Yoma Chapter 8, Lesson 8

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I wanted today to get through the topic of the obligation of women and minors, the different categories of people on Yom Kippur. After that I saw that it’s not really going to work. It’s too long? Yes, I’ll deal with women, and the minors we’ll do next time, because there there are also all kinds of specific points. I, as you may have noticed, am trying less to get into the details and specifics of the passages and more to give the conceptual picture, including the broader context of how you think about these things בכלל, how this “between prohibition and positive commandment” works — meaning, not only in the context of Yom Kippur, but really to put it into broader contexts. In that sense too, today I’ll try to do that. But since I hope there’ll still be a little time left, I’ll touch a bit on eating on the ninth before I move to women’s obligation, which I said I wasn’t sure I’d get to today, so I’ll do it briefly. In principle, in the Talmudic passage we saw last time, it seems a bit like there’s a dispute on this matter, because there are different derivations, and the question is what exactly is learned from what, and what is learned from each verse. And one tanna doesn’t derive it, while another tanna does derive the law of eating on the ninth. So apparently there is really a dispute over whether there is in fact any obligation to eat on the ninth at all. Elsewhere it sounds like there is such an obligation as a simple matter; it isn’t presented as a dispute. So it could be either that the other tanna also accepts it, only he doesn’t derive it from here but from somewhere else, and the Talmud here doesn’t go into where he derives it from; or that even the tanna who derives it from here is really treating it as some sort of asmachta, and it doesn’t actually mean a Torah-level law. There are some who want to say that, and then it’s not so difficult why the other one — or from where the other one learns it. Nobody learns it from anywhere; it’s an asmachta, not a Torah-level law. I’m saying, in the plain sense of the passage it doesn’t look that way. In the plain sense of the passage, once they start making these kinds of necessary-derivation arguments and say this verse is already occupied teaching about the ninth, then what do we do, from where do we learn that other law, and if we learn that other law then from where do we learn the other one… Once they do that, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t an asmachta. When something is only an asmachta, you don’t start making calculations: “Wait, this verse is already occupied, so how do we learn that?” It isn’t occupied; it’s only an asmachta. So the straightforward meaning of the Talmud is that it is not an asmachta — it’s a Torah-level law. But there are commentators who nevertheless take it that way. It’s not completely clear to me how they read the passage here. In this passage it doesn’t look like that. Maybe they think that in other passages it looks like an asmachta, I don’t know. That’s one point. A second point: Maimonides — I thought I already mentioned this — Maimonides does not bring this law of eating on the ninth in the Laws of Yom Kippur. He does mention it in the Laws of Vows. In chapter 3, law 6, in the Laws of Vows, Maimonides discusses the question whether an oath takes effect on a Torah-level commandment, or whether an oath takes effect on a rabbinic commandment. Right? And among the examples he gives is an oath not to eat on the ninth.

[Speaker B] And then that would be an oath on a Torah-level law, since he is already sworn and standing from Mount Sinai?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the question. Therefore, with a Torah-level law, the oath doesn’t take effect.

[Speaker B] The question is whether it’s Torah-level.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. An oath on a Torah-level obligation doesn’t take effect; an oath on a rabbinic obligation perhaps does. And the Talmud discusses it there — not only the Talmud, Maimonides brings there that there is a difference between those two contexts. Parenthetically, in the straightforward sense it depends, yes — meaning, an oath does not take effect, but a vow does take effect, because in the simple sense a vow is a law in the object. Right. Therefore, someone who prohibits a sukkah to himself — this is a passage in tractate Nedarim 16 — someone who prohibits a sukkah to himself, the sukkah becomes prohibited, because the obligation is on the person to sit in the sukkah, but the sukkah itself is not an object of commandment. But with an oath, when I myself swear not to sit in the sukkah, about that we say that I am already sworn and standing from Mount Sinai. In any case, the question in Maimonides is whether the oath takes effect or doesn’t take effect. He makes a distinction there between Torah-level and rabbinic law. It’s an interesting topic in itself, but I’m not going into it here.

[Speaker C] He mentions it only incidentally.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Incidentally. One of the examples he gives is Rosh Chodesh and eating on the eve of Yom Kippur, meaning eating on the ninth. Which in the Laws of Yom Kippur is not mentioned.

[Speaker D] So it comes out from Nedarim that it’s Torah-level? From Nedarim it comes out that it’s Torah-level.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] From Maimonides in the Laws of Vows? Yes, there it seems Torah-level.

[Speaker D] And here he doesn’t mention it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And here he doesn’t mention it. So now the question is how to understand this Maimonides.

[Speaker D] So he also doesn’t count it among the commandments.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s clear — he does not count it as a commandment. It could be — there is a certain possibility of understanding it this way, and in a moment I’ll also bring others who say this explicitly — if I understand that eating on the ninth is preparation for the commandment of fasting on Yom Kippur, and there are opinions like that, we’ll see this later, then there would perhaps be room to understand that the oath not to eat on the ninth does not fail because there is an obligation to eat on the ninth, but because if you fast on the ninth you won’t succeed in fasting on the tenth. Again: because if you fast on the ninth, you won’t be able to, so you won’t succeed in fasting on the tenth. A person can’t fast for two days, or at least it’s very difficult. And therefore the oath does not take effect. In other words, the oath does not fail because it clashes with an obligation to eat on the ninth. There is no obligation to eat on the ninth. The obligation to eat on the ninth is only so that you can fast on the tenth. But it could still be that swearing not to eat on the ninth does not take effect because it clashes not with the obligation to eat on the ninth but with the obligation to fast on the tenth, because indirectly you won’t succeed in fasting on the tenth if you keep your oath. An example of this? What?

[Speaker B] Did we explain the reasoning? An example of what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not saying — I’m explaining Maimonides now. Maimonides may hold that this is the idea there. Therefore he mentions it in the Laws of Vows and does not mention it in the Laws of Yom Kippur, because in the Laws of Yom Kippur there is no commandment to eat on the ninth. On the conceptual level, it could be that even if you fast on the ninth you’ll still manage to fast on the tenth — good health to you. It’s just that usually most people won’t manage, so they need to eat on the ninth. Therefore, if you swear not to eat on the ninth, the oath does not take effect because it will prevent you from fasting on the tenth, not because you are obligated to eat on the ninth.

[Speaker E] An example of that — an oath concerning preparation for a commandment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly. An example of an oath concerning preparation for a commandment. And that’s the question: the status of preparation for a commandment is a very unclear status in general. For example, there is the rule that one engaged in a commandment is exempt from another commandment. There is such a rule, right? So someone who is on his way to redeem captives, for instance, is exempt from sukkah, right? That’s in the Talmud. Now, walking to redeem captives is not itself engaging in the commandment. The redemption is the commandment. Walking toward it is preparation for the commandment. You need to go there so that you can redeem them. But the walking is only the preparation toward fulfilling the commandment; it’s preparation for the commandment, not the commandment itself. So why is someone engaged in that exempt from the second commandment? Usually the idea is that if you’re engaged in one commandment and now another commandment comes upon you, then the first one you’re engaged in you remain obligated in, and from the second one you are exempt, because you don’t have to stop the first one. Why is the first preferable to the second? Let’s say under the assumption that you can’t fulfill both — that too is disputed. But the accepted view is that this applies only if you can’t fulfill both.

[Speaker B] It’s all one extended commandment — you won’t be able to do it if you don’t arrive, if you don’t go.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not an extended commandment; what you’re saying now is not an extended commandment, it’s preparation for a commandment. Look, one second. The claim is that where you can’t fulfill both — and this is the accepted approach, though Ran does not say that — the accepted approach is that in a place where you can’t fulfill both, how do you decide which one to do? The first one you began, right? But then, when you’re engaged in preparation for a commandment, you haven’t yet started the commandment itself, and now the second commandment actually takes hold of you. So according to that logic, you should have to stop the preparation, sit in the sukkah, and if then I won’t succeed in redeeming captives, the sitting in the sukkah is the commandment I’m engaged in and I’m exempt from redeeming the captives. So what do we see from here? Apparently we see from here that preparation for the commandment — what you said before — is one extended commandment. In other words, it is really the beginning of the fulfillment of the commandment. And in fact, you can see this approach in several places. For example, there is a very well-known Terumat HaDeshen about lighting the Hanukkah candle. Terumat HaDeshen discusses someone who lit a Hanukkah candle on Friday afternoon. On Friday afternoon we light it before the Sabbath begins, right? Before the normal candle-lighting time. Now the rule is that one needs to leave enough oil for it to burn for half an hour after the proper time, right? What happens if the candle goes out before the Sabbath even begins? Usually the rule is: if it went out, one is not required to relight it. But here he hasn’t even begun fulfilling the commandment at all, so on the face of it he should light again before Sabbath, and then when it burns on Sabbath the commandment will be fulfilled. So Terumat HaDeshen says no — if it went out, one is not required to relight it, you don’t have to light it again. And usually the accepted understanding — and that’s indeed how it seems, at least with Hanukkah candles, though apparently he isn’t saying anything unique about Hanukkah candles — the claim is that when you did the preparation, in the end you already performed the commandment, and the rest will continue on by itself. Therefore from his point of view, if you lit, even though the time of the commandment had not yet arrived at all, you fulfilled the commandment. And preparation for the commandment according to this understanding is literally the beginning of fulfilling the commandment. That also seems to emerge from the rule that one engaged in a commandment is exempt from another commandment, and then the conception really is that preparation for a commandment counts as the beginning of fulfilling the commandment itself. Therefore someone engaged in the commandment — meaning, in the preparation for the commandment — is exempt from the second commandment because he is already occupied with the first commandment.

