Time in Halakha 5
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The condition of “from now” versus the condition of “if,” and the concept of retroactive clarification
- “From here on, retroactively” and backward causation in time
- Kant, the age of the world, and a present-day perspective on the past without time
- Annulment of vows as an example of “from here on, retroactively,” and the practical difference regarding lashes
- The booklet on conditions at the end of tractate Gittin and proofs from rulings of the medieval authorities (Rishonim)
- The Savoraim: “On condition that you do not drink wine all the days of your life” after the husband’s death
- Maimonides: “From now, if I do not come from now until twelve months” and death within the twelve months
- Ba’al Ha’Itur: retracting from the act before fulfillment of the condition
- The Rosh: canceling the condition so that the bill of divorce takes effect without fulfillment of the condition, and “speech comes and cancels speech”
- The Rashba: “From now and after thirty days” and the impossibility of divorcing before fulfillment of the condition
- Human choice, bereirah, and types of future information
- “What is her status during those days”: halakhic superposition and a “certain doubt”
Summary
General Overview
The text presents Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s understanding of the mechanism of halakhic conditions, especially a condition of “from now” such as “on condition that,” and rejects the usual understanding of retroactive clarification, according to which fulfillment of the condition merely reveals a status that had existed all along. Rabbi Shimon Shkop argues that the future event of fulfilling or nullifying the condition is a causal factor that retroactively generates the halakhic status, and he describes this as “from here on, retroactively,” to the point that at times it sounds as though the past itself is determined, or at least that our perspective on it changes from the moment of the event onward. Along the way, examples are brought from bills of divorce, vows, rulings of medieval authorities (Rishonim), and Maimonides, and a philosophical position is also presented according to which information dependent on human choice does not exist in advance. Later, a conception of “both and both” in intermediate statuses under a condition is described, like a kind of superposition in which the woman is both divorced and not divorced, with a distinction between the legal effect as an object and the halakhic properties and consequences that stem from it.
The condition of “from now” versus the condition of “if,” and the concept of retroactive clarification
A condition of “if” creates legal effect only at the time the condition is fulfilled, while a condition of “on condition that” is treated as “whoever says ‘on condition that’ is as though he said ‘from now,'” so that when the condition is fulfilled it becomes clear that the legal effect took hold from now. The accepted view sees this as retroactive clarification: the fulfillment reveals after the fact a status that had been true all along, and the fulfillment merely completes human ignorance in contrast to divine knowledge. Rabbi Shimon Shkop argues that this is not how it works, particularly when the condition depends on a human decision, because the information does not yet exist but is created through choice.
“From here on, retroactively” and backward causation in time
Rabbi Shimon Shkop explains that the future event does not reveal information that already existed, but rather generates it and serves as the causal factor for a status that is already attributed to the past. The mechanism is called “from here on, retroactively,” and at the moment the woman gives two hundred zuz, “the past as it were changes”—not merely that it becomes clear that this is how things were, but that the past changes. In some places the meaning is presented more moderately: the past itself does not change, but the perspective from here on regarding the past changes, so that the answer to the question “what was” depends also on “from what moment you ask the question” and from which point in time you are looking.
Kant, the age of the world, and a present-day perspective on the past without time
An example is brought from Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen about the age of the world according to Kant, according to whom space and time are forms of human perception, and therefore “before there were human beings there was no time,” and consequently it makes no sense to discuss the age of the world beyond the emergence of human consciousness of time. The speaker rejects this and argues that even if one adopts a Kantian view, once you put on the “glasses of time,” you can use them to look at the past as well and date it, just as one can ask “when was my grandfather born,” even though the form of perception is my present one. According to this, one can also ask about “what happened before the creation of the world,” because the glasses characterize the point of view, not the object being observed, and scientific questions are interpreted in today’s definitions of time and in the language used today.
Annulment of vows as an example of “from here on, retroactively,” and the practical difference regarding lashes
The text brings the laws of “something that has a permitted way out” in relation to annulment of vows and cites the Jerusalem Talmud’s question: if the sage permits the vow and the vow becomes permitted retroactively through an opening and regret, why is this considered “something that has a permitted way out” and not something that was never forbidden to begin with? Rabbi Shimon Shkop explains that when the vow was forbidden, it really was forbidden, and the annulment is not a revelation that there was never a vow but a retroactive uprooting, sometimes described as a “change in the past” only from the point of the annulment onward. A practical difference is brought regarding lashes: if the transgressor was flogged before the annulment, according to Rabbi Shimon that was justified because at that time there really was a vow; but if he had not yet been flogged and he came to a sage who annulled it for him, “from now you can no longer flog him,” because from the perspective of now, even the then is seen differently.
The booklet on conditions at the end of tractate Gittin and proofs from rulings of medieval authorities (Rishonim)
It is said that Rabbi Shimon Shkop, at the end of tractate Gittin, in the final section, composed a “booklet on conditions,” and at its beginning he brings a series of rulings by medieval authorities (Rishonim) that seem “very strange” according to the understanding of retroactive clarification. It is said that each of the difficulties in those rulings serves as proof for his view that the mechanism is “from here on, retroactively” and not retroactive clarification.
The Savoraim: “On condition that you do not drink wine all the days of your life” after the husband’s death
The view of the Savoraim is brought, according to which if the husband divorced her “on condition that you do not drink wine all the days of your life,” and she drank after the husband’s death, “the divorce is not nullified.” It is said that it is difficult to find “a sufficient reason” for their view, and this difficulty becomes sharper if one understands a condition as retroactive clarification, because then the drinking of wine merely reveals that there never was a bill of divorce, and it makes no difference whether the husband is dead or alive. Within Rabbi Shimon’s framework, this makes sense if the drinking of wine is supposed actually to uproot the divorce retroactively, and such an uprooting after the husband’s death is not relevant because “you can no longer touch the divorce” when the party to whom the legal effect applies is no longer in the world.
Maimonides: “From now, if I do not come from now until twelve months” and death within the twelve months
The words of Maimonides are cited from Laws of Divorce, chapter 9, halakhah 11: if he said, “This is your bill of divorce from now if I do not come from now until twelve months,” and he died within the twelve months, even though it is impossible for him to come and she is divorced, “she may not marry where there is a levir until after twelve months.” The Maggid Mishneh explains that according to Maimonides, “the condition must be fulfilled in practice,” and it is not enough that it is clear to us that he will not come, and the text presents this as proof that fulfillment of the condition is causative and not merely the revelation of information. The explanation states that the knowledge that the man will not come does not create the legal effect, because only the actual occurrence of “not coming” over the course of twelve months retroactively causes the divorce.
Ba’al Ha’Itur: retracting from the act before fulfillment of the condition
The view of Ba’al Ha’Itur is brought, according to which in a condition of “from now,” “he can retract from the entire act before the condition has been fulfilled.” The Torat Gittin wonders how he can retract after, from his side, “the act has already been completed,” especially if fulfillment of the condition causes divorce retroactively. The text explains that this makes sense if fulfillment of the condition is considered the completion of the act of divorce and only then is the action finalized, so beforehand the act is still open to change.
The Rosh: canceling the condition so that the bill of divorce takes effect without fulfillment of the condition, and “speech comes and cancels speech”
The words of the Rosh are brought from responsa 45 and 47, cited in the Tur and Shulchan Arukh, Even HaEzer, that in a condition of “from now” “he can cancel the condition so that the bill of divorce takes effect without fulfillment of the condition,” and his reasoning is “because the condition is speech, and speech comes and cancels speech.” Rabbi Shimon Shkop asks that according to the ordinary interpretation of retroactive clarification, it is impossible to understand how one can now newly create a divorce if it has been clarified retroactively that it never took effect, and he presents this as strengthening the view that the condition is not merely clarification but a mechanism that creates or uproots legal effect retroactively.
The Rashba: “From now and after thirty days” and the impossibility of divorcing before fulfillment of the condition
The words of the Rashba are brought from responsum 957, cited in Beit Shmuel, Even HaEzer, that in the case of one who betroths “from now and after thirty days,” according to the opinion that it is a condition, “he cannot divorce before fulfillment of the condition.” The text explains that according to a causative conception, the betrothal is not complete until the thirty days pass, even though it is attributed retroactively, and therefore it is impossible to divorce before completion of the betrothal; whereas according to retroactive clarification, one might have said that already now she is his wife and only the information will become clear in the future.
Human choice, bereirah, and types of future information
The text distinguishes between cases in which the information exists but is unknown, between a natural future event where under a deterministic framework the information about it already exists, and a future event dependent on choice, where “the information itself does not exist—even the Holy One, blessed be He, does not know it.” An example is brought from bereirah: “This is your bill of divorce… for whichever one exits through the doorway first,” where the identity of the woman depends on human decisions and therefore cannot be described as retroactive revelation. The claim is that in such situations retroactive clarification is impossible, and the only option within halakhah is an understanding of legal effect as something causatively determined retroactively.
“What is her status during those days”: halakhic superposition and a “certain doubt”
Rabbi Shimon Shkop asks what the status is of a woman who was given a bill of divorce “from now” on condition that it be fulfilled in the future, and a position is presented according to which this is not an ordinary doubt, but rather that she is “both divorced and not divorced,” similar to “Schrödinger’s cat” and to the collapse of a state in a quantum experiment. The sharpening of the point is that legal effect is not identical with the property of the actual state of affairs; rather, it is like an abstract object borne by the person, so that one can have both “the legal effect of divorce” and “the legal effect of a married woman” together without internal contradiction, and the contradiction arises only at the level of properties and consequences. From this there emerges a distinction between something similar to the laws of doubt and a state that is not doubt at all but a “two-sided certainty,” called a “certain doubt,” with the practical difference that there is no room for the leniency of a rabbinic-level doubt, because the prohibition applies on account of the “side” that actually exists in the legal effect.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I spoke a bit about conditions, and we reached the conclusion—or the explanation—of Rabbi Shimon Shkop, that a condition doesn’t operate in the way people usually understand it. I’m talking about a condition of “from now.” Meaning, I divorce a woman on condition that she give me two hundred zuz. A condition of “on condition that”—whoever says “on condition that” is as though he said “from now.” So when I divorce a woman on condition that she give me two hundred zuz, then the moment she gives the two hundred zuz, she is divorced from now. There’s also a condition of “if”—you are divorced if you give me two hundred zuz—then the divorce takes effect only when she gives the two hundred zuz. But a condition of “on condition that” means that if the condition is fulfilled, then the divorce takes effect now. Usually the accepted view is that this is retroactive clarification. Retroactive clarification basically means that she really was divorced from now, only we didn’t know it. And after she gave the two hundred zuz, what became clear to us was what the Holy One, blessed be He, already knew—because only we lacked that information—but it merely reveals retroactively what the real situation had been. Rabbi Shimon Shkop argues that it doesn’t work like that.
