive eighty lashes: lashes for “he shall not profane” and lashes for “you shall not bear My name falsely.” I don’t remember right now seeing anyone say that, but in principle he could get eighty lashes here. He violated two negative commandments. Now, if I swore without the divine name, then the sections of “you shall not bear My name falsely” or “in vain” don’t apply—I didn’t bear His name. This was only analogical extension; I didn’t mention the divine name. But regarding “he shall not profane,” what difference does it make whether I bore the divine name? I committed myself to do it and didn’t keep my commitment. So just as with a vow, where there’s no divine name, also an oath without the divine name works. Maybe it’s really just a vow, by the way, and not an oath. It could be that it would count as a vow and not an oath, because after all vow and oath both appear in the same verse, and both have “he shall not profane” in Parashat Mattot. Okay? So call it a vow, call it an oath—it doesn’t matter. But it’s not an oath in the sense of profaning the divine name, because he didn’t utter the divine name. But so what? It’s no less serious than a vow. You committed yourself to do something and didn’t do it.

So the fact that you are obligated to keep what you committed to has two separate reasons. One reason is that otherwise you profane the divine name. The second reason is because you committed yourself; a person has to stand by what he committed himself to. And they are two independent reasons. It may be that one of them doesn’t apply if I didn’t utter the divine name, but the commitment is still here, and if I violated the commitment then that’s not okay—I violated “he shall not profane.” If I did it with the divine name, then I violated not only “he shall not profane” but also profanation of the divine name. But if I did it without the divine name, then there is only “he shall not profane.” That is how the Mabit explains Maimonides: according to Maimonides, regarding “he shall not profane,” even without the divine name one has violated a full Torah prohibition. What Maimonides means when he says he does not receive lashes is that he does not receive lashes for “you shall not bear My name falsely” or “in vain.” Okay? Or a sacrifice.

Why is there no sacrifice according to Maimonides? Because for “he shall not profane” there is no sacrifice. The proof is that with a vow there are no sacrifices. Why is there a sacrifice in an oath? Which of the two branches is the sacrificial liability coming from—“he shall not profane,” or “you shall not bear My name falsely”? Obviously from “you shall not bear My name falsely,” because if it came from “he shall not profane,” then a vow too would require a sacrifice, since a vow also has “he shall not profane his word.” If only an oath has a sacrifice, that means the sacrifice belongs to the branch of profanation of the divine name, not to the branch of failure to keep my commitment. Therefore Maimonides says: if you swore without the divine name, then this is not an oath with respect to sacrifice, and not an oath with respect to lashes, because you did not mention the divine name falsely—but “he shall not profane” is still here, because you committed yourself and did not keep your commitment.

Then on “he shall not profane” he should get lashes. And here there’s a big question, because Maimonides says there is a prohibition but no lashes. Seemingly he should have said: there are lashes for “he shall not profane,” just forty and not eighty, if the Mabit is right. Now that’s not so terrible, because you have to remember that this Maimonides is in the Laws of Oaths, not in the Laws of Vows. He deals with the lashes for “he shall not profane” in the Laws of Vows. Here, when he says exempt from lashes, he means exempt from the lashes of an oath, because that’s his subject. He isn’t getting into “he shall not profane”; he dealt with that in the Laws of Vows. So when he says there are no lashes, he means there are no lashes under the laws of oaths—but, as he mentions parenthetically, there is still a prohibition. What prohibition? The “he shall not profane” that I discussed with you in the Laws of Vows; look there and you’ll see there are lashes and everything. I’m just not addressing that here. That’s the Mabit’s claim, I think. And if so, it comes out that someone who swore with the divine name and violated it would get eighty lashes, both for “he shall not profane” and for “you shall not bear My name falsely.”

