Analytical Talmudic Thinking – Lesson 17
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI
Table of Contents
- The starting point: conditional divorce and double legal effect
- Epistemic doubt: lack of information in Jewish law and in the examples of dice and chess
- Chaos, unpredictability, and a critique of linking it to free will
- Ontic doubt in quantum theory: the two slits, superposition, and Schrödinger’s cat
- Epistemic doubt in the Mishnah versus ontic doubt in betrothal not fit for intercourse
- Maimonides’ difficulty regarding Torah-level doubt and the solution through Sha’arei Yosher
- Halakhic consequences: nullification by majority, an “ontic bill of divorce,” and a hint of “collapse”
- Psychological certainty in a case of doubt: the Tur, the Rema, the Taz, and Rabbi Akiva Eiger
- Returning to the philosophy of doubt: “there is no ontic doubt” on the macro level, and the proposal of “pseudo-ontic doubt”
Summary
General Overview
The text distinguishes between epistemic doubt, which stems from lack of information about a reality that has one correct answer, and ontic doubt, in which reality itself has no single answer but rather a “superposition” of states. It argues that rolling a die, chaos, and chess are all examples of epistemic doubt despite the difficulty of prediction, and it critiques attempts to ground “free will” in chaos on the basis of unpredictability. It presents the two-slit experiment and Schrödinger’s cat as the basis for ontic doubt in the standard interpretation of quantum theory, and parallels this with halakhic discussions in which there is no “hidden fact” but rather a weak legal effect spread across several possibilities at once, as formulated by Rabbi Shimon Shkop in Sha’arei Yosher. Finally, it applies the distinction to the Sabbath laws of psychological certainty in a case of doubt, through the Taz and Rabbi Akiva Eiger, and suggests that Jewish law takes into account the way human beings perceive reality, to the point of creating a kind of “pseudo-ontic doubt.”
The starting point: conditional divorce and double legal effect
The speaker presents Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s statement that when a man divorces a woman conditionally, then until it becomes clear whether she fulfilled or violated the condition, she is simultaneously both divorced and a married woman. He says this is not an ordinary case of doubt, because there is no lack of knowledge; rather, it is a reality of two legal effects existing together. He explains that the dominant law overrides the recessive law on the practical level of decision, but on the level of legal effect both legal effects apply together.
Epistemic doubt: lack of information in Jewish law and in the examples of dice and chess
The text defines ordinary doubt in Jewish law as a case where information is missing, and illustrates it with someone who knows that the result of a die roll was even, but does not know whether it was 2, 4, or 6. He calls this epistemic doubt and explains that epistemology is the theory of knowledge, so such doubt applies only to someone lacking information, whereas the Holy One, blessed be He, is never in epistemic doubt because He lacks no information. He argues that even the roll of a fair die is not indeterminacy in reality, because physical determinism fixes the result uniquely if all initial conditions are known and the calculation is possible, so the “randomness” is only computational difficulty and lack of information. He adds Zermelo’s theorem from game theory about chess, according to which either White always wins, or Black always wins, or a draw can be forced, and argues that the theorem establishes that there is one correct answer even though we have no way of knowing it, and therefore doubt in chess is also epistemic.
Chaos, unpredictability, and a critique of linking it to free will
The text explains that chaos means high sensitivity to initial conditions, where there is no simple link between closeness in the starting conditions and closeness in the outcome, and illustrates this with throwing a piece of paper and with rolling a die. It quotes from James Gleick’s book Chaos, in the name of Doyne Farmer, who says that on the philosophical level chaos seemed like a practical way to define free will in a way that reconciles “freedom is granted” with “everything is foreseen,” because the system is deterministic but one cannot say what it will do in the next moment. The speaker argues that Farmer is mistaken, because unpredictability is an epistemic problem, not an ontic one, and he attributes it to computational difficulty and lack of computing power, while the deterministic principle remains valid. He emphasizes that inability to predict does not make something non-deterministic and does not create free choice.
Ontic doubt in quantum theory: the two slits, superposition, and Schrödinger’s cat
The text asks whether ontic doubt even exists at all, and suggests that quantum theory in its standard interpretation provides perhaps the only example in physics of ontic doubt. It distinguishes between determinism and free will, and argues that even if there is no determinism in quantum theory, that still does not imply free will, because a “lottery” is not “deliberation.” It describes the two-slit experiment: with particles one gets a distribution around the slit, with waves one gets an interference pattern, and it turns out that even electrons sent one by one produce an interference pattern as though each particle interferes with itself. It presents the result of measurement with a detector near a slit, according to which with a detector one gets “particle-like” behavior and a pattern without interference, while without a detector one gets interference, and interprets this as a superposition in which the particle goes through both slit A and slit B. It explains that measurement causes the particle to go either through A or through B with probabilities determined by the wave function. It compares this to Schrödinger’s cat, where before measurement there is a state of “alive and dead” together, and says that as a practical experiment it is boring, because measurement will always reveal either alive or dead, whereas in the two-slit experiment one can measure the superposition indirectly through the interference pattern. He concludes that this is ontic doubt because in reality itself there is no “which slit really” and no “what the cat really is,” so even “the Holy One, blessed be He,” could not answer the question “which slit did it really go through,” and he formulates this in the language of “both these and those are the words of the living God.”
Epistemic doubt in the Mishnah versus ontic doubt in betrothal not fit for intercourse
The text cites a Mishnah in Yevamot 118: “If a man betrothed one of five women and does not know which one he betrothed… he gives a bill of divorce to each and every one… these are the words of Rabbi Tarfon… Rabbi Akiva says… until he gives a bill of divorce and a marriage settlement to each and every one,” and similarly, “if one robbed one of five people and does not know from which one he robbed…”. He defines this as epistemic doubt, because a definite act happened to one person, but the betrother or robber lacks the information. He then presents a different case: a man gives a perutah to a father who has two daughters, Rachel and Leah, and says, “One of your daughters is betrothed to me,” and says that the Talmud calls this betrothal not fit for intercourse, because each one is possibly his wife’s sister and therefore he cannot have relations with either one. He cites the dispute between Abaye and Rava over whether betrothal not fit for intercourse counts as valid betrothal, and Rava’s derivation from the verse, “When a man takes a woman and lives with her,” and notes that the law follows Abaye under the rule of YAL KGM. He cites Tosafot and the Rashba, who explain that betrothal not fit for intercourse refers to a prohibition created by the betrothal itself, unlike a priest who betroths a divorcee, where the prohibition is external to the betrothal.
Maimonides’ difficulty regarding Torah-level doubt and the solution through Sha’arei Yosher
The text presents Maimonides’ position that Torah-level doubt is treated leniently by Torah law and stringency in such cases is rabbinic, and asks how, according to that, there can be “betrothal not fit for intercourse” if by Torah law one could be lenient regarding the doubt of one’s wife’s sister. It rejects attempts to say that in certain severe cases even Maimonides would treat Torah-level doubt stringently, and argues that there is no simple answer except by understanding the case not as epistemic doubt. It cites Sha’arei Yosher, Gate 3, chapter 22, by Rabbi Shimon Shkop, on a “deep inquiry” into the case of betrothing one of five women or “consecrating a perutah in a purse,” and asks how one could say that in actual reality one specific woman became designated for betrothal for no reason or cause. He says in the name of Rabbi Shimon Shkop that in such cases “even in actual reality no particular woman was singled out for betrothal,” and that it makes no sense to say, “if Elijah comes,” he will reveal who is betrothed, because there is no single hidden fact. He emphasizes that the wording “because of doubt” here is unlike other doubts, because “the law of doubt” usually means perhaps this one is the definite case and perhaps that one is the definite case, whereas here “there is no definite case even in actual reality.” He describes the legal effect as the result of the act of “giving the money and making the declaration,” which causes each one to be “fit to be the one,” so in practice they are treated like a case of doubt, but this is not a doubt caused by lack of information. He concludes that on this basis Maimonides’ difficulty falls away, because if this is not epistemic doubt but rather a weak legal effect on each one, then there is on each woman a definite but weak prohibition against having relations with her, and therefore even according to Maimonides this is “not fit for intercourse.”
Halakhic consequences: nullification by majority, an “ontic bill of divorce,” and a hint of “collapse”
The text states that according to Rabbi Shimon Shkop, “it makes no sense to speak of nullification by majority” in such cases, because there is no majority and minority with different properties; rather, all possibilities have the same status of weak legal effect. He explains that when one item is forbidden and four are permitted there is room for “whatever separated, separated from the majority,” but here each one stands in the same relation of “four-fifths” this and “one-fifth” that, so there is nothing to nullify. He raises as a question the possibility of “giving a bill of divorce to all of them together in this kind of ontic way,” but leaves it as an open question. He notes that the Ritva argues that afterward one may determine with the father which of the possibilities will be the betrothed one, and he describes this as resembling “quantum collapse” by means of a detector, though he says that is a different issue.
Psychological certainty in a case of doubt: the Tur, the Rema, the Taz, and Rabbi Akiva Eiger
The text moves to the laws of the Sabbath and presents the dispute between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda regarding an unintended act, and the rule that psychological certainty is forbidden even according to Rabbi Shimon. He cites Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 316: “Anything whose species is ordinarily trapped entails liability… if its species is not ordinarily trapped one is exempt but it is still forbidden,” and cites the Rema, who warns not to close a small box containing flies because “that is a case of psychological certainty that they will be trapped there,” with the leniency “in a place where, if the vessel is opened, they will be able to escape from there.” He cites the Tur, who quotes the Ba’al HaTerumot forbidding locking a box with flies in it and suggests leaving an opening, but the Tur himself writes, “It seems to me that one need not be so exacting about this.” He presents the Taz’s interpretation that the Tur’s language is not “permitted,” but rather that one need not check whether there are flies, because uncertainty whether there are flies creates a “doubtful psychological certainty,” which is considered an unintended act and is permitted. He then cites the Rema in Yoreh De’ah 87 regarding the prohibition against stirring a fire under the pot of a gentile out of concern that one may thereby cook meat and milk absorbed in the pot, and cites Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s question that this is an unintended act, and “it is not psychological certainty, because perhaps the gentile did not cook.” He quotes Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s answer, which distinguishes between doubt about the future, such as dragging a chair where perhaps a furrow will be made, and doubt about the past, such as whether there is already absorption or whether there is already a fly, where “if it is there… then it is certainly there,” and therefore “this is called psychological certainty.” He explains that Rabbi Akiva Eiger sees doubt about an existing state as epistemic doubt of “either it is there or it is not,” and therefore on the side that it is there, it is full psychological certainty, and the law is decided as a Torah-level doubt stringently.