[Speaker B] Why can’t it work like that? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, knew. Wait—the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t know, because—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a function of the person’s decision. Right, so this connects to the premises I gave, that the information itself doesn’t yet exist. That’s the philosophical background for why it’s hard to say this, but Rabbi Shimon Shkop doesn’t get into that. He says that the future event—the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the condition—is the causal factor for what’s happening now. It doesn’t reveal information that in fact already existed; rather, it generates that information. Now, what lies behind this is exactly that claim, the premise we talked about, that there is information that depends on human choice, and that—even the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot know. Again, I’m saying this where the condition makes the act dependent on an action that is a matter of human choice—then this basis is valid. But if the condition depends on rain falling tomorrow or something like that, then at least on the philosophical level there would be room to say that this information exists today and only I lack it. But in any case, that’s how he explains the issue of conditions: there is backward causation in time here. And that is basically the mechanism he called “from here on, retroactively.” “From here on, retroactively” means that the moment the woman gives me the two hundred zuz, then as it were the past changes. Not that it then becomes clear that the past was such-and-such and not otherwise, but that the past changes then. In other words, it causes the change. And “from here on, retroactively”—at least in some places—means even more than that: that even the past doesn’t change, but only that I now look differently even at the past. Meaning, from here on I see the past differently from how it was before. I think I gave this example of Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen about the age of the world. He brings there—yes—according to Kant’s conception, that space and time are only forms of human perception, so he says there is no point debating the question of the age of the world. Because before there were human beings, there was no time. So there’s no point speaking about a world that is, I don’t know, fifteen billion years old. Because let’s say humanity exists—I don’t know—modern humanity with consciousness of time has existed for, say, twenty thousand years, ten thousand years, something like that. So if that’s the case, then that’s the age of the world. Because before that there was no time. And I said that I think that’s not a correct claim, it’s mistaken, because even if we say that Kant is right—we spoke about this, that at least in the halakhic conception it seems not to be so, but rather time is considered a kind of created entity, as Maimonides also writes in the Guide for the Perplexed. It’s not only a form of human perception. But even if I adopt the Kantian view, still, once I’ve put on the glasses—or put on the glasses—of time, I can use them to look at the past as well. Just as I can ask when my grandfather was born, right? Meaning, even though I didn’t yet exist then, and apparently the temporal form of perception—which is my perception—wasn’t relevant because I didn’t yet exist when he was born. Never mind, but today, with my temporal glasses of today, I look at that event there, and I also date the past on the timeline, even though the timeline is only a form of my perception. So what? I can still use it to look at the past too. So I’m talking about a situation where the present event doesn’t really change the past, but it changes my perspective on the past from here on. Meaning, from here on I see the past differently from how I saw it up to now. So when I ask what happened on such-and-such a date… the answer is supposed to be: it depends on at what moment you ask the question. Not which moment, but at what moment you ask the question. The question of which moment I’m asking about—what was the reality on the day before yesterday, on Tuesday, fine—that’s the subject of the question, the content of the question. But the answer depends not only on which day you’re talking about, but also from which day you’re looking. Meaning, if you look at Tuesday from Tuesday itself, then the answer is such-and-such. But if you look at it from the perspective of today, of Thursday, then on Tuesday something else happened.
[Speaker C] So according to that, can one talk about what happened before the creation of the world? What? According to the view you’re presenting now, is it legitimate to speak about what happened before the creation of the world?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? With our glasses today, we look at what was before the creation of the world—why not? It’s the same thing I said before: once I’ve put on these glasses, I’m also allowed to look at the past, at the future. I don’t have to be present there, because the glasses characterize the point from which I am looking, not the point at which I’m looking. That’s exactly the point. Meaning, the point at which I’m looking has no time in it anyway, as Kant says—time is only on my side. So what matters is the question of where I am, not what I’m looking at. And where I am—if I’m at a stage where there is already time—then I’m allowed to ask questions even about situations in which at that time there was no time. Because what matters is the point from which I’m looking. By the way, tomorrow I’m going to talk about this in Ra’anana in another context; it’s a very interesting passage in tractate Pesachim in this connection. I’ll mention it here too at some point. About leavened food, right? Yes, charred leavened food. How do you—you know, we talked about that once? Okay. Charred leavened food, yes. In any case, Rabbi Shimon’s claim is that the fulfillment or nullification of the condition does not reveal what happened in the past but turns the past into something. Meaning, it determines what was in the past, even though it is a future event; it can causally generate events concerning what existed before it. And when I say again, causally generate, that means—
[Speaker D] It generates, not just interpretation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly what I’m saying. You can understand that there are places where Rabbi Shimon expresses himself as if it generates causally, and there are places where it seems that he only changes my perspective from here on regarding the past. But it’s not really a change in the past, rather a rewriting of history, basically—let’s say Stalin’s dream, yes? If he could have arranged history like that, everything would have been wonderful—with the terrible sin of rewriting history.
[Speaker E] So if I look backward to before the creation of the world, or whatever, or to other times that were there, couldn’t it be that even though I’m looking with today’s glasses of time, maybe the definition of time then was entirely different?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be, but what difference does it make? Kant says more than that. Kant says more than that: it could be that then there was no time at all, not just that the definition was different. What difference does it make? In the end, I today, with my glasses, ask myself what was then. I ask that question.
[Speaker E] In today’s definitions of time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. When I ask that question, it will always be in today’s definitions of time, because I live today. So the meaning of the question from the outset—how old is the world—is interpreted in the terms of the language I use today. Therefore everything is determined only by my perspective today. I don’t know what would have happened if I had lived then; I don’t know. Or if I had been there then, maybe there also was time because there were already human beings—but that’s hypothetical. So the whole question—and by the way this also connects to Kant—Kant is generally talking about our picture, the way we look at the world, which is really colored by the colors of our concepts, of the principles according to which we think. We don’t really grasp the world as it is; we grasp the world as it is perceived by us. So time also fits into that same issue. We look at it through the glasses we are wearing today. That doesn’t tell us what was then, but still, that is the meaning of the question. When I ask how old the world is, I’m not really asking what would happen if I had lived such-and-such billions of years ago. Rather, I’m asking how I today see what was then. So that is the meaning of the question from the outset. Meaning, scientific questions and questions of that kind always deal with things described in our language; they do not deal with things as they really are or as they really were. So once that is the meaning of the question, then the answer can also be given in that language, and there’s no problem with it. But for our purposes I’m bringing this only as an illustration of such a mechanism of “from here on, retroactively.” And I think I brought the example from annulment of vows, from release. Right—so in release from vows he says the same thing: that this is “something that has a permitted way out.” Meaning, this is a prohibition that at some stage will become permitted, and therefore various stringencies apply to it. That’s what the Talmud says, both in the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. And the Jerusalem Talmud asks: why? After all, when you—this is something that has a permitted way out because you can go to a sage who will release the vow. It says: but if you go to a sage who releases the vow, then the vow becomes permitted retroactively. The sage finds an opening and regret, meaning: had this been in mind, you would never have vowed at all. So there really never was a vow. So this is not something that has a permitted way out; either it was always permitted, and if it is forbidden then it’s forbidden forever. It’s not something that was forbidden until a certain moment and then became permitted. So Rabbi Shimon Shkop says no, and that’s how he explains it—the Rosh and the Jerusalem Talmud—that this is not true. It is something that has a permitted way out, because when it was forbidden, it really was forbidden. And even if now the sage released it, he uprooted the vow; it’s not that he revealed that there was never a vow, but that he uprooted the vow retroactively. I said even more than that: according to the second interpretation I mentioned earlier, that “from here on, retroactively” means that the fact that the sage uprooted the vow retroactively means that from the moment the sage released the vow, the perspective on the past changes. He didn’t really uproot the vow; rather, he changed the past for those who live from the moment of release onward. When you look at the past, they have to look at it differently. But not that he really changed the past. Then you even have a semi-rational interpretation of looking backward.
[Speaker E] So what’s the practical difference? Meaning, doesn’t something happen now that has some effect for today in the fact that I’m looking backward? No? Yes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—yes, on the contrary, it does have an effect. For example, one who violated the vow is liable to lashes. So if I flogged him before he went to a sage, then if this were retroactive clarification, I would have simply injured him for no reason, because it turned out in the end that there was never a vow at all. But Rabbi Shimon says no: then there really was a vow, the past didn’t change. So if you flogged him, you did exactly the right thing. But if you didn’t manage to flog him and he ran quickly and got to a sage, and the sage released him from the vow, from now on you can no longer flog him. Why? If the vow was annulled now, then when he violated the vow he violated a prohibition—so why don’t you flog him now? What determines things is the moment now. He says no, because from the perspective of now I also see the then differently. But only from the perspective of now. So that’s a consequence. But today we’ll see more consequences. For that, we’ll hand out the pages—the second half of the page.