[Speaker B] And especially if he made the blessing, he doesn’t need to bless again. Especially if he made the blessing? Yes,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He made the blessing — so what? But what if he didn’t fulfill it?

[Speaker B] No, it really means that if the candle went out, you don’t need to make the blessing again.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You would have had to make the blessing when Sabbath began. Yes, but we make blessings before performing the act; here I don’t know whether you would bless again.

[Speaker D] If you need to light again and you didn’t fulfill the commandment, then you need to bless again.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fair enough.

[Speaker D] That’s what the Rema says.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the claim is that you need to light again and bless again?

[Speaker D] No, that’s only when you began the commandment — once you began, then you don’t need to do anything more.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly, because you began.

[Speaker F] “If it went out, one is not required to relight it” first appears in the Shulchan Arukh. In the Talmud itself it seems, on the face of it, that these are two passages with no connection between them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s an interesting question why, but I won’t get into it. The Shulchan Arukh says that since the lighting itself accomplishes the commandment, therefore if it went out one is not required to relight it. In the Talmud itself they don’t connect those two questions at all. But that’s a different discussion. In any case, for our purposes, I don’t want to get into it too much; I only want to explain that from here there apparently emerges the conception that preparation for the commandment is actually part of the commandment itself. Another possibility would be to say no. Really, you are not supposed to sit in the sukkah, because if you sit in the sukkah — not because preparation for the commandment overrides sitting in the sukkah, but because redeeming captives overrides it. But if you sit in the sukkah and stop walking, then the redemption of captives won’t happen. In other words, what overrides sitting in the sukkah is not the walking to redeem captives, but the redemption of captives itself. But if you don’t go, you also won’t succeed in redeeming them. So it could be that the walk toward redeeming captives need not be called the beginning of the redemption itself, as if preparation for the commandment were one extended commandment. Therefore, it is not the preparation for the commandment that overrides sitting in the sukkah — the commandment does. The big novelty would be that if I started engaging in the preparation, that already counts as the first commandment, even though I am not yet actually engaged in it. And in any case, once I’m occupied with it, I no longer need to sit in the sukkah. But what overrides it is not the walk toward the redemption, but the redemption itself. Then this is exactly the reasoning we said here. The walk itself is not important in its own right, but of course if you don’t walk, you also won’t succeed in redeeming, and that is what overrides sitting in the sukkah.

[Speaker B] There’s another parameter here — there are commandments that pass, and you have only a short time.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s a passing commandment; that’s true in any case. Right now I’m talking when both commandments are passing.

[Speaker B] Why — sukkah is a commandment that remains for some time?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t remain anywhere. You go there, you don’t have a sukkah, you didn’t eat in the sukkah. Where does it remain? The sukkah remains, not the commandment.

[Speaker C] So according to that side, it’s only preparation for the commandment, not part of the commandment itself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes. Now I’m saying, if I understand eating on the ninth as preparation for the tenth, then maybe we can understand why Maimonides does not bring this obligation in the Laws of Yom Kippur, because there is no such commandment. Just as Maimonides does not write that one must build a sukkah. You don’t have to build a sukkah; you need to have a sukkah so that you can sit in it. There is no commandment to build a sukkah, and there is no commandment to eat on the ninth. True, it still could — no, meaning, an oath still might not take effect on this. What would override the oath is not the commandment to eat on the ninth, but the fact that if you keep the oath, you won’t succeed in fulfilling the commandment to fast on the tenth. That’s the point. And that’s what overrides this thing. There are other examples of this as well. What? There are other examples of this as well, but I don’t want to get too deep into this point here. Maybe one more example: at the beginning of “Rabbi Eliezer of circumcision,” there is a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva about whether the preparations for circumcision override the Sabbath. For example, heating water, because it’s a matter of danger to the baby and so on, so one must heat water. Now the question is whether preparations for a commandment override the Sabbath or not. On the face of it, you could just not heat the water. True, then you won’t be able to circumcise — so do it on Sunday. But heating the water itself is not part of the commandment, so why assume that it overrides the Sabbath? Now according to the one who says that it does override the Sabbath, the question is why. Again, the same question: is it because the preparation itself is important enough to override the Sabbath, or not? Rather, if you don’t do the preparation, then you also won’t fulfill the circumcision, and what overrides the Sabbath is the circumcision, not the preparation. That doesn’t mean the preparation has the status of fulfilling a commandment, but obviously it is a condition without which you won’t succeed in fulfilling the commandment, and what overrides the Sabbath is that otherwise you won’t fulfill the commandment, and so on. You can see this in other examples too. And in fact we do find it in a number of places. Meiri, for example, in Berakhot 8 says that the obligation to eat on the ninth is preparation for a commandment. Also elsewhere. In Rashi in Berakhot there too it also sounds that way. And there are contradictions in Rashi on this in other places. Ha‘amek She’elah talks a bit about this issue. What? There is a verse in the Torah about eating on the ninth — “on the ninth of the month, in the evening.” It says “from evening to evening,” and there’s the exposition. That’s what I brought earlier. So that’s a tannaitic dispute or a dispute in the Talmud as to whether we derive it or don’t derive it. There is one tanna who doesn’t derive it and one who does. So what does he do with the verse? He learns something else, I don’t know. There the Talmud itself says “bone, bone”; the question is what they learn.

[Speaker C] I heard — I don’t remember in whose name — some reasoning about eating on the ninth, that after all Yom Kippur is called a festival day.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a moment we’ll get there.

[Speaker C] So it’s like completing the things you can’t do on the day itself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what Meiri says, as I said. It may be that Rashi implies that too; there are some contradictions in Rashi. In any case there is such a direction among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). According to this, the later authorities (Acharonim) discuss what happens with a sick person who does not fast on the tenth. Does he have a commandment to eat on the ninth? If the whole commandment on the ninth is so that you can fast on the tenth, then there is no commandment for someone who is not fasting. If it is an independent commandment, then of course there is no connection: you are exempt from the commandment to fast on the tenth, but there is no reason to exempt you from eating on the ninth. Ketav Sofer discusses this, and Rabbi Akiva Eiger as well. Another question Rabbi Akiva Eiger discusses is the obligation of women in this commandment. If this commandment is a preparatory device for the fast on the tenth, then women would be obligated. If it is a time-bound positive commandment, then women should be exempt. Or take someone who thinks he will be able to fast even though he doesn’t eat on the ninth — the question is whether he is still obligated to eat on the ninth or not. If eating on the ninth is only a preparation so that you can succeed in fasting on the tenth, then he is not obligated. Because just as if you already have a built sukkah you don’t need to build a sukkah, preparation is not a commandment — it’s not something you are obligated to do. You only need to make sure that you have the ability to fulfill the commandment. If you already have that ability, fine and good; you don’t need to do anything. One more point on this issue: Mar son of Ravina — incidentally, in Pesachim 86 it says that he fasted on both the ninth and the tenth, and from this Ha‘amek She’elah really wants to argue that this is proof that someone who can fast on the tenth is not obligated to eat on the ninth. In other words, this is proof that it is only preparation for a commandment. Another point: even if it is preparation for a commandment — and this connects to what we discussed last time — even if it is preparation for a commandment, the question is: preparation for what? One possibility is to say it’s so that without it you won’t manage to fast. A second possibility is that maybe you could manage to fast, and the proof is that if there is doubt about the day, in principle you need to fast for two days. In other words, in principle the assumption is that a person can fast for two days; someone who can’t, that’s danger to life and of course he is exempt, but there is no assumption here that any normal person cannot fast for two days. People can fast for two days. Therefore it’s not so simple. But it could still be that there is room for the concept of preparation for a commandment in this sense, and this connects to what we discussed the previous time — really the previous times — namely, what is the purpose of fasting on Yom Kippur? Is the purpose of fasting to suffer? What is a fast — is it to suffer? Or is the purpose of fasting to detach from materiality? Now if the goal is suffering, then clearly the idea of eating on the ninth as preparation is only so that you can succeed in fasting. But if someone can succeed in fasting anyway, then why should he eat on the ninth? But if the purpose is to detach from materiality, and on the contrary there is no value in suffering — Yom Kippur is a festival day, it is not a fast in that sense — rather, what we want is specifically that there not be… You know there are many people, lots of socialists, who are always thinking about money. Why? Because money occupies them all the time, that ideology of constantly thinking about how to distribute things — they are constantly occupied with money. People say this not only about socialists; they also sometimes say it about kollel students in this way — that kollel students live with very little, and everything is wonderful and fine, and all the time they’re thinking about money, what they’re going to do. I’m not saying this critically; it’s natural. A person who has no money is constantly thinking what he’s going to do. But then it turns out that your life of austerity isn’t really worth much, because you’re not limiting your thoughts, you’re limiting things only in practice, and on the contrary your thoughts are occupied with that all the time, so what good is it? Go work, have enough for your livelihood, and then at least when you devote time to learning, you’ll devote it properly and won’t be occupied with other things. Okay? Similarly, what they are basically telling us is: eat on the ninth so that on the tenth, when you are not eating, your head won’t constantly be on food. On the contrary, the purpose is not to enable you to fast; the purpose is not to ensure that you suffer. The purpose is specifically to make sure that you do not suffer. Because the goal of the fast on the tenth is not suffering. The goal of the fast on the tenth is to deal with spiritual matters, to detach from physical things. But we are human beings, and when people do not eat, they think about their stomach. So they tell you: listen, eat properly on the ninth. At least that will ease your distress on the tenth, and then you won’t constantly have to think about material matters. If that is really the case, then it branches a bit. If someone is not fasting, there is still no reason for him to eat on the ninth — it’s preparation for a commandment. But if someone can fast on the ninth even though he’s fasting on the tenth, then this practical implication is no longer relevant. It doesn’t matter. Even if he can fast on the tenth, when he fasts on the tenth he’ll still be thinking about food all the time. So here that practical distinction falls away. In other words, here it is clear that we would still obligate him to eat on the ninth. Therefore even when I say that the ninth is preparation for the tenth, the question is: preparation for what? Preparation in order that I succeed in fasting, or preparation so that when I fast, I fast in a state detached from materiality and not merely suffering.