Returning to the philosophy of doubt: “there is no ontic doubt” on the macro level, and the proposal of “pseudo-ontic doubt”
The text argues that in ordinary macroscopic reality “there is no such thing as ontic doubt,” and every doubt is epistemic. Therefore, according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger, a fundamental difficulty arises: how can there ever be such a thing as something that is not psychological certainty, since in retrospect whatever happened was necessitated by the initial conditions. He suggests that Jewish law does not operate according to physics, but according to human perception, and the average person perceives cases like dragging a bench across medium soil as “it could go this way and it could go that way” in a manner experienced as ontic doubt, whereas a case like “there is a fly in the box” is experienced as epistemic doubt about an existing reality that does not depend on expertise. He concludes that there are three types of doubt: ontic doubt, epistemic doubt, and “pseudo-ontic” doubt, in which people see epistemic doubt as though it were ontic. He argues that the laws of worms and similar applications show that Jewish law takes into account what can be clarified without “very great effort,” and adds that this also leads to stringency regarding “all the Tzomet Institute tricks,” because in the eyes of a layman, “you pressed a button and activated a machine.” He cites Minchat Shlomo, which brings an approach regarding a worm that “he had no awareness of,” treating it as unintentional involvement, and notes that Minchat Shlomo rejects the problem of a “doubtful psychological certainty about the past” on the grounds that when clarification requires very great effort, the matter is considered an unintended act or unintentional involvement, and compares this to dragging a bed, where even though a great expert could know in advance, it is still permitted.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time I spoke about Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s statement that when I divorce a woman conditionally, then until the time when it becomes clear whether she fulfilled or violated the condition, she is both divorced and a married woman at the same time. And I said that in fact this situation is not an ordinary case of doubt. Doubt means that I don’t know whether she is a married woman or divorced. But here there is nothing I don’t know. I know everything. She is both a married woman and divorced. Meaning, there is nothing I don’t know. So this is not really a state of doubt, and we discussed the question of how we determine the laws in such a case. I said that the dominant law overcomes the recessive law. But from the standpoint of the two legal effects, both legal effects apply together. What I want to do today—this is the concluding session—I want to talk a bit about this concept of doubt of this type, and I’ll call it ontic doubt, as distinct from epistemic doubt. And I want to say a bit about these concepts. So maybe I’ll start—let’s start with, say, rolling a die. Okay? Not rolling a die—before that. What is the ordinary state of doubt in Jewish law? The ordinary state of doubt in Jewish law is a case where I lack information. I lack information. For example, if someone tells me that someone rolled a die and says, listen, the result was even, but he doesn’t tell me what it was. So I know it could be either two or four or six. I’m in doubt whether it was two, four, or six. But I’m in doubt not because there isn’t one correct result. There is one correct result. When he rolled the die, something came out. I don’t know what. Right now I’m missing information, part of the information. So I don’t know whether what came out was two, four, or six. That’s what I call epistemic doubt. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. Epistemic doubt means doubt in the sense that I’m unable to obtain certain information. It exists in the world, but I don’t have it. Okay? I’m missing information. As an indication, the Holy One, blessed be He, never has epistemic doubt. Right? The Holy One, blessed be He, knows everything that happens. He lacks no information. So from the standpoint of the Holy One, blessed be He, the concept of doubt doesn’t apply. Okay? Because He has all the information. People who do not have all the information, creatures who do not have all the information, who are missing part of the information—they can be in doubt. Now let’s think for a moment what happens in the case of rolling a die. I roll a die and I don’t know what the result will be. So usually, if the die is fair at least, we usually treat this as though it were a random event. A random event whose possible outcomes are one, two, three, four, five, or six. And if the die is fair then each one has a one-sixth chance, and so in fact we even have a distribution. Okay? We can know more or less. Is this really a case of indeterminacy? When I use statistics, I usually tend to think that this is indeterminacy. Meaning, there is no one correct answer. We cannot determine what the correct answer will be, what will come out here. It depends; each time it depends on what comes out. I have probabilities but not a correct answer. There is not yet a correct answer. But in fact that’s not true. When I roll a die, in principle the throw determines the result uniquely. There is nothing random here at all. These are Newton’s laws. Meaning, give me the initial force, the intensity, the direction, the air density, I don’t know, the shape of the die—give me all the relevant data and I’ll tell you which face it will land on. Deterministically I’ll tell you what it will land on, obviously. The result is one result. The only thing is, I don’t know what the result will be. Right, I don’t know. Why don’t I know? Because it’s very hard to do the calculation. Even if I know exactly the angle at which it was launched, and the force with which it was launched, and everything, it’s impossible—it’s very hard to do that calculation. It’s a very complicated calculation because you need extremely precise information about the initial conditions. So yes, this is basically a chaotic phenomenon. You need to know exactly the angle at which it started and the force and so on. If you know that exactly, I’ll tell you the result. But you don’t know it exactly. And even if you do know it exactly, the calculation is extremely complicated. But in principle, it’s only a computational problem. In principle, if you asked the Holy One, blessed be He, He would tell you which face it will land on. Right? So this is really just my lack of information. It’s not that in reality itself there are several possibilities as to what will come out with the die. No, there is only one possibility. I just don’t know which possibility it is. So this too is epistemic doubt. Yes, it reminds me of what I mentioned one of the previous times—I think I mentioned Zermelo’s theorem in chess, didn’t I talk about that? Zermelo’s theorem in chess, yes, in game theory. The theorem says that in games similar to chess—never mind, games that satisfy several conditions like chess—either White always wins, or Black always wins, or it’s a draw. Right? On the face of it that sounds trivial—well, obviously, what else could there be? But that’s not true, because the theorem establishes three possibilities, none of which is trivial. Maybe there is no predetermined result at all? No, maybe each time something else will happen. The theorem says there is a predetermined result. This theorem determines who wins. I don’t know what it determines, because it’s complicated, but there is one result that it determines: either White always wins, always—not sometimes—or Black always wins, or a draw can be forced, that both sides can force a draw. Okay? One of these three possibilities, and this is a very nontrivial theorem, because the theorem says there is a correct answer, which is not at all obvious. In principle, who said there is even a result that can be forced? Who said there is a strategy that can force a result in advance? Maybe it’s an open game and no result can be forced? No result at all, who knows, it depends. So the claim is that there is a correct answer here. But what? The theorem says there is a correct answer, but I don’t know what it is. That has nothing to do with the theorem. The theorem doesn’t tell me what the correct answer is, and nobody knows the correct answer. The theorem only says there is a correct answer. What does that mean? It means that my uncertainty in chess is basically an epistemic matter. Right? Because in fact there is a correct answer, only I cannot know it. That’s what the game is built on. Meaning, the moment there is someone who can know that answer, the game is over, there’s no point in playing it, we already know—I have the strategy, I can tell you what the outcome will be, I can dictate it, there is no point in playing. The whole reason we play is only because we are limited. Meaning, if we weren’t limited there would be no point in playing it. So there is an outcome here, there is one correct answer that we do not know. Again, epistemic doubt. Okay, now look at this passage. I took it from the book Chaos by James Gleick. Know that book? A popular book about chaos. Now what is chaos? Chaos is basically—maybe I’ll explain it a bit—chaos is like in rolling a die: basically a physical or mathematical problem, never mind, that is very sensitive to initial conditions. Or in other words, one where there is no simple connection between what was there at the beginning and what will happen at some later time, or much later time. Okay? The connection is very weak. Fine? That is called chaos. For example, if I’m standing on the second floor and I throw a small piece of paper, okay? And now they ask me where it will fall. There’s the sheet of paper, there’s wind and air density and the shape of the paper and the height of the floors, right? You can’t know where it will fall. Now move your hand just a bit and throw the paper again. Will it land close to the previous spot? Maybe yes, maybe no. You can’t determine in advance that if the starting point was close, then the ending point will also be close. There is no connection between closeness at the start and closeness at the end. That is called sensitivity to initial conditions. High sensitivity to initial conditions basically means that every tiniest initial condition completely changes the outcome. You cannot know what it is. Fine? That’s the point. That is basically the phenomenon of chaos. Same thing with—the same thing with the die, as I said before. Change just a little the angle at which the die starts moving, and the result can be totally different. There is no—move it a bit more and suddenly it may actually be closer. Move it a bit more—say if you throw it like this it’s one. Move it a little and it will be six. Move it a bit more and it will be two. Meaning, you get farther away and suddenly the result gets closer. There is no connection between the degree of closeness of the initial states and what happens at the end. Okay? That is basically the phenomenon of chaos. In other words, it means that I don’t know how to predict what will happen in such a system later on, over the long term. I don’t know how to predict it. Okay? That is the phenomenon of chaos. Now he says this. One of the—this was the group that first formulated or conceptualized the phenomenon of chaos, the Santa Cruz group in the United States. And one of the members there was named Doyne Farmer. And Doyne Farmer from that group says the following—this is quoted in the book I mentioned, Chaos: “On the philosophical level it seemed to me like a practical way to define free will in a way that allows you to reconcile ‘freedom is granted’ with ‘everything is foreseen.’” There, he’s giving us a Torah insight, Doyne Farmer. “The system is deterministic but you cannot say what it will do in the next moment. Here there is one coin with two sides: here is order out of which randomness emerges, and one step away there is randomness with order at its basis.” In other words, Doyne Farmer claims that here we have found, in effect, a physical mechanism that could allow for free choice. Why? Because we exist within a system that is entirely deterministic, and yet you cannot predict what the outcome will be. Meaning, one can implant free choice within physics even though physics is deterministic on the relevant scales, because on macroscopic scales—in the micro realm there are quanta, but on the macroscopic scales. Yet there are still situations where you cannot predict the result. Where is he mistaken? Right. So I can’t predict the result—so what? That’s epistemic, not ontic. I don’t know what the result will be—does that mean there isn’t a fixed result? There is a fixed result in advance; I just don’t know what it will be. That is a limitation on me, not a claim about the world. He thinks that if I cannot predict, then in some sense the system is not deterministic. But that’s not true. The fact that I can’t predict simply reflects computational difficulty. If I had a computer big enough, big enough, big enough, I could predict whatever you want even in a chaotic system. It’s only a question of computing power. I don’t have enough computing power for that, so I can’t predict it. Does the fact that I can’t predict something mean that it is free, non-deterministic? Of course not. All the equations are completely deterministic, and I can tell you from each step what the next step will be. The only issue is that the difficulty of the calculation, or the power of the computer needed to perform this calculation, is enormous. And therefore after a few steps you simply won’t be able to continue the calculation. You won’t be able to tell me what happens five seconds from now. Okay? And that is only my computational limitation. There is no principled issue here at all. Meaning, the system is entirely deterministic. The present state clearly determines what the next state will be. Okay?