[Speaker D] Can you count against him three years of suspension—what? Can you count against him three years of suspension of the vow?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Itzik, you’re really flowing today. Anyway, I’m sharp right now. Again, three years? It’s not again—it’s just that back then there was a police officer and they knocked off about three months for me, so now I have retroactive clarification. I was sentenced again. Yes, I was sentenced to three months, and the two months from the police officer came off, so I’ve still got one month left. Yes, there’s one month here. So the accident—never mind why. Okay, in any case, Rabbi Shimon at the end of tractate Gittin, the final section at the end of Gittin—that’s the booklet on conditions. And there he devotes the entire booklet to this topic. Wait, I’ve got two names here—okay, maybe later. At the beginning of the booklet he brings a whole series of rulings by medieval authorities (Rishonim) that seem very strange when viewed through the usual understanding of the concept of a condition. And they all really point—I’ve already introduced this so that we can read it and immediately understand where it’s leading, so I’ll already give the answer now instead of after reading the difficulty; we won’t wait till the end. What he really wants to say, in my language, is this: the standard conception of a condition is retroactive clarification, meaning that fulfillment of the condition reveals that this had been the case all along. All the rulings of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) that he brings here don’t fit with that conception. And in fact every single one of these difficulties is proof for his view that the mechanism is “from here on, retroactively” and not retroactive clarification. That’s the framework. Now let’s see at least a few examples. It goes like this: regarding the explanation of the words of the Savoraim, who hold that in the case of “on condition that you do not drink wine all the days of your life,” if she drank after the husband’s death, the divorce is not nullified. Yes, there is a view of the Savoraim, a view of the Savoraim. The Savoraim are anonymous—we don’t know exactly who they were—but there is such a Savoraic view that appears in the medieval authorities (Rishonim). There are two long responsa of Rabbi Akiva Eiger; one of the first study groups I gave was on this topic, on these passages.
[Speaker B] The Savoraim—but that’s at the end of the period, after the Amoraim.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, yes, but there aren’t really names there; they’re sort of anonymous people. So this Savoraic view says as follows. Suppose a husband divorces his wife on condition that she not drink wine for the rest of her life. Fine? Now the husband dies. He divorced her, okay, a year passed and she is still alive, so in principle the condition is still relevant from her side—she is forbidden to drink all her life. The husband dies. Now what happens if she drinks wine?
[Speaker D] Then apparently she has nullified the divorce.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, she violated the condition. If so, the divorce is nullified, so now in fact she isn’t a divorcee but a widow. Right? That has a practical difference for a priest. Now a priest wants to marry her. If she is divorced he may not marry her, but now that the divorce has been nullified she can marry a priest.
[Speaker F] Ahhh, so it’s good that there’s severance—
[Speaker G] —in the condition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Severance—that’s a perpetual condition—but “all your life” is enough in terms of severance. Okay?
[Speaker G] The sinner comes out gaining. What? The sinner comes out gaining. Why? This… by drinking the wine?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who’s a sinner? She isn’t sinning. She violated the condition. There was no prohibition against violating the condition. No, that’s an important point, because there are places where it really does sound that way.
[Speaker B] On the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the face of it, it’s clear that that’s not the conception of a condition. A person cannot impose prohibitions on his wife; you can’t create prohibitions. Only the Holy One, blessed be He, or the Sages by force of “do not turn aside,” can create prohibitions. He didn’t tell her, “It is forbidden for you to drink wine,” and he also cannot tell her, “It is forbidden for you to drink wine.” Even if he says it, he can’t do it. What he can say is, “If you drink wine, then I did not divorce you,” because that is in my hands—I can decide whether to divorce you or not. Not monetary but contractual. Yes, meaning if you drink wine, then the contract is void; I am not divorcing you on that understanding. Therefore she can drink wine, or she can choose not to drink.
[Speaker E] Since you mentioned it, I’ll raise a question—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that bothered me once, and later I found what I think is a dispute among the Amoraim. The Talmud—meaning, what happens if a person gives a woman a bill of divorce on condition that she not drink wine? Fine. Now she goes and gets married—she’s divorced, she hasn’t drunk wine. Then she goes and marries someone else, and she has children with him. Now she feels like drinking wine. Now if she drinks wine, what happens? The divorce is nullified, so she is married to the first husband. The betrothal to the second did not take effect, and the children from him are mamzerim. She had children from him. Now is it forbidden for her to drink wine? We said before that a condition is not a prohibition, right? A condition means: I stipulate, “If you drink wine—if you want to—but if you drink, then it’s not a divorce.” Fine? I can’t forbid it to you. What happens in a case like that? In a case like that, is it a prohibition? I thought logically that no. That no. Of course there will be consequences—retroactive consequences, that the intercourse is illicit intercourse—but we don’t find in…
[Speaker B] And the children are mamzerim.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. It could be that this is a prohibition between one person and another that results in the child being a mamzer; I’m talking about a prohibition of sexual relations, not an interpersonal prohibition against harming someone else. That probably would apply. But I’m talking about a prohibition of sexual relations. Meaning, I think simply speaking there is no prohibition against turning intercourse into prohibited intercourse. There is a prohibition against engaging in prohibited intercourse. But when I engaged in that intercourse permissibly, and afterward I turned it into prohibited intercourse, I didn’t violate any prohibition. What—is there a prohibition against turning intercourse that has already taken place into prohibited intercourse? Where is that written? So I said that afterward I saw that this is apparently a dispute among the Amoraim. A dispute among the Amoraim—it doesn’t matter, it’s a somewhat complicated passage, a contradiction between two passages. Practically speaking, if I’m right that this is a dispute among the Amoraim, then practically it is indeed prohibited. But the question is what the prohibition is there. Fine. In any case, there it may turn out that drinking the wine is also a prohibition, even though it began as a matter of condition. But there it may become a prohibition. And as for our issue here—so the Savoraim are basically saying—we’re in Rabbi Shimon there, at the beginning of Rabbi Shimon.
[Speaker F] And if it’s retroactive clarification? That’s it. Now if it’s from here on or retroactively? So there is a dispute among the Amoraim in general.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we’ll see in a moment. We’ll see in a moment. No, regarding the previous case—one second. So basically, if I’m speaking now about the Savoraim, maybe afterward we’ll go back and think about that question. So the Savoraim basically say that once she drank after the husband died, the divorce is not nullified. Even though the condition was that she not drink all the days of her life. But if she drank after the husband died, then no. Why not? Because you can no longer touch the divorce after the marriage relationship is no longer relevant—the husband is dead. It won’t help. At most she will become a widow; she won’t become a married woman now. It’s no longer relevant. The divorce has already taken place, the parties involved are no longer in the world, finished—it’s no longer relevant whether she drank or didn’t drink. Right now I’m just saying the words; I haven’t yet explained. So about this he says: see the responsa of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, section 126. That is actually two responsa: 126 is Rabbi Akiva Eiger and 127 is the Chatam Sofer, who was his son-in-law, as you know, from his second marriage. So the Chatam Sofer answered him with a responsum of his own. These are two very interesting responsa. In any case, they discuss at length this view of the Savoraim, and I did not find in his words a sufficient reason for the novelty of their position. They try to explain the matter, but in practice they don’t really explain; they only analyze what follows from it. So he says: I did not find a reason—what really is the logic? What bothers him? Obviously what bothers him is in light of the accepted conception that a condition is retroactive clarification. And if it is retroactive clarification, it really is hard to understand this. Because once she drank wine, it becomes clear that she was never divorced. Nothing happened now. Why should I care that the husband died? It became clear that when he was alive she was not divorced, so now when he dies she is a widow. That’s all. What difference does it make whether the husband died or didn’t die? Yes, it’s not relevant. It simply reveals to you what the situation had already been earlier. You didn’t know; now you do know. That is relevant only to your knowledge; nothing happened in the legal status itself. And therefore according to that, the Savoraim’s conception really is not understandable. And so too it is difficult regarding them from what the Ran asked in chapter HaMegareish, and also what was asked in the above responsum of Rabbi Akiva, from the case of “on condition that you give me,” where Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and the Sages disagree whether this counts as fulfillment of the condition—okay, it doesn’t matter—and giving. Can giving to the heirs after the death of the divorcing husband count as fulfillment of the condition, if I made it conditional on her giving to me? Now she isn’t giving to me; she is giving to the heirs. So there is room to discuss this from two sides. First: does giving to the heirs count as giving to me? It could be that this doesn’t fulfill the condition not because I died, but because she didn’t give to me but to the heirs. But even if we say that this does count as giving to me, the fulfillment of the condition here came after my death. The question is whether one can fulfill the condition after my death. Fine? Can one nullify the condition after my death? Can one fulfill the condition after my death? Those are the two sides of the coin. So therefore he says he doesn’t understand it. Now I’m already getting ahead because I didn’t bring his answer here at all—it’s long. I’m bringing here only the proofs for the answer. What does he basically want to claim? That from here there is proof that a condition is not retroactive clarification, but rather “from here on, retroactively.” Meaning that the future event—drinking the wine—causes or nullifies the divorce. Not that it reveals that there was never a divorce, but that it uproots the divorce. The question is whether this is an uprooting condition or a suspensive condition, but in principle the conception here for now is an uprooting condition. Fine—so there was a divorce, and if she drinks wine and violates the condition, then we uproot the divorce retroactively. Fine, we uproot it retroactively. Now what sense does it make to uproot the divorce after the husband has died? After the husband has died it is no longer relevant. Meaning, if you want to create a different legal status between husband and wife after the husband has died, you can no longer do it. If it is only retroactive clarification, then you aren’t doing anything, so what difference does it make whether the husband is dead or alive? The fact that you learned some piece of information only after the husband died—so what? Is it impossible to learn after the husband dies that the divorce was not valid? Suppose after he died you suddenly discover that the document was forged. So what, because of that the divorce will still be valid because he died? It became clear to me after he died, but it becomes clear that already then there was nothing. So retroactive clarification cannot explain the ruling of the Savoraim. What he wants to claim is that what the Savoraim—and again, this is not necessary. Meaning, even if I say “from here on, retroactively,” it doesn’t necessarily mean I must adopt the Savoraim. But if one does adopt the Savoraim, then clearly this is “from here on, retroactively” and not retroactive clarification. Meaning there is a dependence in one direction. Okay, because what he is basically saying is that the Savoraim maintain that after the husband dies one can no longer touch the divorce—it is already final; that is, it is already no longer relevant. The husband is dead, she is divorced, that’s it. There is nobody anymore—you cannot nullify a divorce when the parties to the contract no longer exist. And likewise the words of Maimonides require explanation—this is another proof. Each paragraph like this is another remark that in the end turns out to be proof for his view, which is why I introduced it in advance. And likewise the words of Maimonides require explanation, where he wrote in Laws of Divorce, chapter 9, halakhah 11, that if he said, “This is your bill of divorce from now if I do not come from now until twelve months,” and he died within the twelve months, even though it is impossible for him to come and she is therefore divorced, she may not marry where there is a levir until after twelve months. Of course, if it is not a case involving a levir, she can marry because she is a widow, so there is no problem. But if he died childless, then if she is divorced there is no problem and she can marry, but if she is not divorced, then she is bound to levirate marriage and cannot just marry normally.