[Speaker G] What it says, that one should increase the meal, that sounds more like it’s not just that kind of thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Increasing the meal — yes, that relates to the approaches Doron mentioned earlier.

[Speaker D] So according to this view, you really can’t say it was just the bare minimum, like on Tisha B’Av.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker D] On Tisha B’Av you eat a slice of bread and you can fast. You ate just a slice, this and that. So here, where you increase the meal, that implies it’s not just a matter of helping you fast.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Maybe increasing the meal helps you fast even more — who knows?

[Speaker D] No, that’s forced. So eat only bread.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, eat only bread.

[Speaker D] Who said not to eat only bread? Because if on Yom Kippur there’s some point, some idea — then eat lots of bread!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does it make? Eat as much bread as you want. What difference does what you eat make? It’s different.

[Speaker D] If you need to eat in order to fast, you do the minimum. You don’t do the maximum. Here the command is for the maximum, not the minimum.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So this comes back again to the same practical implication I mentioned before: someone who can fast even without this can choose not to eat at all — not just not to increase the meal. He can choose not to eat at all. This idea of increasing the meal is a further stage.

[Speaker D] So from the fact that one must increase the meal, it’s not just to solve the fasting issue according to that approach.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. By the way, about increasing the meal, I think — come,

[Speaker D] let’s see the approaches,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think — I don’t think that’s in the Talmud. It’s Rashi’s wording, I think, somewhere: the more he eats, the better, right? Isn’t that written? Rashi on Rosh Hashanah 9a. Yes, Rashi on Rosh Hashanah: “And the more one increases eating and drinking, the better.” So that’s with regard to the preparatory aspect and its practical implications. Now, additional approaches. Maybe before the additional approaches — Tosafot Yeshanim and other medieval authorities (Rishonim) here ask: what’s the novelty in saying that whoever eats on the ninth, it is as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth? Did he fast on the eighth, ninth, and tenth? You’re not supposed to fast on the ninth. What does it mean, as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth? As if there were some value in fasting on both the ninth and the tenth, and even though you didn’t do it, it’s as if you did. But there is no value in fasting on the ninth. You only need to fast on the tenth. So what does it mean that whoever eats on the ninth, Scripture credits him as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth? Scripture should credit him as if he ate on the ninth and fasted on the tenth — that’s what he is supposed to do. Why does Scripture credit him as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth? You’re not supposed to fast on the ninth. There is the added period. What? No, no — we’re talking about the whole ninth, not the added period. We’re talking about the whole ninth. The added period is a different law. Whoever eats on the ninth is not credited as if he added on to the holy day. The commandment of adding on requires not eating during the added period. So what is the meaning of this? They argue that Scripture credits him as if he had been commanded and had fasted — that’s what Tosafot Yeshanim says. As if really the point is that this too is a commandment. Even though the wording is indeed strange. What does it mean that Scripture credits him as if he fasted twice? In the simple sense it really seems to be preparation for a commandment. In other words, eating on the ninth is part of the commandment of fasting on the tenth. So they tell you: it is as if you fasted on the ninth and the tenth, meaning, throughout those two days you were occupied with the commandment of the fast of the tenth. That is really what it means.

[Speaker G] It’s a commandment on the ninth — it’s a commandment. What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Preparation for a commandment for the tenth, what we said earlier.

[Speaker G] It’s not the commandment; it’s preparation for the commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he says: someone who ate on the ninth—since that helped the fast on the tenth—I also take that act into account. You get reward as if you performed two commandments. Meaning, you turned the commandment of the tenth into a more enhanced commandment in some sense. By the way, this fits much better with the second conception I mentioned earlier. Meaning, if it’s only a preparatory act that enables you to fast, then if I managed to fast on the tenth, what difference does it make whether I ate on the ninth or not? Bottom line, I succeeded on the tenth. But if eating on the ninth improves the fast of the tenth—because it means that when you fast on the tenth, the fast has better meaning since you ate on the ninth, so you’re not thinking about your stomach the whole time—then I understand why you get extra reward because of the eating on the ninth. Otherwise, what’s the issue? If I fasted on the tenth, then I fasted. What difference does it make now whether I ate on the ninth? Yes.

[Speaker B] Rabbi, in that very context, one is allowed to recite a blessing over spices, kinds of spices. Yes. Meaning, so it’s not specifically affliction like—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, fine, it doesn’t matter, but with the issue of the afflictions that are written there. Not important.

[Speaker B] It strengthens the approach that says that it’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that’s not certain, because it could be that it’s the written afflictions. You don’t need other afflictions. The written afflictions. In general, the main law is only eating and drinking anyway. The other afflictions are derived from “a Sabbath of solemn rest” or something like that. Those aren’t the afflictions themselves; they’re also not the ordinary afflictions that we count on Yom Kippur. Those are extensions. Eating and drinking are the core law, the fast itself, the one with karet. So now, in the She’iltot there’s a different formulation. The She’iltot writes—The She’iltot writes like this, in section 167: “Whoever eats on the ninth and fasts on the tenth, Scripture regards him as though he fasted on the ninth and on the tenth.” That’s not the same thing as what we have. “Whoever eats on the ninth, Scripture regards him…” But here: “Whoever eats on the ninth and fasts on the tenth, Scripture regards him as though he fasted on the ninth and on the tenth.” Meaning, he inserts the fasting on the tenth, because clearly the eating on the ninth prepares for the fast of the tenth. And only if you did both does Scripture regard you as if you fasted on the ninth and on the tenth. Meaning, the ninth is not an independent commandment; it’s only a means toward the fast on the tenth.

[Speaker B] In practice he contradicts himself. Why? Because if you say that eating on the ninth is as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth, then if you have this “as if”—I fasted on the ninth and the tenth—then where exactly is the eating on the ninth? “Whoever ate on the ninth…”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there’s an equivalence. Whoever ate on the ninth—it’s as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth.

[Speaker B] No, whoever ate on the ninth and fasts—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —on the tenth, Scripture regards him as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth. Whoever ate on the ninth—ate on the ninth and fasts on the tenth—Scripture regards him as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth. Two conditions.

[Speaker B] Okay, meaning there’s an equivalence here: if I ate on the ninth, then I fasted—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As if you fasted on the ninth—

[Speaker B] —and on the tenth, so I gave up the eating on the ninth. Right. Meaning what? That there is no obligation to eat on the ninth. It’s forbidden to fast on the ninth—you need to eat on the ninth. What? You need to eat on the ninth. Fine, but if I didn’t eat, that means that I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Basically did…

[Speaker B] What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What you’re saying is: someone who actually fasted on the ninth and the tenth—Scripture does not regard him as having fasted on the ninth and the tenth. Right, only someone—exactly, that’s the claim. That’s what I’ve been asking all these years: what does it mean, “as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth”? Is there some value in fasting on the ninth and on the tenth? Or in a more extreme formulation: if someone actually fasted on the ninth and the tenth, is that even better? Obviously not—on the contrary, you’re supposed to eat. So what does “as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth” mean? It should have said: as if he ate on the ninth and fasted on the tenth. Therefore I’m saying that this is exactly what it conveys: that the eating on the ninth is a preparatory commandment toward the fast of the tenth. That’s the point. Now in fact there are other formulations here in several other medieval authorities (Rishonim). Rabbeinu Yonah in Sha’arei Teshuvah, section 304, writes that this eating is the festival meal of Yom Kippur. That’s the “half for you.” Every festival has “half for you and half for God.” On Yom Kippur it is entirely for God; there is no eating. So he says that the “half for you” we fulfill on the ninth. From his perspective it’s like one long day, where the festival meal is basically… By the way, regarding Tisha B’Av too, there are some who want to make a similar claim, but about the final pre-fast meal, and there I think it’s harder. That’s his claim. A practical implication, for example, would be whether bread is required. Because if the eating on the ninth is a festival meal, then a festival meal has its own definitions. Fine, so it could be that you really need to wash hands and the whole business, and not just eat casually; it’s truly a festival meal, and that has ramifications. Tosafot in Hullin 133 writes that the eve of Yom Kippur is a festival, and the obligation to eat on the eve of Yom Kippur is a festival meal like any other meal. That’s not the same formulation.

[Speaker C] Who says that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Tosafot in Hullin 133. What kind of festival? It’s not the same formulation. But they learn from this exposition in our passage that there is some sort of festival there. What… it’s not the same as before. Because before, what Sha’arei Teshuvah says is that the eating on the ninth is basically something I should have done on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur forbids eating, so instead I eat on the ninth. But the eating on the ninth is a meal… Which day is the festival? The festival is Yom Kippur; I just perform the eating on the ninth because I can’t perform it then. He claims no—it’s eating in its own right; the ninth is a festival in its own right, and there is an obligation to eat. Part of the ramifications will be the earlier ramifications. Meaning, someone who doesn’t fast on the tenth—a sick person—someone who doesn’t fast on the tenth, does he need to eat on the ninth or not? Fine, so here I’d say: if it’s a festival in its own right, then certainly yes. If it’s about the tenth, then there’s room to hesitate a bit. What kind of preparation is that? Not preparation—if it’s the festival meal of Yom Kippur, then since he isn’t fasting on Yom Kippur, he’ll be eating on Yom Kippur anyway, so why should he need to eat on the ninth? He is already having the festival meal on Yom Kippur itself. And then it might even be that he has to eat on Yom Kippur, wash hands, eat properly, not little by little, not according to measured minimal quantities, but just eat—since he’s eating anyway, let him eat the festival meal itself on Yom Kippur.