[Speaker A] But it seems to me—I don’t think he’s right. Does he really not believe in free will?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if he doesn’t believe in free will, then he doesn’t need to explain free will.
[Speaker A] What do you mean? It’s just our illusion that we choose.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, for that I don’t need chaos. What’s the problem? To explain illusions, go to a psychologist who’ll explain illusions to you—I don’t need a mathematician for that. It doesn’t sound like that. In my opinion—I’ve already met many others like him who get confused in the same way, so I have some experience by now. Many people, including scientists and intelligent philosophers, make exactly the same mistake. They don’t distinguish between what is not predictable and what is non-deterministic. Those are two different things. Fine? I think that’s the point here too. In any case, so that’s the claim here, basically: the problem here is an epistemic problem and not an ontic problem. Okay? An epistemic problem means a problem where I do not know what the correct answer is, I do not know what reality is. But that doesn’t mean that reality itself doesn’t contain one correct piece of information. By contrast, when I speak about ontic doubt, if there even is such a thing—we’ll see in a moment—that means that in reality itself there is no correct answer. Okay?
[Speaker A] But you said there is—you said there is a case where something is non-deterministic. Again? In the past you said about this that not everything is necessarily deterministic, not everything is necessarily deterministic, like—you talked about picking and choosing and Libet’s experiment? Yes. Well? It’s not certain that it’s deterministic.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the debate. Whether a person has free will or not. I think he does, but that’s not connected to this. I’m not speaking here about free will. I’m speaking here about the question whether the world is deterministic. As far as I’m concerned, quantum theory too says there is no determinism, just as quantum theory is not free choice. What do you mean,
[Speaker A] that there is no determinism there and yet still no free will? Uh-huh. How? Very simple.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Quantum theory says there is a lottery as to whether the particle will pass through this slit or that slit—does that mean the particle has free will? Of course not. The fact that you can’t predict it does not mean it has free will. Free will means that it deliberates and decides whether to pass through this slit or that slit. It doesn’t deliberate. There is a probability and it undergoes a lottery. It could also be deterministic, just that we
[Speaker A] can’t calculate it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another question—whether there are hidden variables. That’s a dispute among interpreters of quantum theory. But it doesn’t matter—even if there are no hidden variables, even if there aren’t and even if there aren’t.
[Speaker A] And still that means
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that the world is non-deterministic and still there is no free will? Right. Or no—still you cannot derive free will from that. I said not that there is no free will; I said you cannot prove from this that there is free will. Okay. So therefore the question is whether there really is such a thing as ontic doubt. The claim is that there is—at least according to the standard interpretation of quantum theory, in quantum theory there is ontic doubt and not just epistemic doubt, and this is the only example we know in physics, at least, of ontic doubt. What does that mean? Are there such things in other fields? There are places where I relate to doubt as ontic doubt; I hope to get to that at the end. I hope to get to that at the end. But when you reduce it to physics, there aren’t.
[Speaker A] Yes, say in nature it’s
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] non-deterministic and still not free will. Seemingly. I’m saying again: you can say there are phenomena in biology that are non-deterministic, but if you’re a reductionist then biology is just a lot of physics, and then there’s no room for that. So it depends whether you are a reductionist or not. Now look, I’ll show you the two-slit experiment, or I’ll speak through the two-slit experiment. The claim is the following. Think, for example, about a light wave. Can you see here? Yes. A beam of light that I send from here, from this flashlight, and here there is a partition and here there is a slit. Okay? And this beam of light hits the screen—here, this is a screen. This is a slit and behind it there is a screen. Now what happens is that we discover some sort of impact pattern, diffraction pattern, whatever you want to call it, a pattern like this. Meaning, the maximum impact will be here, and it decreases toward the sides. Okay? Meaning, here it hits a little, here it hits more, here it hits the most, and then it goes back down. That is the picture for one slit with a light wave. Now what happens when there are two slits? You send a light wave and there are two slits, and it hits the photographic plate—there are two slits, one here and one here. And now here there is photographic film. Okay. Now what do I see there? What I see there is this pattern. Okay? Here there is a maximum impact, like with each slit separately, only twice. Okay? So here there is some kind of slit—some distribution around this slit, and here there is a distribution around this slit. Now what happens—sorry, I misspoke. I’m talking about particles, not light. Meaning, when I send particles, then the distribution will look more or less like this. When I send particles here, the distribution will look like this, around the center, distributed around the center of the slit. What happens if I send a light wave? If I send a light wave then the pattern is more complicated. Here there is a peak, here there is a peak, and the largest peak is actually in the middle, between the two slits. Why is it like that? Because the two light waves interfere constructively—yes, more or less here in the middle, it also depends on the wavelength, never mind, there are all kinds of details here that I’m not going into—but there is some peak in the middle and two smaller peaks on the sides opposite the slits. Okay? So we have a difference between the picture when I send particles—that’s this picture—and the picture when I send waves—that’s this picture. Okay? Now I won’t drag you through all the history, but there were all kinds of disputes surrounding the question of how a light wave should behave. And this is Young’s experiment; I think they already did it in the nineteenth century, or something like that, and it—the Young experiment showed that Huygens was right. At least on this point Newton apparently was not right. The story wasn’t over, but on the face of it, that’s how it looked. Fine? Now the question is what happens when you do the same experiment with particles. So I say: when I did it with particles, I sent a beam of particles, electrons say, it turns out that I get a picture like this. Like light. Even when I do it with particles. Now people suspected that since I was doing it with many particles, then the particles from here were somehow interfering with the particles from there because it was an interaction between particles. Okay, and therefore something formed here that resembled a light wave, because in fact the collection of particles was somehow behaving like a wave. Then they did another experiment and said, okay, so let’s send the particles at a very slow rate. One particle at a time. Okay? It turns out that we get the same picture. Meaning, each individual particle also gives this picture. Now that is already very strange, because it means that a single particle passes through both slits, interferes with itself, and creates here a picture as though it were a wave. What?
[Speaker A] What does the top one represent?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It represents tennis balls, where the size of the particle is much larger than the relevant wavelength. When you speak about particles like electrons, you get something like a light wave. Okay? And then that is basically how quantum theory begins. Okay? Then the claim is that the particle apparently—even a single particle—passes through both slits. It passes through both slits and somehow interferes with itself and creates a picture as though it were a wave. And then it turns out that particles have wave properties. If Newton and Huygens argued about the nature of light, whether it is a particle or a wave, it turns out that the whole argument was based on a mistake: particles are also waves. But it turns out that even that is not so simple, because waves are also particles. Meaning, light too is a particle, and therefore Newton maybe was right after all—yes, there are photons, and photons are particles of the wave. Okay, I’m describing this very crudely. Why am I saying all this? Because now the next step is that we want to check—something here makes no sense. You send one particle toward a partition with two slits and it passes through both slits? How does one particle pass through two different slits? So what they do is put a detector next to one of the slits. Okay, and they want to check whether the particle passed through this slit or that slit. And it turns out that when we put in a detector, then the detector either beeps—say we put it next to slit A. So if it beeps, that means the particle passed through slit A, and then we’ll see a picture of just this pattern. Just this distribution around slit A. And if slit A doesn’t beep, that means the particle passed through slit B, and then we’ll see only this picture. But we will never see this overall interference pattern. Meaning, if you place a detector, then the particle behaves properly, like a particle. But if you don’t place a detector, then the particle behaves like a wave. It passes through both slits, not through one of them. Now when you put in a detector, I can’t know in advance which slit the particle will pass through. Sometimes it will pass through this one, sometimes through that one. But it will pass through one of them. Always through one of them. Either the detector will beep or it won’t beep, so I know whether it passed here or there. If I don’t place a detector, the particle plays hide-and-seek with me. Yes, if I don’t catch it, then it goes through both slits when I’m not paying attention, like that. So it quickly passes through both slits before I notice. Okay, and then I see interference, an interference pattern like waves. What does this mean, basically? The standard interpretation in quantum theory of this matter is that this single particle really does, if there is no detector, pass both through slit A and through slit B. What is called superposition. It has a trajectory that goes through slit A, it has a trajectory that goes through slit B, and the true state of the particle is that it is in a superposition—this is the state of slit A plus the state of slit B, some combination of the two. Okay, that is the state of the particle. And if you place a detector, then it turns out that it will go through slit A with a certain probability or through slit B with a different probability, and those probabilities are determined by its overall state. Okay? What is called the wave function. Never mind, the details are less important—I just want you to understand the idea. Detectors are the physics of the—
[Speaker A] Yes. That’s the meaning.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I’m giving the introduction, otherwise I wouldn’t have needed to. This is the standard interpretation; there are some disputes about it, but this is the standard interpretation.