[Speaker B] There’s also a practical difference if she wants to marry a priest.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, but she may not marry anyone at all where there is a levir. Right. So he says it seems that Maimonides holds that she is forbidden by Torah law to marry. And the Maggid Mishneh explains—that’s the point. Wait, wait, we’ve still got here—
[Speaker B] What happens? Is she now a widow, divorced? “If I do not come within twelve months”—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Is she forbidden to marry a priest? Why? Because at the end of the twelve months it will become clear that she is divorced.
[Speaker B] Wait, I know. I’m just asking.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She is now a widow. Right now she is not divorced.
[Speaker B] No, right now she is not divorced.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, she is divorced; she just doesn’t know it. Doesn’t know it, fine—but then she will know that even now she was divorced. And that will uproot— you can’t do that. That’s exactly the point according to retroactive clarification. If it is “from here on, retroactively,” then you have to discuss it, but according to retroactive clarification it is not relevant.
[Speaker H] And there’s also a practical difference regarding whether she is supported from the ketubah or not—that is, she has certain rights from the ketubah. A widow is supported. And not a divorcee.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, yes, right. So—and the Maggid Mishneh explains—by the way, that Maggid Mishneh on Maimonides is very famous. This is Maimonides’ wonderful point. There’s another wonderful point in his commentary on the Mishnah in Keritot about one prohibition not taking effect on top of another, but this is another wonderful point worthy of our master—that’s how the Maggid Mishneh writes about this matter. He says: the Maggid Mishneh explained that Maimonides holds that the condition must actually be fulfilled in practice. What does that mean? What happens here? He said that if he does not come within twelve months, she is divorced. The basic idea is to spare her from levirate marriage, fine? So if he doesn’t come within twelve months, he leaves her chained, requiring levirate marriage, unable to remarry—or not because of levirate marriage at all, but just chained because he didn’t arrive. So he says: leave it, I’m giving you an insurance certificate—if I don’t come within twelve months, you are divorced. Now, he didn’t come—he died after two months. So obviously he’s not going to come, right? So if the whole issue were only what the correct information is—I don’t know the information, and now I do know it—I already know he won’t come. So if the point is that the existing state is already in place, only I don’t know what it is until the condition is fulfilled and the twelve months have to pass—here, in this case, I know. The condition is going to be fulfilled, that’s clear, because the man died. Right? So if the whole question is only whether I know the information, then clearly I know. She should be able to marry. But the Maggid Mishneh explains that according to Maimonides, no: there must be actual fulfillment of the condition. It has to be clear that the condition was fulfilled; he has to not come for twelve months. And if only two months have passed, then he has only not come for two months, so you have to wait another ten months for him not to come.
[Speaker B] That means the condition is causative.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. In other words, the claim is: if this were merely clarification retroactively, you couldn’t say such a thing. Because clarification retroactively means the facts already exist; at most I just don’t know them. And in this case I do know them—I know the man won’t come. Okay? So he says this is therefore proof that this is not correct, that this is not the right way to understand it. Rather, that non-arrival effects the divorce; it doesn’t reveal that there was a divorce, it brings it about. Ah, but for that, it has to actually happen. So he has to in fact not come for twelve months. Because something that didn’t happen can’t bring anything about. In other words, the cause has to occur in order to generate the effect. Clear?
[Speaker D] Therefore, therefore, he says the condition is something else. It’s as though if it’s certain that he won’t—if he dies after two months, if he dies after two months, and it’s clear that the condition will definitely be fulfilled all the way through.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it’s clear that it will be fulfilled, but it still hasn’t actually been fulfilled. But it’s clear it will be fulfilled—so what? If it’s clear that you’re going to buy me some field, is it mine already now? We’ll wait until you buy it for me, and then we’ll see.
[Speaker D] Yes, but he will buy it. Meaning, if a situation comes about where it’s not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s say there’s a situation where you already transferred the field to me effective a year from now. It’s clear it will be mine.
[Speaker D] No, but if it’s clear, if it’s definite—because here, when after two months he dies, then she waited, let’s say, those two months, and now when he dies that finishes the condition, so there’s no reason to wait; you can just give it to her. I mean, why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because he has to not come for twelve months. That’s what effects the divorce. It doesn’t reveal that there was a divorce. Now in order for that to effect the divorce, it has to happen. So he has to not come for twelve months.
[Speaker D] Yes, but it will definitely happen.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—not that it be known that it will happen, but that it happen.
[Speaker D] You have to wait twelve months—that’s the condition. That’s already a different condition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. The condition is that he not come for twelve months. But it has to happen—this non-arrival has to occur. And this doesn’t switch the condition. Rav Chaim talks there about unavoidable circumstances on the last day.
[Speaker D] There’s that case—what happens if the ship that he’s supposed to come on… what is that? That he has to arrive with the ship on the other side of the river, that’s, that’s…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. He said that he would come, that he wouldn’t come…
[Speaker I] Did he say a clause above?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s something else. Let’s say with the afternoon prayer: you didn’t pray Minchah and you postponed it, saying, “I’ll pray at the end of the time.” And at the end of the time something beyond your control happened, and you didn’t manage to pray. Are you considered prevented by circumstances, so that you can make it up by praying the evening service twice, or are you not considered prevented by circumstances? That’s in Nimukei Yosef on tractate Bava Kamma. There’s the Agudah—the Agudah claims, one of the medieval authorities—that from the Talmud about walled cities it is proven that unavoidable circumstances on the last day are not considered unavoidable circumstances. Unavoidable circumstances on the last day are not considered unavoidable circumstances. In other words, in walled cities the rule is that if you sold a house in a walled city, for one year you can redeem the house. If you didn’t redeem it, it becomes permanently the buyer’s—it does not go out in the Jubilee; it is completely and permanently acquired by the buyer. That is the law of houses in walled cities. Now, a person sold someone else a house in a walled city, and that other person doesn’t want him to come redeem it from him, so he hides from him. He hides—doesn’t want him to find him. So the Talmud says this: if I see that I can’t manage to get hold of him, then I have to—Hillel instituted this—that you put the money in a chamber, I think, or somewhere in the Temple, and that counts as having redeemed it. Even without his being here—you didn’t pay him directly, you put it there, and that is considered payment for the house and you have redeemed the house. So the Talmud says why… not the Talmud—the Agudah says: why was there a need to institute this? Since without the ordinance, the house really would have become permanently his. But why? After all, I’m prevented by circumstances. I’m prevented from redeeming it. And the rule is that under unavoidable circumstances there’s no problem. From here you see that unavoidable circumstances on the last day are not considered unavoidable circumstances. Meaning, if I postponed the redemption and waited until the last day or the last week, and in that last week he fled to Australia—can’t catch him.
[Speaker B] Who says that this is negligence or something? What? Why is that—was there negligence?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the sides are clear. On the one hand, you could have done it earlier. On the other hand, what’s the problem? I have the right to wait and do it in the last week. There are two sides here; you can understand both sides. So the Talmud apparently assumes—if a special ordinance was needed, then the Talmud assumes that unavoidable circumstances on the last day are not considered unavoidable circumstances. But in Nimukei Yosef it says that with regard to Minchah, unavoidable circumstances on the last day are considered unavoidable circumstances. There Rav Chaim’s distinction is a bit intricate, but what Rav Chaim discusses there is the question whether that non-arrival finalizes the house as permanently sold, finalizes the house—or whether arrival prevents the finalization of the house. That’s how he makes the distinction. In other words, if that non-arrival finalizes the house, then there has to be non-arrival. And here there wasn’t non-arrival, because for part of the time you were prevented by circumstances. But if arrival does not itself finalize the house, then why should I care that practically there was no arrival? Practically, I didn’t come. “Under compulsion is as though one acted.” So there too he is speaking precisely about this point. And here in Maimonides that’s what the Maggid Mishneh says: that there has to be non-arrival for twelve months in order to uproot the divorce, but that non-arrival has to actually occur. Even passive events occur.
[Speaker I] I don’t think you need Rav Chaim’s intricate analysis.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not connected to Rav Chaim’s intricacy. But with the same distinction, there too he also treats non-arrival as an act that is done, something that has to happen.
[Speaker I] Here it’s very clear. In other words, it’s not hair-splitting. As much as we say that a condition—as you defined earlier—is not just clarification of an existing fact but an active fulfillment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that still isn’t enough. Because you could ask whether this is a suspensive condition or an uprooting condition. Though by the way that’s not exact—never mind, it’s more subtle than just having a suspensive condition or an uprooting one. But the question is: what is the condition? Is the condition that if I arrive, then it won’t be a bill of divorce? Or is it that if I don’t arrive, then it will be a bill of divorce? That’s different, right? Why is it different?