But how can he get eighty lashes, when the rule is forty less one because he can’t withstand more? For each transgression. There are places where people get lashes twice. Tosafot at the beginning of “Eizehu Neshekh”—the Gemara says there: why do we need both “interest” and “increase”? To make him transgress two prohibitions. Because really they always go together—“interest” and “increase” always go together—so the Gemara says: to make him transgress two prohibitions. Tosafot asks: but one doesn’t get lashes for charging interest, because it’s a prohibition that can be repaired through repayment; you can return the interest and that’s that, so one doesn’t get lashes for it. Tosafot says: if there are no lashes, then what difference does it make that he violated two prohibitions? What practical difference is there? If there are lashes, then the practical difference is that he gets eighty. If there are no lashes, what do I care whether it’s one prohibition or eighteen? There’s still a prohibition.

I have a question. Yes. Maybe from another angle. The concept of “do not delay”—last time we said there is a time span for a vow, meaning if he did not fulfill the vow after three festivals and so on. That’s “do not delay,” not “he shall not profane.” With “he shall not profane,” straightforwardly there is no time frame. Ah, okay, for “do not delay.” So “do not delay” is one thing, and “he shall not profane” depends on whatever time he set. He set a time—and if he didn’t set a time? He said, “I hereby undertake to do this,” so he has a year to do it. A year passed and he didn’t do it—“he shall not profane.” “Do not delay” is after three festivals. We saw some disputes on that issue. Yes, yes, we discussed it. Okay, yes.

In any case, for our purposes, that’s the Mabit’s claim. Okay? And according to that claim, if I understand correctly, it means there isn’t really such a thing as an “oath” as a separate entity in reality that has conditions for taking effect. Rather, I have speech, and if I violate the speech there are different kinds of speech, and if I said the divine name then I violate “you shall not bear the name of God,” and if not then— If I said— No, I don’t think that necessarily follows. Because if I violated—if I said an oath without the divine name, that could be like a vow. Whatever you say in a vow, say also here. It just won’t be an effect on the object, because I didn’t make a vow; maybe it’ll be an effect on the person. There is an effect on me obligating me not to eat. Maybe. There is an effect, but I don’t see that it must follow. No, but it means that an oath doesn’t have some kind of independent existence, no sort of conditions under which it takes effect or not. We always spoke that way about a vow—what conditions are needed for it to take effect or not, and whether there is such a thing as a vow. An oath can also work that way. Why can’t it work that way? How do you see here that it doesn’t? Because I understand that if Maimonides requires the divine name, then once there is no divine name, the oath simply does not take effect. No, the oath does take effect. It just won’t involve profanation of the divine name if I violate it; there will only be “he shall not profane” if I violate it. The oath takes effect. I don’t know. But it could be that you’re right; I’m only saying there is no necessity here. The oath takes effect; there is no profanation of the divine name. It takes effect only insofar as it obligates me to stand by my words, like a vow. Fine? That’s what Rabbi Naftali says.

And according to his words, one can say the same in the Maimonides we mentioned above. The Kiryat Sefer explains Maimonides in halakhah 9 regarding one who made an analogical extension. Rabbi Naftali cites that Kiryat Sefer and says: according to his words, one can also say regarding Maimonides in our halakhot 3–4, that the fact that one becomes forbidden also through an oath without the divine name—what Maimonides says, that there is a prohibition—is because of “he shall not profane.” Since in the end he prohibited the object to himself, his speech takes effect and there is “he shall not profane.” Or “his speech takes effect”—so yes, Noa, according to this it really does take effect. And there is “he shall not profane,” but there is no profanation of the divine name.

Now he says there is yet another view, namely that of Nachmanides, brought by the Rosh in Tractate Shevuot, that an oath does not require the divine name. The Rosh and Nachmanides hold that an oath does not require the divine name. And the Rosh explains that perhaps it works because of an abbreviation, abbreviated formulations. In contrast to Tosafot—remember Tosafot? Tosafot said there are no abbreviations in an oath. The Rosh and Nachmanides say no: by the law of abbreviations, even if you said it without the divine name, by the law of abbreviations we complete your statement. Meaning, Tosafot is like Maimonides, who requires the divine name in an oath, and the Rosh and Nachmanides are like the Ra’avad, who says the divine name is not needed. But the Ra’avad doesn’t say it’s because of abbreviations. What? I can’t hear. The Ra’avad doesn’t say it’s because of an abbreviation. Right, right—we’ll see in a moment that it’s really not exactly the same thing. Here it’s only because of the law of abbreviations. So what does that mean—that it’s because of abbreviations? That in principle the divine name is required, but by the law of abbreviations it counts as though you also said the divine name; I complete your speech. Right? That’s unlike the Ra’avad, where it sounds as if the divine name simply isn’t needed at all. There’s no need to come to the law of abbreviations. Here it is only because “perhaps it is due to abbreviation.” Why “perhaps”? He’s uncertain. Because one could have said maybe it works even without abbreviations, simply because the divine name isn’t needed. Or one could say that the divine name is needed, but by the law of abbreviations it counts as though you said the divine name.