[Speaker I] Is he obligated in kiddush? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll discuss that when we talk about minors. Seemingly yes. There’s a famous story about the Avnei Nezer when he was a child—I’m jumping ahead; maybe we’ll discuss it next class—that his father sent him to eat on Yom Kippur in the synagogue. To eat on Yom Kippur. Fine, he went, came back to the synagogue, and his father asked him: tell me, did you make kiddush? No—it was Yom Kippur that fell on Shabbat, I think. So he said to him: tell me, did you make kiddush? He said no. Why make kiddush? It’s Yom Kippur. What do you mean? Of course you need to make kiddush—it’s Shabbat. Someone who doesn’t eat doesn’t make kiddush because he doesn’t eat. But someone who does eat—on account of Shabbat, you have to make kiddush. He said to him: absolutely not. After all, the whole obligation on me—I’m a minor—the whole obligation on me to make kiddush is for education, so that I’ll know what to do when I’m grown up. But when I’m grown up I’ll fast, so there’s no need to educate me to eat on Yom Kippur, to make kiddush on Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat. By the way, there’s a well-known dispute among later authorities (Acharonim) here—between the Or Sameach and Rabbi Akiva Eiger, I think—on the question of whether one really must make kiddush on Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat.

[Speaker J] If he is, for the sake of argument, sick now, then when he grows up and is sick and in need—yes, but he isn’t considered sick; he still needs to be educated.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he is sick, then maybe yes, but if—

[Speaker J] He’s not sick. A minor is, as it were, in a category of danger, so you need to prepare him for when he grows up and will be—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even now a minor is not in a category of danger. A minor is not in a category of danger, and he doesn’t need to fast. He simply, by law, doesn’t need to fast. It’s not a suspended obligation—he doesn’t need to fast. In any case, the claim is that kiddush is by virtue of education, and the law of education doesn’t apply to something that when he grows up he won’t need. Fine, there are various assumptions here that we’ll discuss when we talk about minors.

[Speaker H] Still, there is education here, and he’ll specifically need to do it with his son? There is education here, and he’ll specifically need to do it with his son.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then let him tell his doll when he plays with it: “When you eat, make kiddush.” In any event, maybe I’ll add one more point here. The Or Sameach, when he discusses this question of kiddush on Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat—on Yom Kippur by itself, for the overwhelming majority of opinions, a sick person does not need to make kiddush. I don’t even know whether there is any opinion at all that he does need to make kiddush. The whole discussion is only about Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat, because on account of Shabbat you need to make kiddush. But on that, the Or Sameach cites Maimonides in the Laws of the Yom Kippur Service—not the laws of resting on the tenth—where he discusses the sacrificial service, and Maimonides says there that even the additional offerings of Shabbat are performed by the High Priest on Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat. And the question is: why? The additional offerings of Shabbat are Shabbat offerings. Shabbat offerings are performed by an ordinary priest; only the special service of Yom Kippur is performed by the High Priest. So the Or Sameach says that in fact, on such a day, even the additional Shabbat offerings are part of the Yom Kippur service, and therefore they must be done by the High Priest. What he basically wants to claim is that when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbat, it is not what, in the terminology of the Rogatchover, is called a neighborhood composite; it is a blended composite. Meaning, Yom Kippur and Shabbat merge into one day. It’s not two laws—as Rabbi Chaim distinguishes, one aspect by virtue of its being Yom Kippur and one aspect by virtue of its being Shabbat—but rather a compound.

[Speaker C] Exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And then, once the service of this day must be performed by the High Priest, all the service of this day must be performed by the High Priest—not only the Yom Kippur-specific service. Yes, meaning it’s a day of a third type: Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat. It’s not a composition of two days, Yom Kippur and Shabbat. There’s something like this in the Rogatchover himself, in responsum 2, in the responsa Tzafnat Pa’aneach, responsum 2. There he discusses what happens if someone cooked on a Jewish holiday that falls on Shabbat. Cooking is permitted on a Jewish holiday, right? On Shabbat it is forbidden. Now, on a Jewish holiday that falls on Shabbat, it’s forbidden to cook, and he cooked. Did he violate only the holiday aspect, or only the Shabbat aspect, or both? So he claims that it could be that he—I think that’s also his conclusion—he violated both the prohibition of desecrating Shabbat and the prohibition of labor on a Jewish holiday, not only the prohibition of labor on Shabbat. Why? Because if you understand it—I’ll give another example of this later—if you understand it as fully permitted or as only suspended, that’s the question. After all, according to Nachmanides—I mentioned this Nachmanides—on a Jewish holiday, labor involved in food preparation was never prohibited at all. They prohibited occupational labor, not food-preparation labor. So in fact it was never prohibited on a Jewish holiday. According to other medieval authorities (Rishonim), it was permitted for the sake of holiday enjoyment; it was permitted, or call it suspended, or something like that. But on the basic level, cooking on a Jewish holiday would have been fitting to prohibit. In that case, then this is how it works: according to Nachmanides, there would be room to ask how could he have violated a prohibition of cooking on a Jewish holiday if no such prohibition exists at all. But according to the other medieval authorities (Rishonim), they tell me that on a Jewish holiday there is such a prohibition, only it was permitted because they want to allow you to eat. But here, in any event, it isn’t permitted, because from the Shabbat side it is forbidden. So what reason is there to permit the prohibition of the day? Therefore the day’s prohibition, too, was not permitted, and so he violates both Shabbat and the holiday. In Tzafnat Pa’aneach itself I’m not sure; it may be that there he means to say this even according to Nachmanides. Why? Because basically he wants to claim what I said earlier about Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat. He wants to claim that when a Jewish holiday falls on Shabbat, it’s a day of a third type. It’s not a composition of holiday and Shabbat; rather it’s a day of a third type, and on this day nothing was ever permitted to cook—not from the holiday aspect and not from the Shabbat aspect—even if it’s a case of full permission and not merely suspension, and even if it wasn’t prohibited at all. It wasn’t prohibited at all on an ordinary holiday, but a holiday that falls on Shabbat is a holiday of a third type; they weren’t talking about that. Okay? Okay. Let’s continue.

[Speaker B] The Ra’avad on the topic of an androgynous person—not related to the topic at all—where he says that an androgynous person is a category unto itself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is—

[Speaker B] There’s a dispute whether it’s male or female. That’s already in the Gemara. That’s already in the Gemara.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So it’s a category unto itself, and if—

[Speaker B] He can’t fulfill the obligation of reading the Megillah at all, because it isn’t even a person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not a person. It’s not a composite of man and woman; it’s something third. Yes, exactly. Yes. Okay, so one more point: Shibbolei HaLeket wants to claim that there is no law at all to eat on the ninth. The whole law to eat on the ninth is only so that you stop, and then the fast will be meaningful on the tenth. Or in another formulation, I would say this is a prohibition inferred from a positive command. Remember I spoke about that—a prohibition inferred from a positive command? I said that, for example, about Sabbatical-year produce: “the produce of the land shall be for you to eat.” According to most views, there is no commandment to eat Sabbatical-year produce; there is a prohibition against doing business with it. “To eat,” and not for commerce. It’s a positive commandment that cannot really be actively fulfilled; it can only be violated. When you eat Sabbatical-year produce, you haven’t fulfilled the commandment of “to eat,” but if you traded in it, then you nullified the positive commandment of “to eat.” Okay? Basically—and I said this also about “to the foreigner you may lend at interest,” there are several examples of this matter—that you always need to add the word “only” when you understand it as a prohibition inferred from a positive command. There is no positive commandment to lend at interest to a non-Jew—rather, only to a non-Jew may you lend at interest. Meaning, you don’t need to lend at interest to a non-Jew, but know that if you do lend at interest, only to a non-Jew. If you lend at interest to a Jew, then you have nullified the positive commandment of “to the foreigner you may lend at interest.” If you lend at interest to a non-Jew, you have not fulfilled a positive commandment. It’s a commandment that can only be violated, not fulfilled. Or: “the produce of the land shall be for you” only “to eat.” It’s not that there is a commandment to eat, but if you do something with it, then only eating, not anything else. It may be that what he means to say is: when you eat, you eat only on the ninth, not on the tenth. Meaning, eating on the ninth is basically a prohibition inferred from a positive command. If you eat on the tenth, then besides the prohibitions of eating on the tenth, you also nullify the positive commandment of eating on the ninth. Because when they told you to eat on the ninth, the intent was to eat only on the ninth and not on the tenth. It’s a kind of prohibition inferred from a positive command. Okay? Otherwise, it’s a very strange understanding of Shibbolei HaLeket when he says: why do I need to eat on the ninth? So that when I stop on the tenth it will be noticeable, and then it’s called that I am fasting on the tenth. Because if I fast on both the ninth and the tenth, so what? So I fasted for forty-eight hours? So what? In the end, I still fasted on the tenth—because it’s more recognizable? Therefore I think the more reasonable definition is that he understands it as a prohibition inferred from a positive command. Meaning, to eat only on the ninth means that if you eat on the tenth, you have nullified the positive commandment of eating only on the ninth. But not that if you eat on the ninth, then you have a commandment to eat. Okay? So that’s Shibbolei HaLeket’s conception. By the way, according to this, it doesn’t seem that there is any point in really increasing one’s eating, for example; certainly that would not be required. In several passages it implies that there really is an obligation to eat, and not just a prohibition inferred from a positive command, so his words are somewhat difficult—both in Berakhot and in Pesahim. The conception is a little hard in light of various passages, but in the background you should know that there is also such a conception.