[Speaker A] Now, once think about what the non-standard one is. What? Once think about what the non-standard one is. The non-standard one is that every time there’s a split into two different worlds, and each one—what do you mean non-standard? I didn’t understand. What, there’s a non-standard approach? If this is the standard one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, what is the non-standard one. Okay, so look. This is the standard conception: that there is essentially a particle that passes through both slits, and what is called its wave function is basically the sum of two functions, one that passes through slit A and one that passes through the other slit, and this function also determines with what probability it will pass through this one or that one if I do place a detector. Okay? That’s the issue. You may be more familiar with the example of Schrödinger’s cat, which says—and it basically does something quite similar, only much less interesting than the two slits, despite the fact that it sounds very exciting. We place a cat inside a closed box. There is a vial of poison there, and if that vial opens, then the cat dies. Now that vial is triggered by some beta decay, which is a decay—it doesn’t matter—a physical process. Now this physical process, the decaying material, is itself in some state of superposition. A sum of decayed and not decayed. Like the particles through the slits, never mind, but it is in some state of superposition. I didn’t put a detector there, I didn’t check whether it decays or not, the box is closed, okay? So basically right now we are in a state where it decayed or did not decay—or decayed and did not decay together. But as a result—but that decay opens the vial. So on the side that it decayed, the cat is dead; on the side that it did not decay, the cat is alive. So in effect it comes out that the cat is in a superposition of alive and dead. The cat is alive and dead together, simultaneously. Does that remind you of the woman who is divorced
[Speaker A] and married at the same time?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s the same thing, exactly the same logic, exactly the same thing, there’s no difference at all.
[Speaker A] It’s not a legal effect, Rabbi.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is definite, yes. Ah, okay. So that’s why it’s hard to understand. In the world of law or in Jewish law it’s pretty easy to understand; in the world of physics people can’t manage to understand it, but it’s exactly the same thing. Exactly the same thing, there’s no difference at all. And the claim, basically, the claim is that the cat is in some kind of superposition between alive and dead. Now, I was at a conference on free will a few weeks ago, there was some conference like that in Nazareth. There was a woman there who was talking about Schrödinger’s cat and all that; she said, look, there’s an even simpler experiment, no problem doing it, doesn’t matter right now. So I commented to her that she doesn’t understand Schrödinger’s cat. Meaning, Schrödinger’s cat is an astonishingly boring experiment. I mean, if we want to check whether the cat is alive or dead, we’ll discover either a live cat or a dead cat, because when you measure it, it’s like putting in a detector: when you measure it, it’s no longer in superposition; when you measure it, it’s in one of the basic states. Right? Schrödinger’s whole point is that before you measured it, it was in a superposition between alive and dead. In other words, the whole point there is a state that is not measurable. The moment you try to confirm Schrödinger’s thesis or try to measure it and see, then you’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater—you won’t succeed, because you’ll discover either a live cat or a dead cat. The experiment is a terribly boring experiment. As long as the experiment is practical, it’s boring; as a hypothetical experiment it’s interesting, when I haven’t measured. Okay? What’s the difference between that and the two-slit experiment? In the two-slit experiment I have the possibility of seeing the superposition state, unlike with the cat. In the two-slit experiment too we are basically in a state of superposition, but there, because of the hit on the screen and the interference between the two… between the passages through the two slits, I can measure the fact that the particle is in a superposition, which I can’t do with the cat. But it’s the same thing. Now what does that mean for our purposes? It means that in quantum theory, in the accepted interpretation, there is ontic doubt, not epistemic doubt. Ontic doubt means that in reality itself the cat is both alive and dead, or the particle passed both through slit A and through slit B. Not that it passed through one side and I just don’t know which. No—it passed through both. Okay? That’s ontic doubt, not epistemic doubt. What do I mean? Here this isn’t my lack of information about reality. In reality there was one thing and I don’t know; I’m missing information about reality. No, here even the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t know. Because in reality itself it passed through both slits. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, won’t be able to answer me if I ask: wait, but through which slit did it really pass? Fine, I don’t know—but You, Holy One, blessed be He, are supposed to know everything. And the Holy One, blessed be He, will say: both these and those are the words of the living God. Yes. Meaning: I also don’t know. Why? Because it’s not a lack of information. Where there is a lack of information, I’m a limited person, so there’s information I lack; I don’t know all the information. The Holy One, blessed be He, knows all the information; He lacks no information. But where it isn’t a lack of information—where reality itself is not well-defined—then in such a situation even the Holy One, blessed be He, can’t answer it. And that’s what I call ontic doubt and not epistemic doubt. Okay? You see now, in physics, maybe in another fifty years they’ll discover otherwise? Anything can happen. I’m talking right now according to what we know today. People always console themselves—maybe later they’ll discover something else. Fine, when they discover something else, we’ll talk. In the meantime, this is what we know. Now. What? A measurement error. Yes. So many people prayed that it would be a measurement error, but it doesn’t really work, yes. Well, no, there are other measurements that are even more revolutionary, even more mind-bending, but it doesn’t matter. Not long ago, a few years ago, Aspect got the Nobel Prize for the Aspect experiment, and there it apparently showed that there aren’t even hidden variables. What?
[Speaker C] Okay, what does that mean, that there aren’t hidden variables?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Bell’s inequality didn’t show it—Bell’s inequality gave the criterion, and then Aspect did an experiment, and according to Bell’s inequality it turns out there are no hidden variables. Got it? Anyway, what I want now is to show you a simple example of this specifically in the halakhic realm—of ontic doubt. So the Mishnah in Yevamot 118 says: If a man betrothed one of five women and does not know which one he betrothed—he doesn’t remember—and each one says, “He betrothed me,” then he gives a bill of divorce to each and every one, places the marriage settlement among them, and withdraws; these are the words of Rabbi Tarfon. And don’t get near that chicken coop anymore—don’t go near it. Rabbi Akiva says: This is not a way to keep him from transgression, until he gives a bill of divorce and a marriage settlement to each and every one. Yes, he doesn’t want them fighting. If one robbed one of five people and does not know from which one he robbed, and each one says, “He robbed me,” he places the stolen item among them and withdraws; these are the words of Rabbi Tarfon. Rabbi Akiva says: This is not a way to keep him from transgression until he pays each and every one. Here this is epistemic doubt, right? I robbed one person, or I betrothed one woman, and I don’t remember who, don’t know who—so it’s epistemic doubt, it’s my lack of information. Now look at this case. We’re talking about a man who gives a perutah to another man who has two daughters, Rachel and Leah, and he says: one of your daughters is betrothed to me. Okay? He doesn’t define which one—one of your two daughters is betrothed to me. So the Talmud says this is called betrothal not given over for intercourse. Why is it betrothal not given over for intercourse? Because I don’t know whether Rachel is my wife or Leah is my wife. If Rachel is my wife, then Leah is my wife’s sister, so I’m forbidden to have relations with her. But if Leah is my wife, then Rachel is my wife’s sister and I’m forbidden to have relations with Rachel. So in practice, because I’m in doubt whether it’s Rachel or Leah, I can’t have relations either with Rachel or with Leah. So in effect this is betrothal not given over for intercourse—I can’t have relations with either of them. There’s a dispute between the amoraim, Abaye and Rava, over whether betrothal not given over for intercourse counts as betrothal or not. It was stated: Betrothal not given over for intercourse—Abaye said it is valid betrothal; Rava said it is not valid betrothal. Rava bar Ahina explained it to me: “When a man takes a woman and has relations with her”—betrothal that is given over for intercourse is valid betrothal; betrothal that is not given over for intercourse is not valid betrothal. By the way, this “k” is from the mnemonic Yaal Kegam, meaning that in this matter the Jewish law follows Abaye. Okay? That the betrothal does in fact take effect. But Rava holds that it doesn’t, and he learns that from the verse.