And straightforwardly it sounds like it is an oath for all the laws of oaths. What does that mean? Also for sacrifice. Also for lashes—not only when someone else administers the oath, as in deposit and deposit— No, no, he says: an oath without the divine name—not like the Ra’avad, who says that only for sacrifice does an oath without the divine name count, but not for lashes. He says no—for all the laws of an oath. Unlike the Ra’avad. So it resembles the Ra’avad, but it is even more far-reaching than the Ra’avad. He argues that the lack of need for the divine name is not only for sacrifice but also for lashes. But he means also in an oath of utterance, not only when someone else makes him swear? Obviously. We are talking about an oath of utterance.

More than that: he also says that this isn’t just a case of swearing without the divine name, where the only prohibition is “he shall not profane,” as in the Kiryat Sefer and what we saw earlier. According to Maimonides too, there is a prohibition in an oath without the divine name, but the prohibition is “he shall not profane,” because you didn’t profane the Name since you didn’t say it. But according to the Rosh and Nachmanides, since by the law of abbreviations it counts as though you said the divine name, that means there is not only “he shall not profane” here, but also profanation of the divine name. And therefore he says: this is for all the laws of oaths, including lashes, not only with regard to sacrifice. It’s like that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef point you mentioned. Right, right, in a certain sense. We’ll see in a second.

Now he explains. He says: “It seems we can explain as follows. We must investigate the requirement that an oath needs the divine name. Is the divine name not part of the essence of the oath, but merely the wording of an oath, like the wording of vows? Or is the essence of the oath the utterance of the divine name—that is, the stringency of an oath exists only when he uttered the divine name with his mouth?” What does he mean? He means this:

We have two ways of understanding the need for the divine name in an oath. One possibility is that the divine name is simply the wording, and only if you said it do I understand that you meant an oath. If you didn’t say it, then not. According to this approach, if I violate the oath, the issue isn’t profaning the divine name; the issue is that I violated my word—“he shall not profane.” According to that, if I didn’t say the divine name, then there’s no problem of the divine name in vain. What? Wait. If the divine name wasn’t said, then it’s simply not an oath? Seemingly, if the divine name wasn’t said, then you didn’t intend an oath. Fine.

The second possibility is that the divine name is not required in order to clarify your intention that you mean to swear. The divine name is the essence of the prohibition. Because if you uttered the divine name and then violated the oath, you profaned the Name. That’s entirely different. According to the first conception, there is no essential difference between an oath and a vow. No essential difference—only that the formulation of an oath requires the divine name, because that is how one creates an oath. That’s all. That’s the role of the formulation. Just as in a vow you need to say “konam” or “vow,” in an oath you need to say the divine name. That is the wording that imposes the status of an oath. But once I’ve said that wording, what is the substance of the prohibition? To keep what I committed myself to. But then there is no issue of the divine name in vain. Right—the issue of the divine name in vain is really just saying: keep what you committed yourself to. “He shall not profane.” The same two things we said above too—both “he shall not profane” and profanation of the divine name? No. The essence is only “he shall not profane.” Even profanation of the divine name is really only profanation of his speech. It’s just that oath-language has to be stated with the divine name.

The second possibility is that the whole idea of an oath and of violating an oath is uttering the divine name in vain. Not failing to stand by my word, but uttering the divine name in vain. If you didn’t utter the divine name, then that prohibition simply isn’t there. Maybe there is still “he shall not profane,” as we saw earlier, but the prohibition of “you shall not bear the name of the Lord your God in vain” isn’t there. It simply doesn’t apply. Do you understand the two possibilities?