[Speaker B] Let’s see someone who mentioned five meals.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Again?

[Speaker B] That one has to eat five meals on the ninth.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who says that?

[Speaker B] Corresponding to the five afflictions—the meals you don’t eat on the holiday corresponding to the five afflictions. Five meals. Five afflictions? Why five? Why five? Maybe corresponding to Shabbat, three meals of Yom—

[Speaker G] Kippur.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it falls on Shabbat—

[Speaker B] —and two meals of a regular day. It’s a Hasidic thing—five meals.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, because on the ninth you normally eat two meals just because it’s the ninth, I get it. Okay, fine. That itself is an affliction.

[Speaker B] There is, after all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Chaim, as is known—Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, yes—he would suck candies all the time and make sure that his mouth was constantly occupied. I’d say that according to most conceptions this has no significance, because it doesn’t prepare you to fast, it doesn’t detach you from physicality during the fast, it doesn’t help you fast, it doesn’t… He understood it as an actual obligation to eat. A plain, literal obligation to eat. And then even from the festival aspect of it—on a normal festival he didn’t suck candies all the time. Meaning, all the conceptions I described up to now, not one of them really fits this. Meaning, he apparently assumes there is just some generic obligation to eat here, and if there’s an obligation to eat, let’s increase it as much as we can, and then we’ll fulfill more commandments. Fine, that doesn’t fit almost any conception. The Sadducees ruled that one should fast two days, the ninth and the tenth. And there are… Did they fast the whole ninth? I don’t know. The ninth and the tenth—but the whole ninth?

[Speaker B] After all, the Sadducees did only what is written in the Written Torah. And this is not written in the Written Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The ninth and the tenth. It is written, it is written: the ninth and the tenth. After all, that’s where we learn it from. We derive the eating on the ninth from the fact that it says the ninth and the tenth. Why does it say the ninth? So the brother of Shibbolei HaLeket, Rabbi Binyamin, says that the need to eat on the ninth is only to exclude the Sadducees. So clearly this is not a Torah-level law, and it’s only some rabbinic law. Fine, there’s Shabbat. What?

[Speaker I] Like a Shabbat fast.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the Ba’al HaMaor—

[Speaker I] Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, from the Tosafot in Hullin that I mentioned, it really appears that if he says it is a festival and there is value in eating the festival meal there, then it indeed seems that this is a conception of an independent day—that is, an independent obligation. And then the question is why they didn’t count it. In principle they should have counted it in the enumeration of the commandments. Tosafot doesn’t have an enumeration of the commandments, so that’s not a difficulty. But if he had written a book enumerating the commandments, then in principle he should have—it should have appeared there as an additional positive commandment: to eat, or to establish a festival, on the ninth. Still, that doesn’t mean eating in Rabbi Chaim’s sense—rather, to make it a festival: what you do on a festival, make a festival meal and everything else that you need. Okay, up to here those were comments regarding eating on the ninth. Now I want to get a little into women’s obligation.

[Speaker B] One of the rabbis of Jerusalem, cited in the book Even Yisrael, says that the custom was to make seven meals on the eve of Yom Kippur in order to invoke the merit of the seven covenant-makers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leave all these Hasidic little interpretations aside. I don’t know—they don’t speak to me, I’m not… homiletic flourishes, that’s all. Everyone has his segulot for this and matters like that—made-up things. Huh? They want to eat? Fine, good health, yes, no problem, I’m in favor—just don’t turn it into ideology, okay? Don’t turn it into ideology. Eat quietly, and that’s it.

[Speaker B] Yes, and some had the custom to make six meals—six meals corresponding to what they damaged through eating during the six weekdays.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I see.

[Speaker G] Fine, maybe there are twelve meals corresponding to the twelve tribes—check.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Ten Commandments, the twelve tribes, the thirteen attributes, yes, the eleven stars, one is our God—and all those who fast are the atheists; they think there is no God, so corresponding to “one is our God” they make zero meals, yes. Fine, what?

[Speaker G] The idea of joy on Yom Kippur. What? Is there also a notion of festival joy on Yom Kippur?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Festival enjoyment, yes.

[Speaker G] Festival joy?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Festival joy… On Rosh Hashanah it says, “Eat rich foods—”

[Speaker G] “and drink sweet beverages,” the verse on Rosh Hashanah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s talking about Rosh Hashanah. “Eat sweet things”—that’s Rosh Hashanah, because “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” So from there it appears that there is joy, and on that basis they discuss how there can be joy when it is a day of judgment, and so on—“the books of the living and the books of the dead are open.” Nevertheless, some derive from there that there is indeed a commandment to rejoice on Yom Kippur. About Yom Kippur, I don’t remember such a thing.

[Speaker G] There is no extra joy on Yom Kippur.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, so that’s what they say there—that there is—but on Yom Kippur I don’t recall anyone mentioning such a thing. I don’t know.

[Speaker G] People say “holiday greetings.” Huh? People say “happy holiday.” Yes, fine. Happy holiday. It’s a festival.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Corresponding to the thirteen tribes. Yes. Okay. Fine, regarding women’s obligation, here there is—take the pages.

[Speaker G] Women’s obligation in what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To fast? Yes, Yom Kippur. What?

[Speaker G] The size of the letters.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Too small for the elderly?

[Speaker G] I’m still young, I’m still young. You’re young?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If so, then it’s fine. That alone made it worthwhile for me. I think next class I’ll already bring it in ten-point font, not eleven. I’ll work harder.

[Speaker C] Huh? According to the Brookdale program, from age fifty and up you’re elderly. Ah, from sixty. It’s from fifty.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I see. And you’re saying there’s a law here that the local authority determines it, so that’s what decides. Fine. In any event, in the Gemara they discuss women’s obligation, and minors are also mentioned there, but as I said, I’ll focus on women. In the Mishnah in Sukkah 28 it says as follows: “Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from the sukkah.” After that: “A minor who no longer needs his mother is obligated in sukkah,” but Rashi says—and it’s quite clear—that this is an obligation by virtue of education, a rabbinic obligation. Fundamentally, both minors and women are exempt from sukkah. In the Gemara, the Gemara discusses it there like this: “From where are these words derived? As our Rabbis taught: ‘Citizen’ means citizen; ‘the citizen’ excludes women; ‘all’ includes minors.” Okay? Yes. And the Gemara says that basically… that minors are exempt? Wait, we’ll see in a moment. So the Gemara says: “citizen” means men—sorry, men and women. “The citizen” excludes women. Rashi says—I brought you several excerpts from Rashi, look later, not all of Rashi—“It says ‘citizen,’ meaning the select among the citizens, to exclude women.” Don’t reveal to anyone outside the study hall that he said such a thing. In any case, the citizens in the preferred category are the men, and the female citizens are in a secondary category. And therefore, what’s written—if it had said “citizen,” I would have said all types of citizens—

[Speaker I] “the citizen”—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —both men and women, because they all come under the category of citizen. But “the citizen,” the distinguished citizen, is only men. Okay, notice carefully: what’s written here basically is that if it says “citizen,” what does that include?

[Speaker B] Women too. Minors too? No, minors not.

[Speaker C] After all, you need to include—

[Speaker B] the minors—it’s not everyone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it just said “citizen,” what would that have been? Men and women, right? After it says “the citizen,” that comes to exclude the women and leave only the men. According to this conception, are women called citizens?

[Speaker B] Yes, why not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right—just second-class citizens. Yes. Because one could have said, unlike Rashi—and this matters for what follows—one could have said, unlike Rashi, that “citizen” means women and men, and “the citizen” comes to exclude women even though they are called citizens—not second-class citizens. “Citizen” means women and men of equal standing, yes? Rashi of the 20th century—or 21st—women and men of equal standing. But there is an extra “the” to exclude women, not because they are second-class citizens. Within the status of citizens there is no difference. Okay, Rashi does not say that. From the outset, when it said “citizen,” I also knew that women were second-class; I just thought that even second-class citizens are obligated. Once it says “the citizen,” it comes to tell you: no, no, only first-class citizens. Fine? Meaning, both in the initial assumption and in the conclusion, it’s clear that within citizenship both women and men are included. Okay, now the Gemara objects and says this: “The master said: ‘the citizen’ excludes women.” Does that imply that “citizen” includes both women and men? For it was taught—and then they challenge this from Yom Kippur—“‘the citizen’ includes women,” here this is about Yom Kippur, yes, “the women citizens who are obligated in affliction.” Evidently, “citizen” means men. Regarding Yom Kippur, from the “the” of “the citizen” we include women, not exclude women. That implies that the word “citizen” without the “the” does not include women, and “the citizen” comes to include women. By the way, here too there is room to hesitate. Let’s say that I would—

[Speaker G] read it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “citizen”—I might have read it that way also regarding “the citizen” of Yom Kippur? What? Why? Why—

[Speaker G] In the “citizen” of Yom Kippur you include women, and in the “citizen” of Sukkot you exclude them?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Gemara objects—that’s why they bring it here. But I’m saying, before that, let’s just read the derivation of Yom Kippur on its own for a second. Fine? I asked the same question about Sukkot. In the derivation of Yom Kippur too, one can understand it in two ways. One could understand that “citizen,” when it simply says “citizen,” means only men, and “the citizen” comes to include women, that even one who is not a citizen is obligated. Or one could say no—if it had said just “citizen,” I would have said a plain citizen means the distinguished citizen. “The citizen” comes to include also second-class citizens.