[Speaker A] What? It takes effect?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. There’s doubt between two, so you have to give a bill of divorce to both. Obviously you can’t have relations with either of them—that’s agreed by everyone—and each one is possibly your wife’s sister. But the question is whether you have to give them a bill of divorce, or whether they aren’t your wives at all and then you don’t need to give a bill of divorce—they just remain unmarried women. Okay? It’s obvious that you can’t live with either of them, that’s… So that’s the dispute about betrothal not given over for intercourse. Now maybe one note: suppose when I betroth a woman—for example, a priest who betroths a divorcée. That is not called betrothal not given over for intercourse. Why? When he betroths a woman—when he betroths a divorcée. Yes. That’s not called betrothal not given over for intercourse even though there is a prohibition on having relations with her, in the case of a priest and a divorcée. So Tosafot and Rashba explain that betrothal not given over for intercourse is a situation where the prohibition on having relations with the woman is created by the betrothal. Not that I performed betrothal and there also happens to be a prohibition on relations with her, but where the betrothal itself created the prohibition. In this case, where I give a perutah to the father for one of his two daughters, that giving of the perutah is what created the prohibition. And betrothal like that—where instead of permitting the woman to me it forbids the woman to me—that is not betrothal according to Rava. Abaye says yes, but that is the concept of betrothal not given over for intercourse. Betrothal that involves a prohibition is not betrothal not given over for intercourse. As for those liable only for prohibitions, the betrothal is valid; and for those liable to karet, the betrothal is not valid according to Jewish law. But that has nothing to do with the concept of betrothal not given over for intercourse. Betrothal not given over for intercourse is a case of this type, where the act of betrothal creates a prohibition instead of permitting the woman to me. Okay? That’s called betrothal not given over for intercourse. Now let me ask a question about Maimonides’ view. We know there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) regarding the laws of doubt. Some of the medieval authorities, most of them, say that Torah-level doubt requires stringency, but Maimonides’ view is that Torah-level doubt is lenient on the Torah level, and the obligation to be stringent in Torah-level doubt is a rabbinic obligation. Okay? That’s Maimonides’ view. Now I ask: according to Maimonides, how can there be such a thing as betrothal not given over for intercourse? You say that with each of them I can’t have relations because she is possibly my wife’s sister. Right? Fine—but I can be lenient on the Torah level. If she is possibly my wife’s sister, then I’m permitted to have relations with her, since Torah-level doubt is treated leniently according to Maimonides. So I’m allowed to have relations with her. So why is this called betrothal not given over for intercourse? According to Maimonides, in a situation of doubt I can be lenient according to the law on the Torah level. On the rabbinic level I have to be stringent, but on the Torah level I can be lenient. So then, at least on the Torah plane, this should be betrothal—it is betrothal that is given over for intercourse. Rabbinically no. But on the Torah level you would at least have to give a bill of divorce. Right? So how will Maimonides explain the concept of betrothal not given over for intercourse? Now I’m leaving aside for the moment the later authorities (Acharonim) who want to argue in Maimonides’ view that in cases involving karet or stoning or things like that, Torah-level doubt is stringent on the Torah level even according to Maimonides. It’s simply not true. They say that only because of an incorrect difficulty, and as a result they produce an incorrect reading of Maimonides. All of that is simply incorrect. In Maimonides everything is lenient on the Torah level. So there is no simple answer here. The question is how to understand this. So look what Rabbi Shimon Shkop says. “It seems to me, in my humble opinion”—Sha’arei Yosher, Gate 3, chapter 22—“it seems to me that in the case of one who betrothed one of five women, and similarly one who consecrated one perutah within a purse, there is a deep inquiry here: in what manner does the legal effect apply to one of them?” Yes, I consecrate—I have five perutot in my pocket and I consecrate one of them to the House of God. I didn’t define which one. One of the five perutot. “There is a deep inquiry here as to in what way the legal effect applies to one of them.” Yes, what does it mean that on one of them the legal status takes effect? “For behold, in one who betroths one woman out of five women, where neither the man betrothing nor the woman being betrothed specified which of them would be designated for the betrothal—how can one say that in true reality a specific woman was designated for betrothal? For what reason or cause would Heaven designate one particular woman to be the betrothed and designated one more than the rest of the women?” Do you understand what he’s asking? What?
[Speaker C] Symmetry?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, symmetry could also be epistemic. And he’s claiming more than that. He’s claiming that the moment I betroth one of five women, the problem is not that I’m missing information. I’m not missing any information at all. I know exactly the information. It’s not that something happened and I don’t know it, that I’m missing some information. I know everything. And it’s clear that there is no correct answer here that I just don’t know. Meaning, the one betrothed to me is Leah, I just don’t know. But really the truth is that it’s Leah. If I asked the Holy One, blessed be He, then before Heaven it is revealed that it is Leah; only I don’t know. Rabbi Shimon Shkop says: what do you mean? Why did you decide that specifically Leah? There is nothing at all in the act of betrothal that singled out one of the five women and not the others. So therefore, says Rabbi Shimon Shkop, this cannot be epistemic doubt. It is ontic doubt. There isn’t one woman here who is betrothed and I just don’t know which one she is. If he betrothed one of five women and forgot which one—that Mishnah we saw earlier in Yevamot 118—that is epistemic doubt. There is one woman who was betrothed, but I don’t have the information who she is, and the Holy One, blessed be He, knows who she is. But here I didn’t define at all which of the five women I am betrothing. It’s not that I don’t remember or don’t know—there is one woman and I don’t know who she is. No, I never defined which one of the five I betrothed. In such a situation there isn’t one woman who is really betrothed, and I just don’t know. No, there is no particular woman who is specifically betrothed. They are all betrothed to the same degree. Or in other words, this is actually ontic doubt and not epistemic doubt. All the women are betrothed. It’s not that one is betrothed and I’m in doubt—this is not a state of doubt at all. There is no doubt. Doubt is when there is one woman who is betrothed and I don’t know who she is. I’m missing information, like I said before. Here I’m missing no information at all. I know exactly what the Holy One, blessed be He, knows. There is no information missing for me. There is one woman who is betrothed—but it is not a defined woman.
[Speaker A] Maybe it’s simply not that information is missing, but maybe what’s missing are, say, laws that we don’t—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] know. As someone said earlier, yes—maybe in the future they’ll discover that there are laws we don’t know.
[Speaker A] Suppose in such a case the older one is the one who becomes betrothed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What do you mean? Where did you get that from? No, there are no such laws. Okay? There aren’t.
[Speaker A] No, but maybe you could say that doubt—maybe you could say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can say anything, but there are no such laws.
[Speaker A] Now assuming there aren’t—that’s what I asked—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] before. Right, then it’s ontic doubt. You want to say maybe there are some laws that would prevent it from being ontic doubt? Leave it—there are no such laws. This example shows you what ontic doubt is.
[Speaker A] Maybe like a sage said—his daughter—it automatically goes to the older daughter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand, I understand, but I’m saying since that’s not true, and since it’s not… there is no such law. There isn’t; no one says that.
[Speaker A] There is no such law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Otherwise this wouldn’t be betrothal not given over for intercourse. I know there’s a law, but maybe the doubt simply comes from the fact that we don’t know what we don’t know.
[Speaker A] Yes, if it’s the older one, if it’s the younger one. No, but it’s not the older one and not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There isn’t—
[Speaker A] it’s not that there are two laws, older and younger, and I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] don’t know which of them is correct. Neither of those laws is correct. There is no such law.
[Speaker A] Now I’m saying, leave it—suppose there were—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] such a law—
[Speaker A] then I’m inventing for you a different halakhic system. In that system there is no such law, okay?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In that system do you agree that it’s ontic doubt?
[Speaker A] That’s all. Let’s talk about that. Why should I care now about this system where there are laws I don’t know? Okay? I’m talking about that one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What happens there, in that hypothetical law where there are no additional laws? Okay? Then it’s ontic doubt, not epistemic doubt. You understand that this is exactly like quantum theory. It’s a superposition of betrothal among five women, or among two sisters, doesn’t matter. Right? It’s exactly the same thing, literally one-to-one, the same thing. By the way, with Ritva I’m even talking here about quantum collapse.
[Speaker D] Yes. And if there are no such-and-such prohibitions, then he can basically marry all of them. Is that basically a way to save money?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—well, yes, but it’s tenuous marriage to all of them.
[Speaker D] What does that mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They’re not entirely your wives, because each one is betrothed to you with tenuous betrothal, because you gave only one perutah, you created only one betrothal. It’s just that this is a superposition of: this one is betrothed to you, and this one is also betrothed to you, plus this one is betrothed to you, plus this one is betrothed to you, plus this one is betrothed to you. It’s not that all of them are betrothed to you. That’s not the same thing. It’s not the same as if I gave five perutot to five women and betrothed each one of them—then all five are betrothed to me. That’s no problem.