But what about someone whom others make swear and he says amen? That was in the previous halakhah in Maimonides. If others administer the oath and he only says amen—he doesn’t utter the divine name—and there Maimonides still obligates him both in sacrifice and in lashes. Okay, so what? So that means the second possibility—at least according to Maimonides— He says amen, but through “one who hears is like one who answers” he too has effectively said the divine name. But he didn’t say it—it’s like the blessing of shehecheyanu— Right, but here, when he says amen, it’s obvious that he means: what you said, you said on my behalf; you said it for me, as though I said it. So wait, but that means it’s the first possibility. It can’t be the second, can it? What—in Maimonides? In a minute. First I want us to understand just the two possibilities.

Now he says that with this he can explain the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) that we saw. Why? Wait, but I have a question. Yes. If it’s according to the first possibility, then what does the verse in the Torah mean, “You shall not bear My name in vain”? That you profane your own speech that was said using the divine name. You have to keep it, because otherwise it profanes the Name. But the point is that profanation of the Name is only an indication of your obligation to keep what you committed to. Or the commitment is very weighty because it was spoken in the divine name, but in the end what you have is only an obligation to keep your commitment. Or if you didn’t keep what you committed to, then within “he shall not profane” there is a dimension of profanation of the Name. Not that “he shall not profane” is because of profanation of the Name. It’s not certain that this is “he shall not profane.” It’s the same thing, meaning you profane the speech. If you say that mentioning the divine name is simply because the prohibition is profaning the Name, not failing to stand by my words, then you can say that besides that there is also “he shall not profane,” which is an obligation to stand by my words. But the prohibition of “you shall not bear the name of the Lord your God in vain” is a prohibition of profaning the Name. And because of that, you have to say the divine name. Those are the two possibilities.

Now he says that by this we can understand the dispute among the authorities. “And with this their dispute can be explained. The Rosh’s view is that uttering the divine name is only the wording of an oath.” The Rosh’s position is that what requires the divine name is simply that this is the wording of an oath. But it is not that the prohibition is profanation of the Name. The prohibition is that you did not stand by your commitment. And for that reason, even if he did not mention the divine name, it works through the law of abbreviations, because we treat it as though he completed his words with effective wording—namely with the divine name—like all other abbreviations, where partial speech works as though he completed his statement.

Right? According to the Rosh, why does the law of abbreviations help? Why does the law of abbreviations help even though I didn’t say the divine name? Because the divine name is simply the proper form of wording. So if there is partial wording, the law of abbreviations says it’s as though you said the whole thing. But if I understand that the divine name is required because otherwise the essence of the prohibition just isn’t there—not because I didn’t formulate the oath properly, but because the whole prohibition is profanation of the Name—then what would the law of abbreviations help? The law of abbreviations wouldn’t help at all.

Therefore the position of the Rosh and Nachmanides, who say that only by the law of abbreviations is an oath without the divine name effective, presumably understands that the divine name is only the wording of the oath. So if you didn’t say the divine name, that’s incomplete wording. But the law of abbreviations says that incomplete wording is treated as though we completed it, as though you said the complete formula, and therefore you really did bind yourself. And if you bound yourself and did not keep your word, then you transgressed.

But Maimonides, who disagrees and holds that you need the divine name, and without it nothing helps—not the law of abbreviations and not anything else—without the divine name you do not violate “you shall not bear the name of the Lord your God in vain.” You may violate “he shall not profane,” as we saw earlier, but not “you shall not bear the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Why? Because Maimonides holds that the whole essence of the prohibition is profanation of the divine name. How would the law of abbreviations help? In practice I did not say the divine name. There is no profanation of the divine name here.