[Speaker I] But the condition is that if I don’t come, then the bill of divorce…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but what does that mean? If I don’t arrive, then it will be a bill of divorce—meaning, basically I’m making it not a bill of divorce, only if I do arrive that will uproot the non-divorce. You can look at it this way or that way. In other words, the question is what the basic condition is, and what the doubled condition is, the other side of the condition. If you focus on the arrival—because in the end the natural tendency is to see the action as the condition, and the lack of action as violating the condition. That’s why I brought Rav Chaim: to show that here that’s not true. The non-arrival is the condition; the negative side is the affirmative side, yes. That’s the point.
[Speaker I] He said, “If I don’t come, then…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but it could still just be a manner of speaking. He also said—let’s say he has to double the condition, even though according to Maimonides with “on condition that” you don’t need to, but let’s say according to Tosafot you do have to double the condition—he said: “If I come, then it won’t be a bill of divorce, and if I don’t come, then it will be a bill of divorce.” He said both things. Now the question is which one you treat as the condition and which one you treat as the cancellation of the condition. It could go either way. So one might naturally think that the arrival—which is an action—is what has to be done, and only if you didn’t do it then you voided the condition, because you didn’t do it.
[Speaker I] But simply speaking, the condition is always sort of the antithesis of the act.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to the act, not according to the condition. Yes, okay, correct. But still, what you see here is that non-arrival is treated as an action, not as inaction. And in that sense it’s like Rav Chaim there regarding houses in walled cities.
[Speaker E] There’s some kind of skipping over here, or disregard, for what the man himself said. I mean, there’s room to interpret the logic of what he said too. It’s obvious that if he had known that after two months he would die, he wouldn’t have told her, “Wait twelve months.” Why did he say it? Why do we ignore the logic of what he said? I’m totally ignoring him and now starting to split hairs over two possibilities—did twelve months occur or not occur… the man didn’t mean that at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But we discussed that in the previous lecture. After all, that’s Tosafot’s question—the source one line above Rabbi Shimon—where Tosafot asks: if we make a condition against what is written in the Torah, yes? “On condition that you have no claim against me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights”—a man betroths a woman on condition that she has no claim against him for food, clothing, and conjugal rights. The Talmud says the condition is void and the act stands. And according to Rabbi Yehudah it can work because it’s a monetary matter, but let’s say if it’s not a monetary matter then the condition is void and the act stands, according to Rabbi Meir. Okay? So Tosafot asks: what do you mean? The result is that when I betroth a woman on condition that you have no claim against me for food, clothing, and conjugal rights, the result is that the woman is betrothed and you owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. But I didn’t want her if I owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. I don’t want her as my wife. Why are you forcing this woman on me even though I don’t want her to be my wife? After all, on the side where I owe her food, clothing, and conjugal rights, I don’t want her. So just as you ask here, you can ask there too: get to the bottom of what he intended. He meant that if I’m obligated in food, clothing, and conjugal rights, then I don’t want her.
[Speaker E] Yes, but there he is withholding something he owes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine—then cancel the betrothal entirely. No, I’m not saying that…
[Speaker E] But here it’s a given that it doesn’t matter to him at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m showing you from there—it doesn’t matter—even here there’s no practical difference, so cancel the betrothal. There is no prohibition against canceling the betrothal; cancel it entirely. Because there are three possibilities there—we discussed this. One possibility is that she is betrothed to him and he is obligated; that’s what we in fact say happens. A second possibility is that she is betrothed and he really is… because he exempted himself—but that goes against the Torah. A third possibility is to say no, she is not betrothed. And that’s the most called-for possibility. Because on the side where I’d be obligated—half-and-half doesn’t work—that goes against the Torah. The Torah says that if you’re married, you’re obligated to provide food, clothing, and conjugal rights. Fine, so you rejected the second possibility. But why not the third possibility? Why go with the first, giving him this woman that he doesn’t want and obligating him in food, clothing, and conjugal rights? So you see that with conditions, it does not go according to what the person intended.
[Speaker E] But he wanted what was good for her!
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? He wanted it there too. But we don’t go by—
[Speaker E] what he wants.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We don’t go by what he wants. Why? I’ll explain why—we explained last time why as well. Tosafot explains it. Because basically, the whole idea of a condition couldn’t have worked on its own. It’s a novelty of the Torah. The whole idea of a condition can’t work; you can’t make legal effect depend on conditions that maybe yes and maybe no. By the way, regarding conditions on commandments there are various discussions. There’s the Avnei Nezer’s condition concerning leavened food. You know there is a tannaitic dispute whether one may eat the afikoman after midnight—or regarding the Passover offering, afikoman after midnight. So what happens? On the night of the Passover seder we often run past midnight. So what do we do? The afikoman ends up being eaten after midnight. So the Avnei Nezer suggested making a condition. We make a condition that if Jewish law follows Rabbi Akiva, then I have no problem; this is the afikoman. And if Jewish law follows Rabbi Eliezer, then I intend that this matzah should be the afikoman, and then after midnight the time for eating matzah is already over, so after midnight you can eat matzah. It won’t be afikoman, but there’s no prohibition against eating it because it’s already after the relevant time. So you have fulfilled your obligation. And many halakhic authorities argue about this, and they say there’s no such thing. In other words, there is no fulfillment of commandments on a conditional basis. We’re very used to this, by the way, but it’s not so simple in Jewish law. The idea that you can condition the fulfillment of commandments on conditions. Either you do the commandment or you don’t. What are all these formal patent-trick games? So here too, similarly: in principle you couldn’t create legal effect through a condition. It doesn’t work. The Torah innovated that there is a certain mechanism by which it can work. How? That’s how the Ri in Tosafot explained it. You apply it in any case—even though you don’t want it. But there’s no choice, because there is no other mechanism that can successfully carry out what you want. After all, what you want is that on the side where there are food, clothing, and conjugal rights, she should not be betrothed, and where there are no food, clothing, and conjugal rights, she should be betrothed. That’s what you want. Now, there are halakhic constraints on how this can be implemented. Because on the simple level, it’s just impossible to implement what you want. There are many times when I want something, but Jewish law doesn’t allow me to implement it. So what mechanism nevertheless allows me to implement it? If I make legal effect conditional in any case, the woman will be—
[Speaker E] betrothed to me, and if she becomes subject to food, clothing, and conjugal rights, I want to uproot the betrothal. That’s the only way it can work. So if that’s the case, even though it isn’t exactly what I want, I go with that track because it’s the only track that can bring me to the result I want. But what happens when I don’t want to give her food, clothing, and conjugal rights? That goes against the Torah—a condition against what is written in the Torah. So in that case I betrothed her under all circumstances, and the uprooting of the betrothal can’t be done because that goes against the Torah. Therefore I’m stuck with her and also have to give her food, clothing, and conjugal rights. So that means that with conditions, even if you know what result he wants to reach, you still have to stick to the mechanism the Torah established, because without that you won’t be able to implement it. What’s logical? If he had known he was going to die in two months, he wouldn’t have made a condition at all. No condition at all. If I knew I was going to die in two months, I wouldn’t need this condition. After all, I want to spare the woman all this discussion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Of course it’s obvious he would make the condition. After all, if he dies, she may remain an agunah just the same. Maybe people won’t know he died. What do you mean, “obvious”? The condition takes into account—why if he doesn’t arrive? So that he can send a letter: “I’m alive, friends, she’s not an agunah.” He’s worried that he’ll disappear and nobody will know where he is. This is a world without internet, yes? They won’t know where he is, and the woman will remain an agunah or will need levirate marriage; whatever, each person and his considerations. There’s no such obvious presumption. It could be that where there is such a presumption maybe we would cancel the condition—possibly. “Things in his heart and in the heart of every person”—maybe one could indeed nullify the condition. But I’m speaking about a situation where there is no such simple presumption. So what happens then? Then basically the mechanism of the condition has to be that once the condition is actually realized—that is, the non-arrival for twelve months—that is the condition, only then will she be divorced, even though it is retroactive. In other words, it effects the divorce even though the divorce is retroactive. But for that, it has to happen. What has to happen? The non-arrival. Yes? Non-arrival is something that happens. It’s not something that doesn’t happen. It’s something that happens.
[Speaker D] There’s that silly joke: there’s a curfew at ten o’clock, and someone shoots somebody at ten minutes to ten. They ask him, “Why did you shoot him?”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He won’t get home in the next ten minutes.
[Speaker D] Right. So he won’t get home in ten minutes—so that’s an offense?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It depends. On the formal level, maybe yes, if you treat it as a condition. But what?
[Speaker D] If that’s the condition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He won’t arrive.
[Speaker D] If this is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if it was a mechanism—no,
[Speaker D] the mechanism is that he has to be at home. I’m telling you, he won’t get there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A condition in halakhic language—if it were a condition in the halakhic sense of the term “condition,” then certainly according to Maimonides you could not shoot him. Not everyone agrees with Maimonides, but according to Maimonides you could not shoot him. But there it’s not a condition; it’s just an instruction. It’s unrelated. So once you see that this person won’t be home, then he’s probably a saboteur, so shoot him. Meaning—not harmlessly. That raises suspicion. So now that you caught him, shoot him now; why wait until you catch him? Yes, it’s like waiting when someone threatens you with a gun—wait, let him shoot, you don’t know whether he’s a murderer or not, let him shoot first and then we’ll see whether anything needs to be done.
[Speaker J] We should move between the two possibilities.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, to know whether it’s practical. Yes, like in the comedy sketches. So here in Maimonides, basically what the Maggid Mishneh says is that you need actual fulfillment of the condition for the result to occur. And again, if this were merely clarification retroactively, there would be no logic to it at all. Because all I’m lacking is information—but I know the information. After all, I know he won’t come. So what’s the problem? I already know today the information that exists today. Only in the ordinary case I wouldn’t know this information even though it exists; now I know it too, so what’s the problem? What’s missing? The information that she is divorced exists, and I know it too, so everything is fine. Rather, we are forced to conclude that my knowing is not enough, because the information does not exist. The information will only be created after twelve months, retroactively. Okay, and therefore she is not divorced until that actually happens.