[Speaker D] It’s only when you have the definite article that you can say “the select among the citizens.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Citizen—

[Speaker D] Without it, it’s a bit hard to expound it as “the select among the citizens.” I didn’t understand. Because Rashi derives it from the definite article—“the select among the citizens.” So when you say just “citizen,” how would you derive that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the Gemara’s difficulty in any case. That’s why I’m saying it’s two things. And then we’ll see. But I’m saying that in principle here too one could have read it in two ways. One could say: if it says “citizen” and they didn’t tell you what, then you have only what is novel there. “The citizen” might mean only the select among the citizens, so I would take only the distinguished citizen. You don’t know. Fine, that’s the starting point. If the starting point is that everyone is exempt unless someone is specifically obligated, then I say: I take only the one whom I absolutely have to obligate, the one I know clearly is obligated—so only the select among the citizens. Then the definite article comes and says no, add even the second-class citizens. Fine? One could also say no: “citizen” includes everyone, and “the citizen” comes to exclude. Fine? Those are the same two possibilities I could also have said in the derivation of Yom Kippur. Why am I saying this? Because these are also two different ways to understand the relationship between the derivation in Sukkot and the derivation in Yom Kippur. Because one could understand that there is no difference in the meaning of the word “citizen” in the two contexts. In both contexts the word “citizen” includes both women and men, only at different ranks, and then the only question is why here we include and there we exclude. From the Gemara it sounds like it is objecting that the word “citizen” is interpreted differently in the two contexts. Meaning, it understands that the dispute about the word “citizen” is over what the word itself includes at all—not over whether we include or exclude, but over what is included altogether, what “citizen” means.

[Speaker J] But the definite article here narrows it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The definite article doesn’t—this is the question: does the definite article come to include or does the definite article come to narrow—

[Speaker J] Maybe it comes to include.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re reading it by its plain sense, but the inclusion can be an inclusion by exposition. So there is an extra definite article here, and an extra definite article comes to include.

[Speaker C] You—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You say that in “the citizen,” where it comes to exclude, that’s not really an exposition but the plain meaning. Why didn’t it say “citizen”? Why did it say “the citizen”? To say only a certain citizen. That’s not an exposition; it’s simple. It’s the meaning of the word, as you say, because “the citizen” singles out a certain person. When you come to say that “the citizen” comes to include, that’s an exposition. There’s an extra definite article here, and the extra definite article comes to include. Fine? By the way, that itself could already answer the second question: why here does it include and there does it exclude? Because here it’s the plain meaning and there it’s an exposition. Fine. So the Gemara says, yes, so how—

[Speaker C] I didn’t understand what the Rabbi concluded from the Gemara, from this whole Gemara—what—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t conclude. I’m saying that each of the derivations can be understood in two ways. The question is whether there are two types of citizens, or whether “citizen” means men and women are included, or whether “citizen” means everyone and women are excluded. Fine? So the Gemara objects—yes, so basically there is a contradiction between Yom Kippur and Sukkot. So Rava says: “These are traditions of law, and the Rabbis merely attached them to the verse.” I can understand that the law—

[Speaker D] This point—that you can interpret this derivation in two directions—are they not on the same… are they on the same level of derivation? I didn’t understand. Once he abandons the expositions, you understand that they contradict each other.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What says they contradict? The Gemara says—what does “these are traditions of law” mean? “These” is actually a very confusing expression here, at least according to how Rashi explains it and as it sounds in the Gemara. It’s not “these.” The tradition of law applies only to one of them. The exemption of women from Sukkot or the inclusion of women in Yom Kippur is a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai. Meaning, there is a straightforward reading of “the citizen”—citizen, the citizen. Fine? Whether it comes to include or exclude. One of the two places—and it doesn’t say which—is governed by a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai: here don’t make the straightforward reading. Only one of them. In a moment we’ll see from the continuation of the Gemara. But that’s also what Rashi says here. Look at Rashi: “Rava said: These are traditions of law, and the Rabbis attached them to the verse. These two matters cannot both be derived from Scripture, for if this definite article is for inclusion, then that one too should be for inclusion; if this one is for exclusion, then that one too should be for exclusion—

[Speaker H] for exclusion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rather, on the basis of a law that was said to Moses at Sinai, in one of them the opposite was said regarding these two matters: one for obligation and one for exemption. And one of them is not from the plain meaning; rather, the Rabbis attached it to the verse, and one is merely an asmachta. For the verse would imply the opposite, and it comes for something else.” Fine? It’s also explicit later in the Gemara; Rashi is just anticipating the Gemara here. What Rashi is basically saying is that “these are traditions of law” is a confusing expression. It’s a tradition of law in one case only; not “these,” because “these” would mean both. The tradition of law is only one of them, though we don’t know which. The question is whether the straightforward plain sense is that “the citizen” means men and women, only in Sukkot there is a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai to exclude women anyway, or the opposite: the straightforward sense is that “citizen” includes men and women, and “the citizen” comes to exclude women, and on Yom Kippur there is a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai that it comes to include. Fine? Two possibilities. But how can one definite article include and another definite article exclude? There is a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai. That’s what Rava explains. I didn’t understand. That’s the Gemara’s question, and to that Rava says: it can’t be. It’s a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai; it does not emerge from the reading of the verse. The wording is interpreted the same way in both places, but there is a law transmitted to Moses at Sinai that says: here, don’t read it according to its simple sense. It removes it; the law overrides the verse. Fine?

[Speaker B] This “the citizen”—is it in Sukkot or in Yom Kippur? Where does this word appear?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In both. In both? Yes. Therefore we don’t know in which of the two the law transmitted to Moses at Sinai tells me to exclude, and which of the two is interpreted according to its simple sense.

[Speaker D] Both in Sukkot and in Yom Kippur? Yes. But the plain meaning is that “the citizen” is to exclude. “The citizen”? Yes. The simple plain meaning is that “the citizen”—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I said before: the question is whether this is the plain meaning or an exposition. It could be that in exposition, the definite article always comes to exclude, and then from my standpoint that’s the plain reading. Meaning, when it says “the citizen,” I’ll make an exposition to exclude. True, that’s not the plain lexical meaning, but that’s the exposition one should make in such a case, yes. So the law transmitted to Moses at Sinai comes and says no. Fine? I’m saying there are two possibilities; one can understand it this way or that way. According to… I’m reminding you of the two possibilities I mentioned earlier, because they can somewhat blunt the force of the problem. What I said earlier was that the word “citizen” includes both men and women in both places. The dispute is not over what the word “citizen” includes, but over what to do with the definite article. Does the definite article come to exclude, or does the definite article not come to exclude? It doesn’t have to include; it just doesn’t come to exclude. Fine? Or the opposite: if “citizen” means only men, then the definite article comes to include—or the definite article does nothing; it doesn’t need to exclude, because if “citizen” means only men, then nothing further is needed. Okay? So I’m saying: if I were to read it in such a way that “citizen” includes both men and women in both places, and the entire difference is only over what to do with the definite article, but there is no question what the word “citizen” means, then the contradiction between the two contexts would be lighter. Here they tell you that this group of citizens is included and there not, but there is no difference in what counts as a citizen in the two contexts. Meaning, the translation or meaning of the word is not different in the two contexts. The whole question is only what to do when there is a definite article: does it come to include or to exclude? Good question. There is a contradiction on that point, and the Gemara asks it shortly. But the question is whether the Gemara is also deliberating about what the word “citizen” means. Look at Rashi. Rashi says, “the select among the citizens.” “The citizen”—the definite article, citizen. Wait a second, Rashi explains it in the answer. Look. So the Gemara’s question. I don’t understand something.

[Speaker C] If “citizen” means both women and men in both places, then why do you need the definite article on Yom Kippur to include women? After all, if it had just said “citizen” without the definite article, “citizen” means both men and women. So why do you need the definite article?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary, that’s the question. In Sukkah, when there is a definite article, it comes to exclude the women.

[Speaker C] Which implies that “citizen” without the article also meant women, and the definite article comes to exclude the women.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in Yom Kippur you would have expected to exclude with the definite article, because it says “the citizen” there too, and the law transmitted to Moses at Sinai tells you not to exclude with the definite article. The definite article comes for something else—to include converts. Fine?

[Speaker K] I don’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] know, something else.

[Speaker K] Maybe there is a distinction: in Sukkot it says “the citizen in Israel” specifically, whereas in Yom Kippur it doesn’t say “the citizen in Israel”? So what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That maybe could exclude a convert or a gentile, but women and men are both “in Israel.” For the matter of women and men, that makes no difference.