As for the commitment itself, that’s what we said earlier: Maimonides may also agree that even without the divine name there is still “he shall not profane,” because he violated his commitment. But the profanation of the divine name is not here. And the dispute between Maimonides and the Rosh and Nachmanides is the question: what is the function of the divine name in an oath? Is the divine name only the proper wording of the oath, or is the divine name the essence of the prohibition of the oath—that you profaned the Name? Or is it only the form by which one imposes an oath because that is the required formula? Here you need “konam,” and here you need to say it with the divine name. Fine—but that can be completed by the law of abbreviations. But completion by the law of abbreviations does not make it so that I actually said the divine name and profaned it. Abbreviations don’t turn me into someone who said the divine name; they turn me into someone who intended what is intended by someone who said the divine name. I intended it—that’s very nice—but I didn’t say the divine name, so there is no profanation of the Name here. Okay? That’s how he explains the dispute.

But the view of Maimonides and the Ra’avad—notice, here Maimonides and the Ra’avad are together against the Rosh and Nachmanides. Why are Maimonides and the Ra’avad the same against the Rosh and Nachmanides? Because regarding an oath without the divine name, in the case of lashes and prohibition, there is no disagreement between them. Right? An oath without the divine name has no lashes but does have a prohibition. Their disagreement is only about sacrifice. But as for lashes and prohibition, they both agree that there are no lashes and there is a prohibition, and we explained earlier why that is—the prohibition is because of “he shall not profane his word,” while lashes—there are no lashes because he did not profane the divine name. So we see that Maimonides and the Ra’avad are in the same camp in this dispute, against the Rosh and Nachmanides. And that is a third approach: the Rosh and Nachmanides. Okay, that’s what he says.

“But the view of Maimonides and the Ra’avad is that when the Torah said, ‘You shall not swear by My name,’ it means that the primary stringency of an oath exists only when he mentioned the divine name. For in truth, regarding ‘he shall not profane,’ it counts as an oath even without the divine name, and not because of the law of abbreviations. Rather, because regarding ‘he shall not profane,’ it counts as oath-language; one does not need the law of abbreviations at all. And the need for the mention of the divine name applies only to the prohibition of ‘you shall not bear,’ not because of ‘he shall not profane.’ But that is only profanation of the divine name, and there the law of abbreviations has no relevance. That is because the mention of the divine name is due to the stringency of the oath, not because of wording—not because it is the wording of the oath. And if so, since he did not mention the divine name, what is missing here is the stringency of the oath. And the law of abbreviations applies only where he did not complete his speech and we treat it as though he completed it. But in this matter, thought is not like speech,” regarding uttering the divine name.

Right? Clear what he’s saying? Yes, okay.

So Maimonides and the Ra’avad both hold—basically up to this point Maimonides and the Ra’avad are the same view, even though earlier we saw that they disagree. They disagree regarding sacrifice, but not regarding lashes and prohibition. They both agree there are no lashes and there is a prohibition, and we explained earlier what that means and why. Because there is “he shall not profane his word,” and that is the prohibition. There are no lashes because he did not profane the Name. Meaning, Maimonides and the Ra’avad both understand that the lashes in an oath are for profanation of the divine name. Therefore they both stand in opposition to the Rosh and Nachmanides, because the Rosh and Nachmanides hold that the lashes in an oath are for failing to keep one’s word. Why do you need the divine name? Because only with the divine name is there the full obligation to stand by one’s word. But that can be completed by the law of abbreviations. So if you didn’t mention the divine name, we complete your speech, because it is only partial wording—we complete your speech by the law of abbreviations. But according to Maimonides and the Ra’avad that won’t help, because even if we complete it by the law of abbreviations, surely that does not mean I said the divine name and profaned it when I later violated the statement. I violated “he shall not profane,” but I didn’t violate profanation of the divine name because I didn’t utter the divine name.

Is there a ruling on this dispute? What? Is there a ruling on this dispute? What do you mean, a ruling? It’s a dispute. It’s a dispute.