[Speaker A] So let him give a bill of divorce to one of them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question whether giving a bill of divorce to one of them solves the problem—that’s a nice point. A nice point, right, maybe. He gives a bill of divorce that is not given over for intercourse—a sort of ontic divorce to all five. And if the betrothal is ontic doubt and the divorce is also ontic doubt, then there’s no problem; I’ve resolved all five of them. By the way, why does it say here that he gives a bill of divorce to each and every one? Interesting point. Why not give one to all of them together in this kind of ontic way? Interesting question. I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. Anyway, for our purposes, Rabbi Shimon Shkop says: “Rather, it seems more reasonable to say that in every such case, even in true reality no specific woman was designated for betrothal, and in such a case it is not relevant to say, ‘If Elijah were to come’”—that if Elijah were to come he would tell us which woman is betrothed. No—even if Elijah were to come, he would not be able to tell us. He doesn’t know. “And when we say that each one is forbidden because of doubt, this is not like ordinary doubts in the world.” It’s not really a situation of doubt. The word doubt here is being used imprecisely. It’s not really doubt. “For the concept of doubt is: perhaps this is the certainty in reality, and perhaps that is the certainty in reality. But here the matter is that the entire legal effect exists because of a cause that produces it.” There isn’t one who is certainly betrothed and you just don’t know who. Rather this is the law: the law is that there is a superposition here of five women, each of whom can be betrothed to me. Again, this is not five women betrothed. It is a superposition of five states, where each one is Leah is betrothed, Rachel is betrothed, I don’t know, Bilhah, Zilpah, and Sarah. Okay? Plus plus plus plus. Fine? It’s not the same as all five being betrothed to me. It’s something different. Ontic doubt. It’s not that everyone—if everyone were betrothed to me, there would be no doubt here, neither epistemic nor ontic. This is ontic doubt. We said it’s a superposition of the two of them. Therefore, for example, Ritva—there’s Avnei Milu’im here and so on, I’m not going into all that—Ritva for example argues that there can be collapse here. In quantum theory, as we saw, if you put a detector near one of the slits, then you essentially force the particle to go through a slit. Either this one or that one—whether with the detector or without, but you force it. Why is there a—
[Speaker A] detector?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no idea, but those are the facts. Don’t ask me—I don’t know, nobody knows. But those are the facts. So you basically force it to be a classical particle, to pass through one of the slits. Okay? If you put in a detector. Ritva argues that afterward you can come and determine with the father which of the five will be betrothed, or which of the two. Which basically means you can collapse the superposition onto one of the states, one of the options. Okay? That’s basically his claim, but that’s another story. Anyway, that’s what Rabbi Shimon Shkop argues. Now look: according to what he says, my earlier question about Maimonides doesn’t even begin. I asked: according to Maimonides, since Torah-level doubt is treated leniently, then what is betrothal not given over for intercourse according to Maimonides? After all, he is permitted to have relations with her—she is only possibly your wife’s sister. So why can’t you have relations with her? Torah-level doubt is lenient according to Maimonides. You have a doubt, no problem, with doubt you can be lenient. You’re permitted to have relations with her. Why is this betrothal not given over for intercourse? Because it’s not doubt. It’s not doubt. This one is your wife and this one is your wife too, tenuously. Okay? So each one of them is your wife’s sister tenuously. And therefore with respect to each one of them you have a tenuous Torah prohibition on having relations with her. And this is not doubt; it’s certainty. Here too, even according to Maimonides, it would be forbidden for him to have relations with them. According to Maimonides you have to say that this is ontic doubt, otherwise there is no such thing as betrothal not given over for intercourse. In epistemic doubt one can be lenient according to Maimonides. Okay? So that, for example, is one indication of what to do with Maimonides’ view. And he says: “And the cause of the legal effect of the betrothal is the act of betrothal—the giving of the money and the statement. And since he gave the money and said, ‘One of these five women shall be betrothed to me,’ whereby it is fitting that one of them should come under the law of a married woman, because of this each one is forbidden by virtue of the act. And not because we are in doubt regarding her that she is the one betrothed more than the other four women remaining. And in every such case”—in every such case, says Rabbi Shimon Shkop—“the concept of doubt is not: perhaps this is the certainty. For in such a case there is no certainty even in true reality.” It’s not that in reality there is certainty and I just don’t know. Rather, “for practical conduct we must behave with each one according to the law of doubt, because of the cause that brings about the law that one of them is to be the one, yet it is not clarified who that one is, and all of them are fit to be that one.” So in practice the conduct is like doubt, but there is not really doubt here. I’ll say even more than what I said in the previous class: it’s also not correct to say that this is doubt. We are not acting here according to the laws of doubt. If this were rabbinic doubt, we would still be stringent. Since it isn’t doubt—there is both this and that—then you have to be stringent even if it’s rabbinic doubt. Or as I said with Maimonides: Torah-level doubt is lenient on the Torah level, but here Maimonides will say to be stringent. Therefore it’s an imprecise expression to say that here we are acting according to the laws of doubt. That’s not true. Usually it will resemble the laws of doubt, but not always. There will be situations where it won’t match the laws of doubt because it really isn’t doubt at all. It’s both this and that—that’s not doubt. And according to this, says Rabbi Shimon Shkop, “in such a case it is not relevant to say the law of nullification by majority.” What happens if there are five coins of which I consecrated one… what happens if there are five coins of which I consecrated one, or five women of whom I betrothed one? What’s the problem? Let it be nullified by the majority of the other four. There is no such thing. Why not? Because in a mixture where one item is forbidden and four are permitted, the four permitted ones nullify the one forbidden one. But here they all have the same status. There is no majority and minority here. Each one of them is four-fifths permitted and one-fifth forbidden—but all of them are. So what will be nullified by what? There is nothing here… For there to be nullification you need a majority with one property and a minority with another property. Then the property of the minority is nullified and the minority takes on the property of the majority. But here all the women have exactly the same characteristics, the same properties.
[Speaker A] And if this were doubt—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if it were—
[Speaker A] would it be nullified by majority? What? If it were doubt, would it be nullified by majority?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Yes. Why wouldn’t it… He says yes? Again, it could be something significant enough not to be nullified, so rabbinically it wouldn’t be nullified because it’s something recognizable. Never mind. But yes, in principle, according to the law itself it would be nullified by majority. There is one forbidden and four permitted. Think of me taking one now. If I take one now, then whatever separates is presumed to have separated from the majority; that’s not even nullification. It’s whatever separates, you don’t even need to get to nullification. Yes. But here that isn’t true. If I took one, within that one she is my wife’s sister. Period. She is 0.8 my wife’s sister and 0.2… sorry, 0.8 my wife’s sister and 0.2 my wife. Superposition. But from the perspective of the 0.8 wife’s-sister part, she is forbidden to me. Definitely forbidden to me. It’s just that the prohibition is tenuous, with an intensity of 0.8. Okay? So what we discover here is that there is… there is a structure here whose logic is very similar to quantum theory. There is a superposition here among several possible states, and they all exist in reality. It isn’t epistemic—it isn’t that I don’t know what is happening in reality—and in quantum theory too that’s the debate. Is it that I don’t know through which slit the particle passed, or no, there isn’t one slit through which the particle passed? Okay? It passes through both slits. So here too it’s the same thing, and it’s really like quantum theory. By the way, in this case, think about it for a second—it’s very easy to understand, right? If I betroth one of two women, every child understands that it’s not really doubt; rather there is here a sum of two possibilities, where each time a different one is betrothed to me. So why in quantum theory do we get so tangled up and fail to understand the logic and the reasoning, while here everything is terribly clear and simple? What’s the problem? So what? No, again, I’m talking about your ability to understand the logic, not to believe that it’s true. Why is it that there I don’t believe it’s true and here it’s obviously clear? Because there these are facts and here these are only legal definitions. No, I’m talking about the question: why is it hard to understand… what does the logic say? After all, a large part of the complications in learning quantum theory is understanding that the probability there is ontic probability and not epistemic probability. People keep discussing it as though it were epistemic probability, but it isn’t—it’s ontic probability. Therefore possibilities can interfere with one another, which does not happen in epistemic probability. You can’t have interference between two possibilities when only one of them exists. You don’t have interference between two conceptions of reality—that can’t interfere. Okay? It’s very hard to understand that. Now, we’re just getting tangled up in it for no reason, because exactly the same logic, in this context of betrothal not given over for intercourse, there’s no problem understanding. It’s very easy. And I thought that to a large extent, if I were teaching a course in quantum theory, I would start with this—with betrothal not given over for intercourse. Because there it’s much easier to understand this logic: what exactly is the difference between this and a case of ordinary doubt, ordinary probability, ordinary distribution. Okay? Why isn’t quantum theory just statistics, a branch of statistics? It isn’t. Statistics is… there is one correct possibility, you just don’t know which. In quantum theory it’s a superposition among all kinds of possibilities, all of which are correct to different degrees. Okay? And this point—that is the main point that people studying quantum theory do not understand. But that point can also be seen in the halakhic context; it’s exactly the same thing. And here, for some reason, it’s easier for us to understand it. It’s right here. Everything came out of the Talmud.
[Speaker A] In Chabad they study this…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. I have enough faults to make up for that. Yes.
[Speaker A] There’s a Mishnah—I’m not sure if it fits this—but once a person, say, was half-slave—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and half-free—
[Speaker A] I had a Tosafot saying that a half-slave half-free person also can’t marry a half-slave half-free person, because the slave side of him—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but there it’s not superposition. He is actually half-slave, half-free.
[Speaker A] It’s not superposition. Right, but if I say that, say, on the day he’s a slave and on the day he’s free, then it fits—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But why are you… why are you assuming that? The division is a symmetric division. So his slave half cannot marry her free half. The question of how we divide the rights—half-slave half-free is not that. Half-slave half-free means he is a slave and free. Half of him is a slave, half of him is free. How we divide the rights, the uses—one day you work him, another day I work him—that’s another matter. Yes, you don’t need that to explain it. So now I want to show you another implication in the laws of the Sabbath. You know there is a dispute between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda about an unintended act. If I drag a bench and it makes a furrow in the ground—making a furrow in the ground is forbidden, either because of plowing in a field or because of building inside a house, but it is forbidden. What happens if I drag the bench and I want to move it somewhere else, but that dragging creates a furrow? That is called unintended. According to Rabbi Yehuda one is liable, and according to Rabbi Shimon liable or forbidden—exempt; and according to Rabbi Shimon it is permitted. Okay, so an unintended act is permitted. But if it is a case of an inevitable result, then it is forbidden even according to Rabbi Shimon. Meaning, if I drag a bench on soft ground where it is definitely clear in advance that a furrow will be made, then even if I am dragging the bench in order to move the bench from place to place and not in order to make a furrow in the ground, still if it is clear that I am making a furrow in the ground, clearly in advance the ground will be furrowed, then in such a case it is forbidden even according to Rabbi Shimon. Rabbi Shimon concedes in a case of “cut off its head and will it not die?” Okay, now in the Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim 316, it writes as follows: For anything whose kind is hunted, one is liable for it. If it is not the kind that is hunted, one is exempt, but it is forbidden. Yes, the rule is that if there are creatures that people do not ordinarily hunt, then the prohibition against hunting them on the Sabbath is only rabbinic. Hunting on the Sabbath is forbidden on the Torah level—it is a prohibited labor—but only with creatures that we generally hunt. Therefore, says the Shulchan Arukh, flies, even though their kind is not hunted, it is forbidden to hunt them. Flies are not something people generally hunt; flies have no use except for those who hold fly circus competitions, and therefore hunting flies is a rabbinic prohibition, not a Torah prohibition. Okay. The Rema writes in a gloss: Therefore one should be careful not to close a small box or seal vessels that contain flies on the Sabbath, because that is an inevitable result that they will be trapped there. And some are lenient in a place where if he opens the vessel to take them out, they will flee. Meaning, yes, I’m now closing a box. Who knows—maybe there’s a fly inside. And if I closed the box, then I basically trapped it, right? Unless it’s in a place where when I open the box the fly will escape, in which case that is not called trapping because it isn’t really trapped, I can’t make use of it. Fine, that’s less important for our purposes. Okay, what is important for our purposes is that he says one has to be careful not to close the box lest there be flies inside. Okay. Now the Tur—Shulchan Arukh, the Rema—the source is in the Tur there in 316. He brings the words of Baal HaTerumot—that’s the Rema’s position, what the Rema brings—but he himself disagrees with it, the Tur. Anything whose kind is hunted—one is liable; if its kind is not hunted, one is exempt but it is forbidden. Therefore, flies, even though their kind is not hunted, it is forbidden to hunt them. Therefore Baal HaTerumot wrote that it is forbidden on the Sabbath to lock a box that contains flies; rather one should put a knife or some item between the lid and the box so that they can get out. And it seems to me that there is no need to be so particular about this, because the flies are not trapped in the box, since if one comes to open the box and take them, they will flee, and it is not similar to things in a beehive, etc. So he disagrees with Baal HaTerumot and says yes, this is what the Rema says at the end: if you want to make use of the fly, you have to open the box and it will escape from you, so that is not called that it was trapped, and therefore you did not trap it. Now the Taz explains the Tur as follows. “Therefore one must be careful,” etc. The Tur in the name of Baal HaTerumot wrote to forbid this. And he wrote about it: “It seems to me there is no need to be particular about this.” The Tur disagrees with Baal HaTerumot. “And it seems to me that the words of the Tur are correct,” says the Taz. “And first let us examine his wording carefully, for he wrote: ‘It seems to me there is no need to be particular about this,’ and he did not write: ‘It seems to me that it is permitted.’” What does “there is no need to be particular about this” mean? Say it’s permitted to close it—what does “there is no need to be particular” mean? “Rather, he too holds that it is forbidden when he definitely sees flies in the box, but when he said that there is no need to be particular about this, he meant that one need not search into the matter to inspect whether there are flies there.” What the Tur says against Baal HaTerumot is not that it is permitted to close the box. If there are flies there, it is forbidden to close the box. It’s just that you don’t need to look and verify that there are no flies there; you can close it when in doubt. Fine, that’s what the Taz says. What? No, not for that reason. What? No, not for that reason.