[Speaker K] On Yom Kippur that expression does not appear in the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? That’s another question. But it isn’t connected to women and men. The relation between women and men—whether it says “in Israel” or not—still includes both women and men. With respect to converts or gentiles, you could think there’s a difference between the two verses. So the Gemara now asks several questions. “This verse and this tradition of law”—what would we have done with “the citizen” without the tradition, and what does the tradition come to say? Two possibilities: either Sukkah is the normal reading and the tradition applies to Yom Kippur, or the opposite. “And furthermore: why do I need the verse, and why do I need the tradition of law?” Why? Sukkah is a positive commandment dependent on time, and all positive commandments dependent on time—women are exempt. So why do I need an exclusion of women from the commandment of sukkah? And Yom Kippur is derived from Rabbi Yehudah in the name of Rav. As Rabbi Yehudah said in the name of Rav—and it was also taught in the school of Rabbi Yishmael—Scripture says, “a man or a woman”; Scripture equated woman to man regarding all punishments in the Torah. So women are obligated in Yom Kippur; no inclusion is needed for that. Yes. So what emerges, basically, is that first, I don’t know to which case the tradition of law was said, and which is the straightforward reading. Second, I don’t understand at all why I need either the tradition or the inclusion from the verse. Why? The law for Yom Kippur and the law for sukkah are correct regardless of “the citizen” and regardless of the law transmitted to Moses at Sinai. This is a positive commandment dependent on time, so women are exempt; and this concerns all punishments in the Torah, so women are obligated. Okay?

[Speaker E] Now here—why don’t we say in the case of the Passover offering “a man or a woman,” so that a woman is also obligated because of punishments? Again. The Passover offering also has a punishment, and there they didn’t say that Scripture equated woman to man.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why are women counted also for the Passover offering?

[Speaker E] Yes, but not for the reason of punishments. There is a different derivation there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then there too you need to ask the question. There too—fine, indeed—there are other places. In many places the medieval authorities (Rishonim) ask this: regarding shaving a minor’s head, and about Torah study I think, and about circumcising her son, Tosafot asks for example: why do I need a verse that one who is not herself subject to circumcision is exempt from circumcising her son? That’s just a positive commandment dependent on time, so why are women exempt? They ask this in many places, and in each place you have to think about it on its own terms.

[Speaker D] Why did they bring that verse about the prohibition? That basically if a woman is equated to a man—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On Yom Kippur there is—

[Speaker D] a prohibition—so—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the woman is obligated, so why do you need an inclusion to obligate women?

[Speaker D] But they asked earlier about positive commandments dependent on time. If you derive it from that derivation. In Sukkah. Yes, but why did they bring that verse? To say that with prohibitions women and men are equal, right. Therefore on Yom Kippur you don’t need an inclusion that women are obligated.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On Yom Kippur there is a prohibition, obviously women are—

[Speaker D] obligated. But they asked: how do you know that this is a positive commandment—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] dependent on time, no?

[Speaker D] No. A positive commandment dependent on time—that’s Sukkah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Sukkah it’s a positive commandment dependent on time. Maybe it’s for the derivation itself of a positive commandment dependent on time—

[Speaker D] Causation? No, no, no, that’s not relevant here. There’s a rule that women are exempt from positive commandments dependent on time.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where do we learn that from? That’s a passage in tractate Kiddushin. We’re not getting into it here. Those are the sources; it’s the Talmud in Kiddushin from tefillin, and that’s a whole separate topic. But it’s a well-known principle.

[Speaker D] Because it looks like they’re trying to learn it from here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. They’re asking about both derivations. Why do you need a source to include women on Yom Kippur, and why do you need a source to exclude women from sukkah? You don’t need either the Jewish law or the verse for that. I would know it even without them.

[Speaker D] But both of them—what does that have to do with a prohibition right now? If both of them—are you talking about a positive commandment or a prohibition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the question. In the Talmud it says—and I’ll comment on this in a moment—that since on Yom Kippur there is a prohibition, then you don’t need a source to include women on Yom Kippur. Obviously they’re obligated.

[Speaker D] But maybe only in the prohibition? Maybe not in the positive commandment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll see in a second. And regarding sukkah, where obviously there’s only a positive commandment—

[Speaker D] Not the labors—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On a Jewish holiday there’s a positive commandment and a prohibition, but regarding the commandment of sukkah itself, women are obviously exempt. So why do you need a source to exclude women from sukkah? That’s the Talmud’s question. Now here there really is a difficult point, because on Yom Kippur there is of course both a positive commandment and a prohibition, at least according to most opinions. What appears in the Torah is the positive commandment, right? “And you shall afflict yourselves.” But the Talmud here apparently says there is also a prohibition, right? So then you say to me: why do you need to include women? You need to include women in order to tell you that they are obligated also in the positive commandment. What’s the problem? Why, what’s the question? The Talmud apparently assumes that the prohibition and the positive commandment go together. Meaning, if women are obligated in the prohibition, they are also obligated in the positive commandment. In another moment we’ll see this issue a little more clearly, but that’s how the Talmud is assuming it here at the stage of the objection. Right? Because otherwise there’s no difficulty at all. After all, on Yom Kippur it’s a positive commandment, and it’s a positive commandment dependent on time, exactly like sukkah. So women should be exempt from the positive commandment. True, there’s also a prohibition there? Fine. That too is not such a simple question. But we discussed that in previous sessions, that there is a prohibition regarding affliction on Yom Kippur. Assuming you accept Maimonides’ view, for example, because we saw there medieval authorities (Rishonim) who do not accept that there is a prohibition. So I’m saying, fine, I accept what the Talmud says, that there is a prohibition. But what do you mean? You need the inclusion in order to include women in the positive commandment.

[Speaker C] Okay? The idea here is that one entails the other: if she is obligated in the prohibition, she is obligated also in the positive commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That seemed obvious to the Talmud. Now this is an interesting point, because first of all, there are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who say there is no prohibition in affliction. For example, Saadia Gaon says this; Rabbi Yerucham Fischel Perla explains it in Saadia Gaon. We saw this in several places—the Behag—we saw several medieval authorities (Rishonim) who really do not count any prohibition at all. On the other hand, by the way, here in the Talmud it seems there is a prohibition, because the Talmud asks: after all, for all prohibitions in the Torah, woman was equated with man—implying that it’s speaking about the prohibition. But is that a prohibition? What positive commandment? No, it’s a prohibition. An actual prohibition. We discussed that in previous classes—Resh Lakish and so on, the verbal derivation, all the things we talked about. But in the end, according to most approaches there is a prohibition here one way or another. Maimonides says that if there is a punishment, that is enough to count as a warning by law, and all the things we discussed. So here, according to the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who hold there is only a positive commandment, it’s much harder. But even according to Maimonides, who says there is a prohibition, what does the Talmud want? The inclusion here is needed to include women in the positive commandment. Because otherwise I would say: this is a positive commandment dependent on time, and women are exempt. So what if there is a prohibition? You see from the Talmud, at least according to Maimonides, that in a place where there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, whoever is obligated in the prohibition is also obligated in the positive commandment. For the other medieval authorities (Rishonim) this doesn’t fit, because according to them there is no prohibition at all. But according to Maimonides, apparently one can understand the Talmud on the assumption that there is a linkage between the prohibition and the positive commandment. It could be that here specifically, according to Maimonides, you don’t even need to get to that. Because after all, we derive the prohibition from its connection to the positive commandment. The prohibition goes on the affliction. We discussed that maybe the prohibition even comes to support the positive commandment, like Nachmanides in Kiddushin 34a. I raised various possibilities like that. Maybe it depends on the question of where the prohibition is learned from, and then it could be that here specifically it really all goes together, I don’t know. In any case, that’s what comes out here from the Talmud. The Talmud here comes out saying that whoever is obligated in the prohibition does not need a verse obligating him in the positive commandment—it’s obvious. Okay? Abaye said: actually, sukkah is Jewish law. So first of all let’s resolve the first question: which is the halakhah and which is the verse? He says: sukkah is the halakhah. In principle, when it says “the citizen,” “the citizen” includes women. “Citizen” by itself means men; “the citizen” comes to include women. Again—either because women are not citizens, or because it also includes second-class citizens. Doesn’t matter. Bottom line, when it says “the citizen,” it means women and men. And regarding sukkah, why does “the citizen” mean only men and not women? There it is a halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai. He still hasn’t answered why we need it—after all, it’s a positive commandment dependent on time. He is only explaining where this is a matter of textual meaning and where it is a halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai. Sukkah is halakhah, and it is necessary. Why do you really need the exclusion in sukkah? You might have thought: “You shall dwell” means “as you live”; just as a dwelling is a man and his wife, so too a sukkah is a man and his wife. Therefore it teaches us otherwise. What is he saying? First he explained that sukkah is the halakhah. But still, as we asked, I understand that this is the halakhah—but why do we need the halakhah? Women are exempt anyway because this is a positive commandment dependent on time. He says: because there was a plausible initial assumption here. Therefore it teaches us that women are exempt. And it’s a big novelty. There are views in Jewish law that a woman really does have to sit in the sukkah because of the husband’s “as you live.” Because of the husband.