So now it comes out that Maimonides doesn’t need the law of abbreviations at all, because according to him he doesn’t require the divine name at all? Right—from his standpoint it is an oath even without the divine name as far as “he shall not profane” is concerned; the divine name only adds the stringency. An oath exists without the divine name with respect to “he shall not profane,” not with respect to profanation of the divine name. Regarding profanation of the divine name, abbreviations won’t help. Regarding “he shall not profane,” you don’t need abbreviations. There is an oath; it’s binding. But if you add the stringency of the divine name, then— So regarding “you shall not bear My name in vain,” the law of abbreviations won’t help, because abbreviations don’t make me into someone who said the divine name. And regarding “he shall not profane his word,” you don’t need the law of abbreviations, because my commitment exists even without the divine name. You don’t need the divine name in order to commit yourself. The law of abbreviations is needed when the divine name is required and I didn’t say it, so abbreviations count as completion. But according to Maimonides and the Ra’avad, for “he shall not profane” you don’t need the law of abbreviations, and for profanation of the divine name, “you shall not bear the name of the Lord in vain,” the law of abbreviations won’t help.

So basically the Rosh and Nachmanides are stricter than Maimonides and the Ra’avad. Right—they are the most stringent. That’s the strictest approach.

Now all that remains is to understand exactly what Maimonides and the Ra’avad are arguing about. Right? So far they’re in the same party against the Rosh and Nachmanides. What is the dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad? Let’s read the next paragraph.

“And the essence of the dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad is whether one is liable to bring a sacrifice without mention…” Regarding intentional violation without the divine name there is no dispute; Maimonides and the Ra’avad are the same view against the Rosh and Nachmanides. Where do they disagree? Regarding inadvertent violation—whether one is liable to bring a sacrifice without the divine name. Okay? So what is the dispute? He says it seems that this depends on whether a sacrifice requires a warning. Does Torah liability for a sacrifice require a formal warning in the Torah? Or is a warning only necessary for lashes, which are a punishment, whereas a sacrifice one can be liable for even without a warning?

He says: “For in the conclusion of the passage in Makkot, we say that a sacrifice does not require a warning, for we compare it to Passover and circumcision, where one brings a sacrifice even though no warning is required. And we say that the reason is because we derive it from idolatry…” Fine, the details of that Gemara aren’t important now. The Gemara there says that sacrifice does not require a warning.

And Maimonides holds—so according to the Ra’avad, if you swore without the divine name, then there is no warning. There is “he shall not profane,” but not the warning of “you shall not bear the name of the Lord,” because there is no divine name here. Now what? According to the Ra’avad, an oath without the divine name does bring sacrificial liability. Why? Because for sacrificial liability, he holds, you do not need a warning. So the fact that there is no warning doesn’t bother me; there is still sacrificial liability. According to Maimonides, even sacrificial liability requires a warning, not only punishment. And since there is no warning here, there will be no sacrificial liability.

Is the sacrifice for “he shall not profane” or for “you shall not bear…”? Can you go over Maimonides again? There’s something Noa asked that really is a good question, and I don’t have a good answer to it. What do you mean? The point is this: his claim is that according to Maimonides, the dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad—after we saw the dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad on one side and the Rosh and Nachmanides on the other—is in the case of intentional violation. For inadvertent violation, if there is sacrificial liability for an oath without the divine name, there is an internal dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad within their own camp. Okay? What is the dispute there? He says the dispute is whether sacrifice requires a warning or not.

His assumption is that an oath without the divine name has no warning, because “you shall not bear the name of the Lord” is the warning. Okay? An oath without the divine name has no warning. So now what? According to the Ra’avad, an oath without the divine name creates sacrificial liability—you don’t need the divine name for sacrifice. Okay? Why? Because for sacrifice he holds you don’t need a warning, so the lack of a warning doesn’t matter. According to Maimonides, sacrificial liability too requires a warning, and since there is no warning here, there is no sacrifice. That’s how he explains the dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad.

This explanation is very difficult. According to his own approach it’s not clear why, according to the Ra’avad, there is sacrificial liability. After all, there is no warning of “you shall not bear the divine name,” so for what are you bringing the sacrifice? Fine—you don’t need a warning—but how do you know there is sacrificial liability here? For “he shall not profane”? But the sacrifice is not for “he shall not profane.” The sacrifice is for uttering the divine name—the proof being that in a vow there is no sacrifice. So according to the Ra’avad, it’s not really about whether sacrifice needs a warning or not. Why would he bring a sacrifice here if there is no prohibition? For what prohibition is he bringing the sacrifice? The problem isn’t technical—that there is no warning. The problem is that he didn’t violate that prohibition. What prohibition did he violate? The prohibition of “he shall not profane” doesn’t carry sacrificial liability, and the prohibition relating to the divine name he didn’t violate, because he didn’t utter the divine name. So the problem is not that there is no warning; the problem is that there is no prohibition here. So for what exactly do you want him to bring a sacrifice?