[Speaker A] If I don’t know there’s a fly, but if I opened it then should I close it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another issue, but he says there’s no need to be particular about this—he says you don’t need to check whether there are flies or not. That’s why I said I don’t agree with his reading of the Tur. But that’s how he explains the Tur. Okay. “And as for the Tur’s second difficulty, it seems that this is what he means.” This is the continuation of the Taz. “First, that even if there definitely are flies, it is not called trapped as with bees. And second, even if you say that when it is definite it is an inevitable result and forbidden, nevertheless when it is uncertain whether there are flies there, one should permit it, because there it is not an inevitable result, since it is a doubtful inevitable result, and that is an unintended act and is permitted.” What did he say? He says: why don’t you need to be particular and make sure there are no flies inside the box? Because if you weren’t particular, then you are in doubt whether there are flies or not. And since that is so, when you close the box, after all it is unintended. You are closing the box not in order to trap the fly; you are closing the box in order to close the box. It’s just that maybe you are also trapping—that is unintended. So he says yes, but this is an unintended act with an inevitable result if there is a fly there. And if you do not know whether there is a fly there, and you don’t need to look to see whether there is or isn’t a fly, because if you didn’t look you are in doubt—if you are in doubt, then closing the box does not compel, does not necessarily trap, because you don’t know whether there is a fly there or not. And something that is not necessary is not an inevitable result. Right? Seemingly very logical. Okay. In my opinion very illogical. You’ll see in a minute. The Rema in Yoreh De’ah 87 says as follows: Some say that it is forbidden to stir the fire under the pot of a gentile, because they cook in them sometimes milk and sometimes meat, and one who stirs the fire under their pot comes to cook meat and milk together. The meat and milk absorbed inside the pot are effectively cooked together when you put fire underneath, and therefore it is forbidden to stir the fire under that pot. Okay. So Rabbi Akiva Eiger says there: “This is difficult for me, for he does not intend to cook, but only to stir the fire.” He does not intend to cook what is absorbed in the pot; what does he care what is absorbed in the pot? How does it help him that he cooks it? Right? “And it is not an inevitable result, because perhaps the gentile did not cook meat with milk in the pot.” You do not know for certain that the gentile cooked both meat and milk there. Maybe there is meat and milk there, maybe not—you are in doubt. Since that is so, it is not an inevitable result. The—
[Speaker A] doubt—he said inevitable?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, who said that?
[Speaker A] It’s doubt, yes—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You are in doubt. Never mind, let’s assume the case is one of doubt; that’s enough for our purposes. “And one must say that specifically in a doubt about the future—perhaps this effect will not come about through his action—such as dragging a chair or bench, where the doubt is perhaps by his dragging no hole will be made. But in a doubt about the past, as here—if there is absorbed meat and milk in the pot, then with this stoking it will certainly be cooked; rather the doubt is whether there is no absorption of meat and milk there—this is called an inevitable result.” And that is like the fly. Now he brings the Taz. The next stage is that he brings the Taz about the fly. Rabbi Akiva Eiger himself brings it. What does Rabbi Akiva Eiger say? He says this: if I drag a bench and there is doubt whether a furrow will be made, then that is not an inevitable result. If I know a furrow will be made, then it is an inevitable result and that is forbidden. But what if I close a box and I do not know whether there is a fly in it or not? Or I heat a pot and I do not know whether there is meat and milk inside it or not? Rabbi Akiva Eiger says that in such a case this is called a doubtful inevitable result, and it is forbidden. Now that sounds strange. A doubtful inevitable result is exactly not an inevitable result. An inevitable result is when there is no doubt. You’re telling me “doubtful inevitable result”? That means it’s not inevitable. He says no. Because there are really two possibilities: either there is a fly inside, or there is no fly inside. On the side that there is a fly inside, if you close the box then it is an inevitable result that you trapped it. If there is no fly inside, then you didn’t trap. But right now the situation is either this or that—you don’t know which of the two is the case. But clearly the situation is one of two: either there is a fly inside or there isn’t. On the side that there is a fly inside, this is a complete inevitable result. The fact that you don’t know—he says that is a doubtful inevitable result. And Torah-level doubt requires stringency; it is forbidden. He is basically saying there is a difference between when your doubt concerns the future and when your doubt concerns the past. When you drag a bench, you don’t know whether a furrow will be made in the future. That is not an inevitable result, because there is doubt, you don’t know. But if it is a situation that already exists—the question is whether there is currently a fly inside the box or no fly inside the box, or whether there is meat and milk absorbed in the pot or no meat and milk absorbed in the pot. You have a doubt about the past, about what already exists now, not about what will happen in the future. And now there are two possibilities: either there is a fly in the box or there isn’t a fly in the box. On the side that there is a fly in the box, you are violating a Torah prohibition of an inevitable result. On the side that there isn’t a fly—then not. That is a doubt about a Torah prohibition, requiring stringency. Doesn’t an inevitable result at all depend on the person’s knowledge? Exactly. What Rabbi Akiva Eiger is really claiming is this: if your doubt is epistemic doubt—you don’t know what reality is, but there is one reality—then this is not called “not an inevitable result”; it is an inevitable result, it is a doubtful inevitable result. Because on the side that reality is like that, then you have an inevitable result here. On the side that not, there is no inevitable result. So you are in doubt about an inevitable result, and that is a Torah-level doubt requiring stringency. But if you tell me no—in reality itself it is not certain that a furrow will be made, in reality itself it is not certain that there is… if inside there is Schrödinger’s cat—trapping a dead cat is not forbidden. If inside there is Schrödinger’s cat, that is ontic doubt, not epistemic doubt. In such a situation it is not an inevitable result. If it is epistemic doubt, then it is an inevitable result. If I don’t know whether there is a fly inside or not, how is that different from not knowing any other prohibition? If there is a fly inside, then after all you trapped it, and that is an inevitable result and a Torah prohibition. And I do not know whether I violated that Torah prohibition—Torah-level doubt requires stringency. But inevitable result doesn’t at all—
[Speaker A] need intention, meaning when it’s soft ground, say, and he drags the bench—he knows it will happen, is that why it’s forbidden?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not because he knows. It has nothing to do with knowledge. It has to do with whether it is a necessary result or not, regardless of whether he knows.