[Speaker J] Maybe the medical establishment, maybe the doctors don’t know how to estimate life expectancy, but the Master of the Universe presumably does know. So the information exists; it’s just that our medical knowledge isn’t sufficient to say that within two months he’ll die.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different case. There it really is clarification retroactively. There it really is clarification retroactively. And if in the end it turned out that the person was already mortally defective, only I didn’t know it—say he had a hole in the lungs, and I did an autopsy and discovered he had a hole in the lungs—then whoever killed him would indeed be exempt, for example, even though I didn’t know it and he didn’t know it either. Because in fact the information really existed; the man was already fatally defective. So what if I didn’t know? That’s an explicit Talmud, yes? The Talmud—Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon say: “Had we been on the Sanhedrin, no one would ever have been put to death,” at the end of the first chapter of tractate Makkot. No one would ever have been put to death—why? Because we would ask the witnesses: did you see whether perhaps there was already a perforation where the sword entered? In the place where you thrust the sword, perhaps there was already a perforation in the lung from before, so he would have died even without the sword. Then you killed someone already mortally defective. So in the end they don’t accept… Rabban Gamliel says this would increase bloodshed in Israel, but even Rabban Gamliel agrees that if we had known there was a perforation where the sword entered, even though the murderer didn’t know it, he would certainly be exempt—he killed someone already mortally defective. He only says we don’t worry about that because it’s rare; that is, you don’t suspect that there just happened to be a perforation exactly there in the same place as the sword. But that’s only a technical question. If I knew there was a perforation there, he would indeed be exempt—that’s obvious. Because the information exists. But here, that’s the point: the information does not exist at all. The information is created in the future and applies retroactively.
[Speaker D] Even when he dies after two months, the information not only exists, it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, information not in the sense of alive or dead, but that the reality exists. And the position of Ba’al Ha’Itur—the third paragraph—each paragraph like this is another proof, yes—the position of Ba’al Ha’Itur, who holds that with a condition of “from now,” one can retract the whole act before the condition is fulfilled; see the Rashba’s novellae to tractate Gittin 74b. And see the book Torat Gittin there—by the author of Netivot—who says the difficulty is obvious: for what reason should he be able to retract after, from his side, the act is already complete and the matter is no longer in his hands? If she fulfills the condition, she is divorced retroactively. So how can the husband now change what was already a divorce before? What is he saying? The position of Ba’al Ha’Itur is that if I divorce a woman on condition that she not drink wine for two months, okay? But I divorced her effective from now, on condition that she not drink wine for two months. Fine. Two weeks pass; meanwhile the woman has not drunk wine, everything is fine; now I want to cancel the divorce. I changed my mind; I cancel the divorce. Ba’al Ha’Itur says: possible. With a condition of “from now,” one can retract the whole act before the condition has been fulfilled. In a condition of “if,” it’s simpler, because the act hasn’t taken effect at all yet, so it makes sense that I can cancel it. But here, with a condition of “from now,” the act has already taken effect. If the condition hasn’t yet been fulfilled, I can still cancel it. Now if this were clarification retroactively, that would make no sense, because once she didn’t drink wine, it turns out that all along she was… How can you cancel a divorce after it has already taken effect? It’s like giving a woman a bill of divorce and then after two weeks saying, “Oops, I changed my mind, let’s cancel the matter.” There’s no such thing. The bill of divorce is not… the condition is not essentially different from that; it only clarified for you that you already gave the bill of divorce. So if she didn’t drink wine, then you gave a bill of divorce. How can you cancel it afterward? Therefore he says: if Ba’al Ha’Itur says it can be canceled, that means the act is not yet complete. The act has not yet been fully done. What does that mean? That fulfillment of the condition is actually the completion of performing the act of divorce. And as long as that hasn’t happened, the act of divorce has not been completed, so I can still cancel it, can still retract. There’s an interesting question in a responsum of the Rosh—does he bring it here? Ah yes, he brings it incidentally. Kovetz Shiurim expands on this. There’s a question whether one can cancel a cancellation. If I canceled an agent, okay? Now I want to cancel the—
[Speaker I] cancellation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Will he make him an agent anew—
[Speaker I] or is canceling the agency itself the question, whether it’s possible or not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—canceling an agent, what’s the problem? Canceling an agent not in his presence—there they instituted that they would uproot the betrothal because of the problems it creates, but in principle there’s no problem canceling agency. So now I want to cancel the cancellation. Can I recreate the agency by canceling the cancellation? The accepted view is no. What possible side is there to say yes? I mean, clearly once I canceled the agency, then that’s it—we’ve returned to the original state. What does it even mean to cancel the cancellation? There’s a certain conception there—or at least such a preliminary thought—that once you created an agent, there is no such thing as canceling it. All you can do is freeze it. In other words, you can say: the appointment of the agency already happened; what’s done is done; he is appointed, he is my agent. All I can do now is say, “I don’t want you to act, I don’t want you to act, I don’t want you to act,” I keep neutralizing it. The power is in your hands, but I keep neutralizing it, and then I say: I stop neutralizing, I stop neutralizing, so we’re back—he reverts to being an agent. Again, in practical Jewish law, the Rosh and Kovetz Shiurim say this is not possible. I don’t know anyone who says yes. But the very fact that they discuss it at all means there is some such preliminary thought. So I think that responsum of the Rosh is the source for Kovetz Shiurim. He talks about canceling the cancellation of a condition, I think. “And the position of the Rosh is very difficult for me”—I continue reading in the same paragraph—“in his responsa, section 45 and 46, brought in the Tur and Shulchan Arukh, Even HaEzer, that in a condition of ‘from now’ he can cancel the condition so that the bill of divorce stands without fulfillment of the condition. See there, where he explains his reason: because a condition is speech, and speech comes and cancels speech.” What does that mean? I made a divorce conditional—say, on her not drinking wine—and now I want to cancel the condition, to make the divorce absolute, not dependent on the condition. To cancel the condition. But when I made the divorce, I already made it conditionally. That means the divorce was made that way. This is a kind of canceling a cancellation; we have to understand it. Because the condition cancels the divorce on the side that it is not fulfilled, and now I want to cancel the cancellation. This is the Rosh from whom the whole discussion in Kovetz Shiurim begins. So the question is whether I can do such a thing, and the Rosh says yes. I can cancel the condition even though the act of divorce has already been done, and when it was done it was already done conditionally. You can’t generate an act of divorce beyond what you already did. After all, what you really want to do is to create a stronger act of divorce than what was done. At most you can reduce something if the condition is not fulfilled, but how can you intensify it? In other words, how can you do something retroactively that you didn’t do? So the Rosh claims you can. Why? Because the condition is speech, and now I cancel the condition, so speech comes and cancels speech. Speech cannot cancel an act, but speech can cancel speech, and therefore you can cancel the condition. And this is very difficult, says Rabbi Shimon, based on what we are accustomed to explain everywhere that when we say “it became clear retroactively,” we mean that afterward the matter that had previously been doubtful to us became clarified. And according to this, fulfillment of the condition or its cancellation merely clarifies the truth of the matter at the earlier time. This is exactly the conception of clarification retroactively. And if so, if afterward she does not fulfill the condition, it is clarified that at the earlier time the divorce never took effect at all. So how can that be canceled and a new matter be generated now through his canceling his words? Later she will drink wine, okay? She—let’s say I canceled the condition. Once I canceled the condition, she is divorced, right? Now she drinks wine; there is already no condition. Fine—but when I divorced her, it was accompanied by the condition that she not drink wine. That means if she drank wine, then it turns out that I never divorced her in the first place. And that was already clarified then—that she never received a bill of divorce at all, was never divorced at all. So how can you now suddenly generate a bill of divorce out of nothing? This is exactly canceling a cancellation. That is, the bill of divorce was canceled, and I am canceling the cancellation. That’s what is happening here. Okay? Therefore he says that according to the conception of clarification retroactively, this cannot be.
[Speaker D] If he makes a condition on that? If he makes a condition that if she drinks wine now, then he’ll give her a new bill of divorce that will take effect, and if she drinks wine it will turn out that this bill of divorce is the one I wanted to give. Basically it can’t be, because the first one is already in motion—the first bill of divorce—which is conditional and given through agency…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. “And this is a very wondrous matter.” And what some commentators wanted was to explain the words of the Rosh that he holds this specifically with a condition… never mind, in short he rejects the various answers, and also this issue of from now on versus retroactively. And the Rashba wrote in responsum 957—the next paragraph—and his words are brought in Beit Shmuel, Even HaEzer: in the case of one who betroths “from now and after thirty days,” according to the one who says this is a condition, he cannot divorce before the condition is fulfilled. If someone betroths a woman “from now and after thirty days”—now there is a question what exactly “from now and after thirty days” means; there’s a three-way dispute there among the Amoraim, but one of the views is that it is a condition. Fine? That after thirty days pass, I betroth the woman. Then the Rashba says that he can… cannot divorce before the condition is fulfilled. I gave betrothal from now. “From now and after thirty days.” I gave her betrothal. And we interpret this expression, “from now and after thirty days,” as betrothal on condition that thirty days pass. But it is betrothal from now. I performed the act of betrothal now. So if thirty days pass, it will be clarified that it was retroactive. By the way, this is like Maimonides—you need the thirty days to pass. After all, I know these thirty days will pass. Right, so what’s the problem? Why wait? No, you have to wait until the thirty days pass. Fine, and then she will be betrothed from now. Now, two weeks have passed and I want to divorce her. At the end of the day she has already been my wife for two weeks—this will become clear in another two weeks—but she has been my wife already… so I can divorce her. The Rashba says no, you cannot divorce her. You have to wait the thirty days and then divorce her, even though after thirty days she will be betrothed from now. But after two weeks you cannot divorce her. And why not? Again: because the betrothal is actually only completed after thirty days, even though it takes effect from now. So true, if this were clarification retroactively, there would be no logic to that. After all, it was revealed that she was already my wife now, so what’s the problem with divorcing her after two weeks? But here it wasn’t revealed—it was effected, the “from now” betrothal. So as long as it hasn’t been effected, how can you divorce a woman when she isn’t yet your wife? It hasn’t happened yet; the betrothal hasn’t yet been effected. She has not yet become your wife, even though when she does become your wife it will happen retroactively. But as long as it hasn’t happened, she has still not become your wife. How can you divorce something that does not yet exist? You can’t… There’s a Talmudic passage somewhere, I think. The Talmud says that I cannot give a bill of divorce to a woman saying, “When I betroth you, you shall be divorced.” Before I betroth her, I give her a bill of divorce: “When I betroth you, you shall be divorced.” There’s no such thing; that’s something that has not yet come into existence. In other words, you cannot divorce a woman before she is your wife, even though the effect comes later.