Apparently, deep down, he means to say that there is some kind of sacrifice for “he shall not profane.” I don’t know. But if it’s a sacrifice for “he shall not profane,” then there is also a warning—so what’s the problem? The warning is “he shall not profane.” I don’t understand his whole move here. I can’t quite understand the cleverness of how he’s trying to dance at two weddings at once in the Ra’avad’s view.

Okay, I think we’ll stop here. There’s also the Shiltei Gibborim, but that’s no longer quite— Ah, one more point that I have to come back to. He resolves the difficulty on Tosafot—just three more minutes, okay? He resolves the difficulty on Tosafot, because after all that’s where we started the whole story.

We saw regarding Tosafot on page 2 that he says an oath requires the divine name. In our passage we see that “like the vows of the wicked” works even for oaths, although he didn’t utter the divine name. So we strained and said that according to Maimonides maybe we can set it up as a case where he did utter the divine name. Okay? But what do we do with that according to Maimonides, or according to Tosafot? So he says this:

“And with this we can resolve what we asked against Tosafot, who wrote that the reason the Mishnah does not count abbreviations of an oath is because abbreviations do not help in an oath. And we asked from our Mishnah on page 9, where we say: ‘Like the vows of the wicked,’ he made a vow regarding Nazirite status, an offering, and an oath—so we see that with an oath there is a law of abbreviation. So why does Tosafot say there is no law of abbreviation, that there is no oath without the divine name?”

“Indeed, according to what we explained above, one can resolve it as follows: the fact that abbreviations help regarding an oath is only with respect to ‘he shall not profane.’ Fine? Where does it say that with an oath there is a law of abbreviation? Only with respect to ‘he shall not profane,’ as would fit Maimonides’ view. But with respect to the laws of an oath—so that it should count as a full oath for sacrifice and lashes—abbreviations do not help. And that is Tosafot’s meaning: that for that reason it did not teach substitute terms for an oath, because with an oath—that is, regarding the laws of an oath—abbreviations do not help.”

That’s what Tosafot on page 2 means when it says there are no abbreviations in an oath. What does it mean, there are no abbreviations in an oath? With respect to the oath prohibition of “you shall not bear the divine name in vain”—there, abbreviations do not help. But with respect to “he shall not profane his word,” yes, abbreviations do help. The commitment—I complete the speech, like we saw in the Rosh, something like that. And therefore, says Tosafot, that’s how Tosafot explains our passage: here we’re talking about “he shall not profane.” There he’s talking about the prohibition involving the divine name, and we are talking about “he shall not profane.” Therefore here there are abbreviations and there there are not.

Notice, there’s an interesting point here. Because according to this, didn’t we say earlier that according to Maimonides and the Ra’avad, regarding the laws of an oath there is no law of abbreviations, and regarding “he shall not profane” you don’t need abbreviations? There is a commitment here. According to Tosafot, it’s not like that. Because according to Tosafot you do need abbreviations—and they help. Right? That’s what he’s saying. Otherwise you wouldn’t need the law of abbreviations, so why say that in our passage there is a law of abbreviations? You wouldn’t need the law of abbreviations; it would work without it. If he says that in our passage there is a law of abbreviations with respect to “he shall not profane,” then for sacrifice tied to the divine name the law of abbreviations doesn’t help, because in the end you didn’t say the divine name. But with respect to “he shall not profane,” abbreviations do help.

So what is he saying here? Something even more interesting. He claims there are two functions of the divine name. What does that mean? The divine name both functions as the language that imposes the concept of an oath, and also turns it into something such that if you violate the oath you have profaned the Name. But in both respects you need the divine name. So what does that mean now? Now everything is resolved.