[Speaker F] There are.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are also those, by the way, who want to exempt the husband from sleeping in the sukkah because “as you live” means that the husband sleeps with his wife, and if the wife is not there then he also is not obligated. He is not required to sleep separately from his wife. So you can take this in both directions. Here in the Talmud there is an initial assumption to obligate the women in their own right because of “as you live,” and that’s the bigger novelty. I would have said: it’s the husband’s “as you live.” Meaning, the husband is accustomed to living in a house where his wife is also present, so the wife has to sit in the sukkah not because she is obligated, but because that is part of the husband’s “as you live.” In other words, part of the husband’s home includes a wife as well—yes, “a beautiful wife broadens a person’s mind.” Nothing from here leaves the walls of this room. So therefore the wife has to dwell there; it’s not an obligation on the woman herself. In the Talmud it doesn’t sound like that. In the Talmud it sounds like the woman herself has to dwell there because of “as you live,” and that is a novelty. Because then the novelty afterward, after the derivation, goes the other way. So the verse comes—and that really was the initial assumption—and the halakhah comes and says no, here women are excluded. Right? And what does that mean? It means they are excluded from obligation in their own right, but it could still be that because of the husband’s “as you live,” the woman still has to sit in the sukkah. But if our original initial assumption was only to include a woman because of the husband’s “as you live,” then when it teaches us to exclude a woman, it means that even because of the husband’s “as you live,” the woman does not need to sit in the sukkah. You follow? It depends what the initial assumption was; based on that we understand what the “therefore it teaches us” is saying. If the initial assumption was to obligate the woman in her own right, then the exclusion says: no, the woman is not obligated in her own right, but it could be that because of the husband’s “as you live,” she still has to sit in the sukkah. If the initial assumption was not to obligate the woman in her own right but only because of the husband’s “as you live”—that was the initial assumption—then the exclusion that tells us this initial assumption is wrong is saying that the woman does not need to sit there even because of the husband’s “as you live.” The initial assumption determines what the novelty itself is telling us, what the novelty itself taught us. So it’s important to understand what the initial assumption was here, because that determines what the conclusion says. In the conclusion, can I still say that the woman needs to sit in the sukkah because of the husband’s “as you live,” or is that precisely what was newly taught—not so? Yes, including sleeping. Or is that itself what was newly taught—not so. All right? Back to the house. And then what comes out? Let’s summarize for a second what comes out in general. The word “citizen”—not “the citizen”—“citizen” by itself, what does it say?

[Speaker G] Both together? Everyone?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, only men. Women? No, only men. “The citizen” comes to include the women, and therefore on Yom Kippur this is the normal reading of the word “the citizen.” Regarding sukkah, in principle you should have obligated women too, because it says “the citizen”; the halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai comes and says no—here don’t include women, here the women remain outside. Right? That’s the summary in the end according to what Rashi says. Look at Rashi: Abaye said, actually sukkah—then Rashi says: its exemption is halakhah. That’s the halakhah, okay? Because as for the verse, it comes to include obligation. When it says “the citizen,” it comes to include; that is the normal reading of the word “the citizen.” For “citizen” means only men. And the “the”—we would have expounded it to include women, as we expound it regarding Yom Kippur. Rather, the halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai exempts them. And when it was taught that “the citizen” excludes women, that is only a mere support-text. “The citizen” which comes to exclude does not really come to exclude; the halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai excludes them. It’s just a kind of support-text.

[Speaker L] Why do they say that on Yom Kippur—where is that written? Again. Let’s say here in sukkah, exemption—so it’s halakhah. So let’s say on Yom Kippur it’s the same. There too? Halakhah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there is no halakhah on Yom Kippur. What do you mean, “let’s say”? Do I invent halakhot? A halakhah that I received, I received; one that I didn’t receive, I didn’t receive. The Talmud received a halakhah regarding sukkah.

[Speaker E] That’s all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. These are just facts. The only question is what we received and what we didn’t receive.

[Speaker E] Isn’t it written somewhere that a support-text has to be proper?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?

[Speaker E] I mean, once we say they make a support-text, it has to follow the rules of exposition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only that—it’s not just a textual question. This is very difficult, very difficult. Because what do you mean “a mere support-text”? You are basically telling me that the letter heh, in the straightforward reading, comes to include. Now in order to remind me—this is not really a true exposition—you say: notice, there’s a heh here, it comes to exclude women. Now true, the exclusion comes from a halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai, but this is a support-text. What kind of support-text? This is a confusing support-text; it’s not a support-text that helps you remember. Because if the ordinary reading of the heh is that it comes to include, then you remind me that women are excluded by means of the heh? That’s strange. Therefore I go back to what I said earlier: I suspect that in any case the reading is that there are two kinds of citizens. Meaning, there is a citizen that includes both women and men. And the heh tells you: know that here there is some distinction between women and men on this issue, even though it says citizen. Does it come to include or to exclude? That’s another question. But I’m saying: this doesn’t completely solve the problem, but it softens the sting a little. Because then the heh tells you: remember, there is something here having to do with women. Meaning, even though the heh usually comes to include, there is some issue here with women, and then you remember that there is a halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai that excludes women. All right? Otherwise, if “citizen” really means only men and the heh comes only to include, then this is a very strange thing. Okay? If you say “citizen” means both women and men, and yet notice—there is still a heh here. And the heh tells you: there are two classes of citizens here, women and men, so you remember that there is something here; the halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai comes to exclude. I’m saying again, it doesn’t really solve the problem entirely, but maybe—it can dull the edge a little. Rava said: it is necessary. You might have thought to derive fifteen-fifteen from the Festival of Matzot. Not because of “as you live,” doesn’t matter, that’s a different issue. Just as there women are obligated, so too here women are obligated. Therefore it teaches us otherwise. Fine, so that’s the principle. But in Rashi here it’s interesting to see—Rava said: it is necessary. Look at Rashi. Just as there women are obligated in eating matzah. Why? After all, eating matzah is also a positive commandment dependent on time. Why are women obligated there?

[Speaker G] Because there’s a prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. “All who are included in ‘you shall not eat leaven’ are included in the positive commandment ‘eat matzah.’” This is derived, following Rabbi Elazar in tractate Pesachim, as it is said: “Do not eat leaven with it; for seven days you shall eat matzah.” All who are included in “you shall not eat leaven” are included in the positive commandment “eat matzah.” And women are included in prohibitions—that is, the eating of leaven—so automatically they are also included in the positive commandment. So here there is the assumption we spoke about, that the Talmud is already assuming above regarding Yom Kippur: that where there is a prohibition, then even if it is time-dependent, since women are obligated in the prohibition they will also be obligated in the positive commandment. And here it is said regarding leaven in the same way. Only note: from here it sounds as though this is a special exposition regarding leaven. After all, there is an explicit juxtaposition here concerning leaven; it doesn’t seem to be a general principle. There is some special juxtaposition regarding leaven. It doesn’t say that in every place where there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, then even if it depends on time women are obligated. It says that leaven works that way.

[Speaker F] But here it’s not the same thing. There it’s about leaven and about matzah, and here we’re talking about the same matter, affliction. Again: in a juxtaposition we’re talking about what was said in the exposition—we have a positive commandment regarding matzah and a prohibition regarding leaven, they’re different subjects, and then we come to connect them; that’s why it’s a juxtaposition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in our case, where it’s about the fast, about eating and not eating—so what?

[Speaker F] Then it’s the same thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore it is obvious that whoever is included in the prohibition is also included in the positive commandment. In another moment we’ll see this; I think that’s a correct distinction. We’ll get to it shortly. Fine, after that the Talmud continues: now that you say sukkah is halakhah, why do I need the verse? To include converts. Because then what about the heh in sukkah? So the heh in sukkah is only a support-text that comes to exclude women. In truth the halakhah excludes them. So why, regarding sukkah, does Scripture write the heh? After all, don’t write the heh, and you won’t need the halakhah to exclude—just leave it as “citizen,” and that’s it. Why write the heh? So it comes to include converts. Notice that the heh really does come to include—contrary to what you said earlier, Yoel. In the simple reading, were it not for the halakhah transmitted to Moses at Sinai, the heh comes to include and not to exclude. And that’s very interesting. It means this is an exposition and not its plain meaning. The implication, for example according to Maimonides, is very important. Because something learned from its plain meaning is Torah law. Something learned from exposition is rabbinic law. So there is room to deliberate. In tractate Nedarim it says that an oath can take effect on something that arises from exposition. On something that is written in the plain meaning of the verse, an oath does not take effect, because one is already sworn from Mount Sinai.

[Speaker B] Meaning, you come and use an exposition to learn the opposite of what the text says?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the problem? Isn’t that what exposition is—rather than its plain meaning, yes. Exposition can override. “An eye for an eye”—the plain meaning is that it means an eye. The exposition says no, not an eye: money.

[Speaker B] You need—

[Speaker D] To look at all the verses with “the citizen.” What? All the verses with “the citizen.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’d have to check, but here the Talmud’s conclusion is that “the citizen” comes to include. That’s what you do unless there are halakhot or special considerations that tell you not to do that.

[Speaker D] So if I have lots of other verses with “the citizen,” each one—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have to look for what it comes to include, yes. Maybe it comes to include women where there is some special initial assumption. Okay? After that the Talmud says: Yom Kippur is derived from Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav. The Talmud asked: why on Yom Kippur do you need the heh to include? After all, it comes from Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav, that women were equated with men for all punishments in the Torah. So he says: it is needed for the additional affliction. Okay? Since the Merciful One excluded the additional affliction from punishment and from warning, women would not have been obligated there at all. Therefore it teaches us otherwise. Meaning, really, it is only regarding women and the additional period that you need this inclusion of the heh. Regarding women on the day itself, you don’t need the heh, because that follows from the fact that they are obligated in the punishment. Okay? Because in the additional period there is only a positive commandment. Right? We saw that regarding the additional period, according to most opinions, it was excluded both from the prohibition and from karet. What remains is only the positive commandment. Then you would say that women should be exempt, because it is a positive commandment dependent on time; there, there is no prohibition. Therefore you need the inclusion to obligate women in the additional period. By the way, this is the famous Shulchan Arukh ruling—it already starts in the Talmud—about women who eat during the additional period, that it is better that they remain inadvertent sinners rather than intentional sinners, that one does not rebuke them, because it is better that they remain inadvertent sinners rather than intentional sinners, because women are obligated in the additional period. That is the derivation that comes out from here. Fine. Now here I just want to comment—let’s see what else I have. Wow, I don’t have any. Fine, so let’s stop here; I’ll continue next time because this is another whole section. You passed a thousand already, didn’t you? Five minutes.