[Speaker E] An acquisition in general, with conditions of this sort—I think that by making the condition he basically created rights and obligations also toward a third party. The woman is now acting based on the condition he created. Why do we allow him now to retract from such a thing when she is already acting on the basis of it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What happens in Jewish law is that it depends on the question of who owns the act—not on whom the condition affects. The act is the act of divorce. It is conditioned on whether she drinks wine or does not drink wine. Fine? As far as drinking wine goes, of course she has to decide whether to drink wine or not, to make her own decisions. But who is the master of the divorce? Only the husband can decide about the divorce; it doesn’t depend on the woman’s consent. It can be against her will. Since I am the owner of the divorce, I can do with that divorce in whatever way I want. I can condition it on this and cancel the condition, because I am the owner of the act. Where an act has two parties, then you are right, then it really won’t work. Okay? That’s Tosafot in tractate Ketubot on page 47, I think. Tosafot there discusses what happens if I cancel a betrothal or cancel a sale, not important, on the claim of “with that understanding.” “With that understanding she did not agree to be betrothed.” Yes—the woman became betrothed to someone, and it turned out that she then fell to levirate marriage before his brother, who was an apostate or disfigured or something, someone she doesn’t want to marry. If she had known that this is what would happen, she would never have agreed to become betrothed to the first one in the first place. Okay? So the question is whether I can cancel the betrothal. Tosafot there says that you cannot, because where it is a contract dependent on two parties, you cannot do such a thing. In other words, your understanding was not to become betrothed—that’s one side. He thought he was betrothing you and you agreed. One side cannot suddenly announce, no, no, I didn’t mean it.
[Speaker B] That famous broomstick explanation you gave there—that’s exactly this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, that’s why I know that Tosafot in depth, because I dealt with it there… And if she tells him and he agrees to this condition?
[Speaker D] And if she tells him that she agrees to become betrothed to him on condition that if, because his brother is disfigured, and both of them agree, then she is exempt from levirate marriage?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In principle, yes. The Talmud says there is no condition in marriage, so after they marry the condition is apparently voided. Why is the condition voided? Because if we impose the condition after the marriage, then it could turn out that the marriage itself—the consummation—is illicit intercourse. So it turns out the intercourse is promiscuous intercourse, and people do not want to turn their marital relations into promiscuous relations. So the Talmud’s presumption is that from the stage of marriage onward, all conditions made at the stage of betrothal are void. Fine? Even though, again, they didn’t explicitly say it. That’s the accepted Talmudic view. Though again, if we made a formal acquisition and said, no, no, we mean this seriously, then simply speaking it would work even after marriage. But ordinarily it won’t work; the conditions do not remain after marriage. In any case, the Talmud says here that he cannot divorce her before fulfillment of the condition. What does that mean? This is yet another proof that fulfillment of the condition does not reveal retroactively that she was his wife, because otherwise why is there any obstacle? She is already his wife. So what if I don’t know it yet? I’ll find out later that she was my wife. Rather, again, you see that the future act effects it; it does not reveal that there was betrothal. And this again is what is called “from the future back to the past,” and not “clarification retroactively.” Okay, here there’s some note about Borer. Yes, and another difficulty, from the last paragraph: and another difficulty is from what the Rashba wrote in his novellae in the chapter HaMegareish, regarding one who divorces on condition that she marry so-and-so, that if she married another before the condition was fulfilled, then if the first one divorces her with a bill of divorce, the condition will afterward be fulfilled, and then it becomes clear retroactively that she was not with the second man illicitly. See there. And according to his own approach these words of the Rashba contradict one another. Fine, it doesn’t matter; we won’t get into that now. It’s not another proof; it’s an internal discussion within that Rashba. In any event, this is a collection of examples showing us the meaning of action backward in time in conditions. What does all this mean for us? The whole issue of conditions—I wanted to show that from the standpoint of Jewish law there is such a thing as going back in time, or truly causal influence backward in time. After all, I distinguished among several levels of relating backward in time. I spoke about a situation where basically there is information that already exists from the time of the act, I just don’t know it, and the information becomes known to me later, yes? A baby is born and I don’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl; I go into the delivery room and discover that it was a boy. So there clearly, it was a boy beforehand too. So what if I didn’t know? There are situations where the baby is only born later, but the fetus was already in the womb and it was already either male or female, so on the principal level that’s still the same. There are situations where this is truly a future event, but the future event is a natural event. Right? We discussed that. So if it is a natural event, then at least according to the deterministic view—and I think nature at least is deterministic—basically the information still exists now, because one who knows all the data, the Holy One, blessed be He, can know what will happen there in a few days, and therefore once again this is basically just information that was missing to me, but in principle it exists. There are situations where the future event is an event of free choice. Once it is an event of choice, then the information itself does not exist. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, does not know it. Then what? Then maybe this is selective clarification. We’ll get to the topic of selective clarification—that’s the next topic I want to deal with—but then you can’t say here “it became clear retroactively.” Nothing becomes clear retroactively, because the information did not exist; it does not happen retroactively.
[Speaker I] For example, what practical case would that make a difference in?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For example, I say: “This is your bill of divorce”—I write a bill of divorce for whichever one of those women will go out through the doorway first. That’s the topic of selective clarification, yes? So whichever one goes out tomorrow through the doorway first—that is a human act. Human beings decide. She chose to go out first, or that one chose to go out first. That’s an event of choice, so information about it does not exist today at all. So how can you relate to the woman based on future information that depends on choice? And the last level—the fourth or fifth, I already don’t remember the count—is where the future event not only reveals something about the present, but actually brings about the present. That is, causality backward in time. Now, a condition is an example of the most extreme level possible. In other words, a future event—and not just any future event, but a future event that depends on human choice, meaning that no information about it exists at all—can still determine a status in the present. Now on the philosophical level, as I said before, this cannot be mere clarification retroactively. It cannot be clarification retroactively, because this really is not information that existed retroactively. All it can be, ironically enough, is causality backward in time.
[Speaker B] Yes,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This too is problematic in causal terms, but it’s the only thing—if Jewish law allows this, it’s the only thing it could be, because retroactive clarification can’t work in such a case. Okay? So even though this seems more far-reaching—that it’s not only retroactive clarification, it’s actually causal—that’s not true; in fact, it’s the more reasonable option. Because to say retroactive clarification about a situation like this is even less reasonable, since the information cannot be revealed retroactively; that information doesn’t even exist yet. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t know it. There is no such information today. Nothing was revealed retroactively; that information comes into existence a week from now. Fine, but if I say that it generates the past—right, it’s not telling me that this is what already was in the past, it generates an effect on the past. I’ll use these few minutes, maybe—I don’t think I spoke about this—so I’ll talk about it here because it relates to conditions, but it will also serve me in the context of selection, so next time we’ll talk about selection. I spoke about what the woman is during those days—that the woman is both divorced and not divorced. Rabbi Shimon—this is also Rabbi Shimon Shkop. So I’ll talk about it now in order to complete the picture regarding conditions. Rabbi Shimon Shkop asks: what happens if I divorce a woman on condition that she not drink wine, say, for two months? What is her status? From now—I divorce her from now on condition that she not drink wine for two months. What is her status during those two months? The Talmud asks, what is she during those days, and there it speaks in terms of laws of doubt, in principle. Now Rabbi Shimon argues that this is not a doubt; rather, the woman is both divorced and not divorced, exactly like Schrödinger’s cat. It’s a kind of superposition in two states, and when the condition is fulfilled or not fulfilled, then collapse occurs—you choose one of the two channels. Until now both existed in parallel, and the moment something happened, it’s like in a quantum theory experiment: there are several possibilities in reality, and the experiment collapses the system into one of the possibilities. Meaning, the experiment doesn’t only reveal what is happening there, it affects what is happening there; it puts the system into one of the states. Yes, I know—the two-slit experiment. So I shoot an electron at a screen with two slits in it, okay? A single electron for the sake of discussion. Now once it’s a single electron, I can see that even though it’s a single electron, it passed through both slits. Not only does it pass through both slits, but that electron interferes with itself. Meaning, there is photographic film before—beyond—the two slits, and you see as if some wave passed through both slits together. In other words, it passed through both this one and that one, even though it’s a single electron. If you put a detector on one of the slits,
[Speaker B] then
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Then the result is that it passes only through one of them. Either it goes through this one, and then the detector shows it went through this one, or if the detector shows nothing, then it went through that one. You’ll see on the photographic film—if you put a detector, on the photographic film there will be one dot where the electron hit, either here or here. If you didn’t put a detector—the detector for the photographic film? What? The film is afterward; the detector is in real time, revealing whether you passed, and from that point on—
[Speaker I] retroactively, on the film
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s really from now on retroactively. But it photographed it—what? It photographed it. No, okay, it photographed it. What happens is that you send an electron, and here there is a screen with two slits in it; the photographic film is here—it’s after it? Yes. Now when the electron—wherever the electron passes, it hits the photographic film, and that’s the photograph.
[Speaker I] That’s only the result. The detector is in the slit, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The detector is in the slit itself.