What does it mean? If you’re talking about the liability of the oath in “you shall not bear the divine name in vain,” that’s Tosafot on page 2. There the law of abbreviations does not apply. You didn’t say the divine name—there’s nothing. What does our Gemara say, that there is a law of abbreviations in an oath? Only regarding “he shall not profane.” But regarding “he shall not profane,” it’s not that you don’t need abbreviations—you do need them, but they exist. Why do you need abbreviations regarding “he shall not profane”? Because even regarding “he shall not profane” I need the divine name. Otherwise why is the law of abbreviations needed here? Even regarding “he shall not profane,” I need the divine name. The claim is really that the conceptual question he raised earlier—in Tosafot’s view, Tosafot holds both sides of it. The Ra’avad and Maimonides disagree with the Rosh and Nachmanides. Tosafot agrees with both sides. You need the divine name both because it is the proper wording to create the obligation of the oath, and also because if you violate it, then you have borne the divine name in vain. That means there is a difference between an oath and a vow, because an oath without the divine name won’t even have “he shall not profane”—only by the law of abbreviations does that come in. Okay.

So Tosafot is really taking both sides—both the side of the Ra’avad and Maimonides, and the side of the Rosh and Nachmanides. Maybe, maybe that resolves what I said earlier—that I found it difficult how he explained the Ra’avad. He explained the Ra’avad by saying that for a sacrifice you don’t need a warning, so there is sacrificial liability. I asked: but there is no prohibition, so what then? No—there is the prohibition of “he shall not profane.” Yes, there is the prohibition of “he shall not profane,” but without the divine name there is no warning that generates sacrificial liability. He said yes, but sacrifice doesn’t need a warning. But it still comes out difficult, because it turns out that the sacrifice comes for “he shall not profane.” That if you said the divine name, then “he shall not profane” generates sacrifice—not “the divine name in vain,” but “he shall not profane” generates sacrifice. That still remains difficult in the Ra’avad’s view. Fine?

Yes. So according to this, in vows, where one violates “he shall not profane,” is he liable for a sacrifice? Again. So according to this, if in vows he violates “he shall not profane,” why isn’t he liable for a sacrifice? Because he didn’t say the divine name. Tosafot claims that even regarding “he shall not profane,” in oaths too the divine name is needed. In vows, no. And therefore only in an oath is there a sacrifice; in vows there is not.

According to Tosafot, then, the definition of an oath has to include the divine name, otherwise it isn’t an oath. But I can refrain from saying the divine name and use the law of abbreviations. Then there will be only “he shall not profane,” but not profanation of the divine name. Therefore Tosafot on page 2, which speaks about profanation of the divine name, says there are no abbreviations in an oath. Our passage, which speaks about liability under “he shall not profane,” says there are abbreviations, because there the case works even without the divine name by virtue of the law of abbreviations.

I understand. So Tosafot is very, very close to Maimonides and the Ra’avad, except for that remark there that there is no law of abbreviations. I mean, because regarding the Ra’avad too he explains that you don’t need the law of abbreviations in order to obligate under “he shall not profane,” whereas according to Tosafot, you are indeed obligated without the divine name, but only because of the law of abbreviations. Yes—right—but still. We needed it. So they do disagree. Because Maimonides and the Ra’avad say that it is an oath even without the divine name—meaning, the divine name is not part of the definition of the oath. It’s a full oath. There is no need to say the divine name for there to be “he shall not profane.” You don’t need the divine name for “he shall not profane.” You only need the divine name for profanation of the Name—“you shall not bear the name in vain.” “He shall not profane” exists even without the divine name. Therefore, even without abbreviations—you don’t need the law of abbreviations—if you didn’t say the divine name, so what? Exactly. “He shall not profane” exists. And Tosafot argues that if you didn’t say the divine name, there is “he shall not profane,” but only because of the law of abbreviations. Okay.

So we’re ending the current round here. Announcements about after Passover I’ll send. That’s it—if there are no comments or questions, then we’ll wish you a kosher and happy Passover. Thank you very much, a kosher and happy Passover. A kosher and happy Passover. Yes—Passover, a kosher and happy Passover, goodbye. Thank you.