[Speaker A] But does he need to know that it’s a necessary result?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. If I, as a judge, look from the side—he doesn’t know that the result is necessary, but I know. And he asks me whether this is forbidden or permitted, I will tell him forbidden. It does not depend on his intention. You have to understand that “unintended” is not an exemption of duress. It’s not: I didn’t know—what can I do? It’s not my fault. No, even if I know. It is not an exemption of duress. An unintended act is not a form of coercion. An unintended act is simply not the right way to do a prohibited labor on the Sabbath—or rather, if so, then it is a way that is not forbidden for doing the labor. Okay? So that’s what Rabbi Akiva Eiger says. Essentially, what we have here is a distinction between ontic doubt and epistemic doubt. And he says that if it is ontic doubt, then it is not an inevitable result; and if it is epistemic doubt, then it is a doubtful inevitable result and one must forbid it, because Torah-level doubt requires stringency. But—
[Speaker A] You said doubt about the future is also epistemic—say he doesn’t know the geology of the soil.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, that’s the next stage; in just a moment I’ll get to it, that’s my next comment. So now, when we suddenly see… after that he brings the Taz and says that he disagrees with the Taz, no matter, the Taz regarding flies that we saw in Orach Chayim. The question is… so basically here is another example of the distinction between ontic doubt and epistemic doubt. But then what? We’re already sophisticated, we’ve studied quantum theory, we already know that there is no such thing as ontic doubt in reality. There isn’t. In our macroscopic reality, the ordinary one, there is no ontic doubt. In quantum theory maybe there is. We’re talking here about ground and a bench and grooves in the ground; this is macroscopic reality from everyday life. There is no such thing there as ontic doubt. All doubts are epistemic. What does that mean? Say I drag a bench across the ground. Now I don’t know whether a groove will be made or not. I dragged the bench and a groove was made, so I’m exempt, because it’s not an inevitable result, even though a groove was made. Since from the outset it was not an inevitable result, I’m exempt. Right. Now, but obviously if a groove was made, and in the end I dragged the bench and a groove was made, then clearly this is the kind of ground where when you drag a bench over it a groove is made. Otherwise it wouldn’t have happened, right? That proves that this ground is of that sort. And once I know that this is the ground, then it was clear from the outset that a groove would be made. True, I don’t know that because I’m not a soil expert. Doesn’t matter. But after it already happened, I can conclude that in fact it was clear from the outset that this would happen. And if what matters is not my knowledge, but only the question whether in practice it was certain to happen by Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s criterion, then there is no such thing as ontic doubt. Every doubt is epistemic. So what, then, is called an inevitable result? Every doubt is epistemic. So when is there, when is there something that is not—something that is inevitable, that is not an inevitable result? Everything is a doubtful inevitable result. Good question. Okay? One more time? I’ll explain again. Look, when I drag a bench and a groove is made, okay? Now, if a groove was made there, then obviously the ground is such that when you drag a bench of this type over it, a groove is made, right? That’s the hardness level of the ground. Now true, beforehand I didn’t know. What? Doesn’t matter. All the parameters. It doesn’t matter right now, but all the parameters of the ground lead to the fact that if you drag a bench over it, a groove will be made there. The fact is, it happened.
[Speaker C] How?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The way I drag it—it doesn’t matter—even the way I pull the bench, that too is part of the parameters. What difference does it make? If I knew all those things in advance, I would have known in advance that a groove would be made, right? But the thing is, I don’t know. It’s chaotic. How would you know whether you drag it like this or like that, I don’t know what the character of the ground is, I’m not a soil expert, so I don’t know. But the fact that I don’t know means that the doubt is epistemic, not ontic. It’s not that on this ground a groove might be made and might not be made. No! On this ground it is clear that a groove will either be made or not be made. I don’t know, because I’m not a soil expert. Maybe even experts don’t know. Doesn’t matter, but on the principled level, if it happened, it necessarily happened. In physics there is no such thing as something that happened and could have not happened. If it happened, then it happened necessarily. But the thing is, I didn’t know it. Yet according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger, what I knew or didn’t know is irrelevant. All that matters is whether it was foreseeable in advance that this would happen. That means that always, everything that happened is an inevitable result. There is no such thing as something that is not an inevitable result. At most you can tell me, yes, but I didn’t know, so it’s only a doubtful inevitable result. Fine, but even with a doubtful inevitable result you have to be stringent. A Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. So how would Rabbi Akiva Eiger explain the law of an inevitable result at all? According to his view, there is no such thing as something that is not an inevitable result. Everything is an inevitable result. Since every doubt is epistemic and not ontic. Only if you were dragging a bench at the level of an electron over a crack, maybe there you could talk about ontic doubt. But in our world every doubt is epistemic. Clear?
[Speaker A] Maybe really everything is epistemic doubt, but in the distinction between the future and the past there’s something there, I don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So there is a very major halakhic analysis of this, it’s in Shutz, and he raises possibilities that there may be a difference between the past and the future, even though to my mind there is no logic to it at all, but that really the distinction is not between ontic and epistemic but between past and future. It’s a long discussion; I’m not going into all the details now. But I want to make the following claim: regarding the distinction between ontic doubt and epistemic doubt, it’s clear that in our physics everything is epistemic. Except for quantum theory. In macroscopic physics, ordinary physics, everything is epistemic. Nothing is ontic. But Jewish law does not operate according to physics. Jewish law operates according to how people perceive reality. The layman here, the ordinary person—how does he perceive reality? Not at the level of the expert. How does he perceive reality? Now, if you ask just an ordinary layman, an average person, and you say to him: I’m dragging a bench across this ground; will a groove be made or not? he’ll say: I don’t know; on this kind of ground a groove might be made, and it might not be made. Without forcing him into a corner and bringing him to the point, he’ll tell you it’s ontic doubt. Not epistemic doubt. Hard ground, then no groove will be made. Soft ground, a groove will certainly be made. And this is ground in the middle; maybe one will be made, maybe not. So the average person perceives this doubt as ontic doubt. Therefore, says Rabbi Akiva Eiger, it is not an inevitable result, because it is ontic doubt. Not because it really is ontic doubt. The truth is that it is not ontic doubt, but human beings, an ordinary person, the reasonable person, sees such a thing as ontic doubt. Where not? If you ask a person whether there is a fly in the box or not, he won’t tell you: ah, in a box like this there might be a fly, there might not be a fly. No, I don’t know. There is ontic doubt, there is—this is only in quantum theory—there is epistemic doubt, which is the usual kind of doubt, and there is pseudo-ontic doubt: doubt that people see as ontic doubt even though in truth it is epistemic doubt. And when we speak about ontic doubt in the laws of an inevitable result, what we really mean is pseudo-ontic doubt, not actual ontic doubt. It goes by how people look at it. It’s like what people often say, you know, with the laws of worms in vegetables and fruit. There are halakhic decisors who say that what you cannot see with the naked eye is not forbidden; you don’t need a magnifying glass. Because Jewish law does not follow the experts; Jewish law follows how the normal person perceives reality—that is the reality that matters for a halakhic ruling. There are such claims. By the way, according to this, all the Tzomet Institute devices are worth nothing, because the Tzomet devices say: I do it like this in the electrical circuit and it comes from there, and I don’t know—you look here, you press a button and this thing works. So from the layman’s perspective, you activated an electrical circuit. Why should I care that you activated it this way? You can’t see that it works this way; it happens inside through some electronic mechanisms inside. Only the experts understand that, and even they—if they don’t know, they won’t know. But the person looking says: what, you pressed a button and activated a machine—what do you mean? Why should I care if it activated some delay mechanism that activated something else that did this and did I-don’t-know-what, one goat, one goat. It doesn’t matter. Meaning, this also has stricter implications, and therefore the leniencies of the Tzomet Institute, in my view, are highly questionable in general because of this consideration. But I want to show you a passage from Rabbi Shlomo Zalman—here, Shlomo Zalman regarding worms. So he says: “And likewise what the Shevut Tzion wrote in section 28, and it is also brought in Imrei Binah, the laws of meat and milk, in the name of one gaon, and in Darkei Teshuvah section 84, that regarding the worm to which one is not paying attention, it is considered merely an unintentional act. And even though there is no category of unintentional involvement in forbidden fats because one derives benefit, here it is different, because the benefit is only from the fruit and not from the worm.” Yes, you don’t intend to eat the worm; it is inside the fruit, so your mind is not on it; that is considered unintentional involvement. So then it’s not forbidden to eat worms—eat fruit with the worms inside, there’s no prohibition. Why is there no prohibition? Because it is an unintentional act; you don’t mean to eat the worm, you are eating the fruit. Fine, like an unintended act or unintentional involvement or something like that. “And even though it is like a doubtful inevitable result regarding the past, which is not considered an unintended act, as explained by Rabbi Akiva Eiger in Yoreh De’ah”—after all, either there is a worm inside the fruit or there isn’t; that is a doubt about the past. If I ate the fruit and there is a worm inside it, then it is an inevitable result that I ate the worm. He assumes there is an inevitable-result category even in unintentional involvement, not only in unintended action. I’m not getting into that minefield right now, okay? So he says: then this is really an inevitable result regarding the past, and according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger it should be forbidden. It is not true that it is not an inevitable result because you don’t know whether there is a worm. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know whether there is a worm; if there is a worm, then it is an inevitable result that you ate it. So he says: “Nevertheless, it seems that if the clarification can only be made through very great effort, it is considered, in effect, after the fact, and in our case it is properly regarded as having been done only at the moment of eating through unintentional involvement and as an unintended act, and it is permitted. For even dragging a bed and the like can also be known in advance through a great expert, and nevertheless it is permitted.” A soil expert, after all, could have checked the ground and told you in advance whether this is the kind of ground in which a groove would be made or not. So why there don’t we say that it is a doubtful inevitable result, as Rabbi Akiva Eiger would require? What I said earlier. Why? Because that takes only a great expert. The layman, the ordinary person, sees it as though it is not an inevitable result, as ontic doubt. Even though by means of an expert you could know, once the checking requires an expert, for me that is not interesting; I look at it through the eyes of the layman. Now he says the same thing here: that means, how can you check whether there are worms inside the fruit? It’s a great effort, it requires equipment; you can’t check it before eating it, before opening it. Okay? You can’t mash the fruit and check whether there is a worm inside, because then you won’t have anything left to eat. There is no way to check it. Maybe experts can, but there is no way to check it. If there is no way to check it, then it is ontic doubt and not epistemic doubt, and therefore there is no law of inevitable result here. I think that what lies behind the distinction he makes here—the distinction he makes here—is basically the difference between pseudo-ontic and truly ontic. Because the question is whether the expert determines it; then it is truly ontic. If the layman determines it, then it is pseudo-ontic.
[Speaker A] But if you ask him, like in the case of the fly, if you ask him whether there is a worm or not, he’ll say yes or no. He’ll say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, obviously he won’t say what I said earlier, but his distinction is the same distinction I made. He just ties it not to the question of what the layman would say, but to the question of how hard it is to check. Yes. Yes. The division is the same division that I made. The criteria are not my wording, no matter, but he is still distinguishing between pseudo-ontic and ontic. Okay? That is basically the claim. Okay. We’ll stop here. Good luck on the exams, for whoever has them.