[Speaker B] Now
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What happens is really retroactive clarification, really from now on retroactively. It’s not exactly retroactive clarification—there is room to discuss that. It’s interesting, because the film reveals what happened at the slits, because clearly the passage through the slits determines what happened. But since it reveals it afterward, what happened earlier remains open. But if you put the detector on the slits, that means the information already exists at the time of passing through the slit, okay? It’s really very similar in many ways to our topic. We’ll get to this when we talk about selection.
[Speaker I] And what does that mean? That the detector affects it in some way?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s the accepted way of thinking—that the measurement affects it. Though even in interpretations of quantum theory this is not completely agreed upon. The detector or consciousness—that’s the question there. Von Neumann and Wigner wanted to say that it’s human consciousness, but about that, by the way, there are experiments suggesting not—at least there are a few such experiments. I don’t know whether everyone agrees, whether it’s accepted, but there are experiments suggesting not. For example, they do this: what happens if you put a detector, and the detector sends the information about where the electron passed into a computer, okay? And I throw the computer printout in the trash, nobody looks at it, I don’t know what the detector showed—still the result is that there is no interference, meaning it goes through one of the slits. That’s an experiment I just saw in an article they did, and it means that you don’t need human consciousness. Now the question is: what is the difference between a detector and any other physical datum? Why isn’t the slit itself a detector? The slit knows the electron passed through it. What is special about the detector? Unless a person looks at it—then I understand—but if not, then what difference does it make? Well, I don’t know. I think that’s still an open question. I’m not sufficiently up to date, but I think they still don’t know exactly how to explain what happens there.
[Speaker B] There are interpretations, yes. None of them is convincing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any event, what happens is that Rabbi Shimon argues that she is both divorced and not divorced—she is in superposition, okay? She is both divorced and not… Now when the condition comes, the condition is exactly like placing the detector, yes? When she fulfills the condition, then—
[Speaker I] that would justify the explanation of the concept of superposition in this context. I didn’t understand what it means that she is divorced and also not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, that’s exactly where I’m heading.
[Speaker I] Like—
[Speaker B] something that is both a particle and a wave, the same
[Speaker I] thing, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the fulfillment of the condition essentially reveals retroactively that we chose one of the channels: either she was always divorced, or she was never divorced, depending on whether the condition was fulfilled or not fulfilled. That’s Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s claim, okay? So when I talked about this in the yeshiva in Yeruham, when we learned this passage, I told them this. I said to them: what’s the problem? In the interim period she is both divorced and not divorced—and I immediately just moved on, as if. I didn’t feel I was saying anything special; it seemed completely obvious to me. What’s the issue? So the guys stopped me and asked, wait, what? What do you mean? If she is divorced, then that means she is not a married woman. If she is a married woman, then she is not divorced; if she is divorced, she is not a married woman. What do you mean she is both a married woman and divorced? That’s a square circle. What kind of thing is that? So I stopped for a moment. They really caught me exposed, so to speak—how had I said something so silly, and so casually, at that. And from then on, that insight kind of clicked for me. I wrote one of my first articles about it: What Is a Legal Effect? I wrote it in Tzohar, Tzohar 2.
[Speaker I] Is there something, some point in the dispute between the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud, I don’t remember.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any event, my claim was that a legal effect is not what people think. Usually people think that when I say that a woman has upon her the legal effect of divorce and the legal effect of being a married woman, people understand that as something contradictory. Why? Because they understand that when I say she has upon her the legal effect of divorce, that means she is divorced. But that’s not correct. To say that a woman has upon her the legal effect of divorce does not mean she is divorced. Usually, when she has upon her the legal effect of divorce, the result is that she is also divorced—she is forbidden to a kohen, she is permitted to the world, meaning it has various implications. Yes, but that is only a result. The two things must not be identified. And then I told them—this is the friend, I once told you about my friend with whom we collect examples. Examples and examples of substitutions, and we had a collection of examples. Examples of all kinds of things. Examples are a nice thing; it’s worth collecting examples. So one of the examples we collected was this: once I was looking for something that has no opposite. Is there anything that has no opposite? I couldn’t find one. So I went to him and asked him, tell me, is there something that has no opposite? I just can’t think of anything that has no opposite. What do you mean? A bird has no opposite. A cloud has no opposite. A chair has no opposite. Are there really so few things that have no opposite? So I started thinking—wait a second, then how did I not think of that? I went through thing after thing and couldn’t find one. Then I realized: bird, cloud, chair—those are all objects. Objects don’t have opposites. Opposite is a relation between properties. There is no object that is the opposite of another object. There are two objects that have opposite properties. Say I say that in a dish there is both salt and sugar—there is no problem saying that. But to say that the dish is both salty and sweet, completely salty and completely sweet—that’s impossible. If it is salty, then it is not sweet; if it is sweet, then it is not salty. Because salty and sweet are properties. But saying that it contains salt and sugar—those are objects. Objects can—two objects with opposite properties can be in the same place. Opposite properties cannot characterize the same object. A dish can contain both salt and sugar, but the dish itself cannot be both salty and sweet. Now when I say that a woman is both a married woman and divorced, what I mean is that she has upon her the legal effect of divorce and she has upon her the legal effect of being a married woman. What happens in practice? That means there is both salt and sugar in it. Because a legal effect is an object, an abstract object of course, but a legal effect is an object. It rests on her; she carries on her a backpack of divorce, and she also has on her a backpack of being a married woman. Now usually, a woman carrying the backpack of divorce then has the status that she is divorced. That is already a legal status; it’s not the backpack, it’s properties. What does that mean? She is forbidden to marry a kohen, she is permitted to the world; it has implications. The halakhic implications are the properties—whether it is salty or sweet.
[Speaker B] Exactly, so that’s the salty and sweet.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The backpacks are the salt and the sugar. Okay? When I say that the woman has upon her the legal effect of divorce and the legal effect of being a married woman, it means she is carrying two backpacks. Now true, there is an interesting question: what laws are relevant to her? What will be the taste of a dish that contains both salt and sugar? It will be a little salty and a little sweet. What does that mean? It will look like laws of doubt. Meaning, to a kohen she will be forbidden as a divorcee, but she will also be forbidden to the whole world as a married woman. Because she is both this and that. But there is no problem saying that, because there is no contradiction between objects; there is contradiction between properties.
[Speaker B] Did you find this in one of the later authorities (Acharonim)? That’s Rabbi Shimon.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Shimon says it; I’m saying this is the interpretation I give to Rabbi Shimon—that she is both divorced and a married woman; that’s what it means. And by the way, Rabbi Shimon also explained it well, because he said there that this is not really laws of doubt in the ordinary sense. He senses that it isn’t laws of doubt; everyone treats it as a doubt. It’s not a doubt, it’s a certainty. Practical difference: what would happen, for example, if there were a rabbinic law there? A kohen, by rabbinic law, wants to marry this divorced woman, okay, just as an example. Or she was betrothed only by rabbinic law, okay? Through rabbinic betrothal she became betrothed. Okay, and now she is divorced, so she is divorced by rabbinic law. Now a kohen wants to marry her. Now she is in doubt whether she is divorced or widowed, right? When the husband dies, then we don’t know if she is divorced or not. In doubt whether divorced or—or during those days, it doesn’t matter. So she is both divorced and a married woman, but she is a doubt, okay? And this is only a divorce by rabbinic law. With a rabbinic doubt you can be lenient, right? Absolutely not. It’s not a doubt. She is both divorced and a married woman. So why should I care that she is divorced only by rabbinic law? She is still forbidden to a kohen. She is forbidden to a kohen by rabbinic law. If it were a doubt, then she would be either divorced or a married woman; in a doubt I can be lenient. But here it resembles doubts, yet it is not doubt. It is both and. She is both divorced and a married woman, so she will certainly be forbidden to a kohen, even if she is divorced only by rabbinic law.
[Speaker D] Half slave and half free man, half slave and half—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Free man is not a doubt. He is both a slave and a free man, obviously. The laws of doubt will not apply there. Say something that is forbidden to a slave by rabbinic law would be forbidden to him—to someone who is half slave and half free man—that’s obvious. It would be forbidden because of the slave side in him. And what is forbidden to a free man would be forbidden because of the free-man side in him. And that’s exactly—it resembles doubts, but in Rabbi Shimon’s terminology, or in the language of the later authorities after Rabbi Shimon, this is called a “certain doubt.” It’s not a doubt; it is really a two-sided certainty. Like someone who betroths—we once spoke, I think, about betrothal not given over to intercourse—what happens with someone who betroths one of two women? He comes to the father and gives him a perutah: one of your two daughters is betrothed to me.
[Speaker D] And I didn’t say which one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which one of them—I don’t care which one. So usually people understand this as a doubt, and there is a problem here of betrothal not given over to intercourse, and so on. But according to Maimonides this can’t work, because according to Maimonides a Torah-level doubt is treated leniently. Only by rabbinic law must one be stringent in a Torah-level doubt, but on the Torah level you may be lenient. So if I have a doubt which of them is my wife and which is not my wife, then what is the doubt here? I can have intercourse with—after all, what is the problem? That with each one of them I am forbidden to have intercourse, because she is possibly my wife’s sister. Because if the other one is my wife, then she is my wife’s sister and I am forbidden to have intercourse with her, and likewise the second one. So it turns out that each of them is possibly my wife’s sister. But according to Maimonides, in a case of doubt, on the Torah level one may be lenient; it is only a rabbinic law that requires stringency in doubts. So on the Torah level it is possible. So why is this betrothal not given over to intercourse? I can have intercourse with either one of them; a Torah-level doubt is treated leniently according to Maimonides. So my claim—this is my question; Rabbi Shimon answers there with various other questions. According to Rabbi Shimon there is no question at all, because it is not a doubt which one of them is my wife. Both of them. Each one of them is my wife in a faint sense. Again, this is a kind of quantum superposition—meaning, this one is my wife and that one is my wife. Both are true. It’s not that I don’t know whether it’s this one or that one. It’s not like I don’t know which slit it passed through; it passed through both slits. Both are my wives, only each one is not fully my wife, but my wife in a faint sense. But it is not a doubt, so each one—