The Laws of Melachot – Lesson 14

Table of Contents

• [0:02] Introduction to the rules of the labors
• [1:41] Source and definition of the Sabbath labors
• [3:17] Rashi versus Tosafot Rid on the criterion of the prohibition
• [7:31] Subcategories of labor — examples and their absence
• [10:25] The exceptional case of spitting — the laws of the sin-offering
• [18:29] The first rules: unintentional action and labor not needed for its own purpose
• [21:22] The exemption for unintentional action — a rule of the whole Torah versus Sabbath
• [27:07] Unwitting violation and mere involvement — definitions and connections
• [29:54] Definitions of unwitting violation and prohibitions
• [31:23] He knows it is Sabbath — a sin-offering for each unwitting violation
• [32:31] The connection between unwitting violation and the number of sin-offerings
• [37:07] Error in law and error in fact
• [38:33] The Maharik and whether a woman who sinned under compulsion while unwitting is forbidden
• [41:34] The connection between unwitting violation and sin-offerings
• [51:38] Rashi’s interpretation of unwitting violations and sin-offerings
• [59:59] Summary of the proposals and the discussion
• [??:??] The source of unwitting violation in the Mishnah — “A Great Principle” (NONE)

Summary

General Overview

The course deals with the rules of the labors on the Sabbath that define when there is liability and when there is exemption, beyond the list of the thirty-nine primary categories of labor and their subcategories. The text presents the idea of “purposeful labor,” the relationship between primary categories and subcategories, and the question of an “inferior labor” in the case of carrying, and develops a fundamental dispute between Rashi and Tosafot Rid over whether the thirty-nine labors are expressions of one prohibition rooted in creativity, or a collection of separate prohibitions. Later, it brings in rules of labor already studied, such as unintentional action and labor not needed for its own purpose, and the distinction between them through an inevitable result, and then builds an introduction to the discussion of mere involvement by means of a fundamental clarification of the concept of an unwitting violation and liability for a sin-offering. The text proposes an innovation according to which the sin-offering comes for the unwitting error that was realized in action, and not for the act itself, and places this against the formulations of Afikei Yam and the Ran, with implications for the question of “causing” Sabbath violators to stumble.

The Rules of the Labors and Broad Concepts

The central topic is rules that apply to all the labors and qualify the liability or define its conditions, such as labor not needed for its own purpose, unintentional action, mere involvement, indirect causation, performing in an unusual manner, unwitting violation, and “two people who performed it.” These rules determine when an act that looks like a prohibited labor incurs liability and when it does not, and they are also distinguished on the level of punishment between intentional and unwitting violation. The course opens by defining the Sabbath labors as “purposeful labor,” and with the question of the source of the labors from the Tabernacle and the relationship between primary categories and subcategories.

Primary Categories of Labor, Subcategories, Carrying, and Kindling

The text notes that in the Torah, carrying and kindling are written explicitly, whereas the other labors are not written and their source is learned from the Tabernacle or in other ways, and this raises the question of why דווקא these were written explicitly. Regarding kindling, the explanations given are that it was stated “to divide” or that it “was singled out as a prohibition,” as a tannaitic dispute. Regarding carrying, it is said that medieval authorities (Rishonim) describe it as an “inferior labor,” because it does not create a change in the object but merely transfers it from place to place. A further approach among medieval authorities (Rishonim) is also brought, according to which the inferiority of carrying stems from the “not readily understandable” definitions of domains, such as the distinction between carrying from a private domain to a public domain, as opposed to transferring from one private domain to another.

The Dispute Between Rashi and Tosafot Rid on the Criterion of the Labors

According to Tosafot Rid, the Sabbath is presented as the general prohibition “you shall not do any labor,” which includes a collection of thirty-nine separate prohibitions, and creativity is not the unifying parameter. According to Rashi, there is one prohibition that establishes the principle of “creativity,” so that the thirty-nine labors are different forms of significant creation, and the prohibition is to create on the Sabbath. The text connects the notion of an “inferior labor” in carrying to Rashi’s understanding, because carrying is not creative; by contrast, according to Tosafot Rid, the difficulty with carrying stems from the lack of clarity in its definitions and not from any absence of creativity.

Subcategories, Common Denominator, and the Example of “One Who Spits” in the Jerusalem Talmud

The text explains that subcategories are additional forms of action that resemble the primary categories, and suggests that according to Rashi there would seem to be room to prohibit even a form of creation that resembles no primary category at all, if the principle is creation — except that there is an underlying assumption that the primary categories “exhaust” all the modes of creation. In comparison with the primary categories of damages in tractate Bava Kamma, where a subcategory can be derived from a combination of two primary categories through a common denominator, it is argued that on the Sabbath there is no subcategory derived from two primary categories, almost without exception. The exception that is brought is the statement of the Rema in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud that one who spits on the Sabbath is liable for a sin-offering, and possibilities are discussed there of winnowing or throwing, and it is said that neither interpretation is plausible as the sole explanation.

The text brings the explanation of R. Menashe of Ilya, who says that the liability is learned from a combination of winnowing and throwing: from the side of throwing, there is indeed an act of throwing in the public domain, but the force of the wind assists, and therefore it cannot be learned from throwing alone; from the side of winnowing, there is the principle that “one who winnows and the wind assists him” is liable, and so the wind does not exempt. The text emphasizes that this “looks like” a subcategory derived from two primary categories, but it is not a derivation by common denominator, because there is no substantive shared feature between winnowing and throwing; rather, it is a union of two different characteristics in order to remove the exemption of assistance by the wind, and in the end the act is defined as throwing and not as winnowing. The text notes that this is the only case of such a learning structure on the Sabbath that he knows of.

The Status of Primary Categories and Subcategories and the Division of Sin-Offerings

The text states that there is no difference in status between a primary category and a subcategory; both are Torah-level and both incur a sin-offering in the same way. It notes that the only practical difference is in counting sin-offerings when one performs a primary category and its subcategory in one lapse of awareness, in which case one is liable for only one sin-offering because the subcategory is “part” of the primary category. Similarly, two subcategories of the same primary category in one lapse of awareness combine into one sin-offering. The division into thirty-nine categories of primary labors is presented as important mainly for the laws governing the counting of sin-offerings, and not for a substantive distinction between prohibited acts.

Unintentional Action, Labor Not Needed for Its Own Purpose, and an Inevitable Result

The text presents the example of unintentional action as dragging a bench that makes a furrow without intending to make the furrow, and the example of labor not needed for its own purpose as digging a hole when one needs only the dirt. It argues that the similarity between them is misleading, and brings in the name of Rabbi Abba bar Mamal a distinction according to which unintentional action is a case of two labors, where one intends the permitted one and a prohibited one follows along, whereas labor not needed for its own purpose is one labor performed for a permitted goal that is not the “own purpose” of that labor. The text states that in unintentional action the exemption exists only when there is no inevitable result; but when it is impossible to carry out the permitted act without the prohibited result, “Rabbi Shimon concedes” and one is liable. By contrast, in labor not needed for its own purpose there is exemption even when it is an inevitable result.

The text discusses the connection of these two exemptions to “purposeful labor,” and notes that there is a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim) over whether labor not needed for its own purpose is an exemption of purposeful labor. It also brings medieval authorities (Rishonim) who associate unintentional action with purposeful labor as well, even though it exists throughout the Torah. In the name of Rabbi Chaim on Maimonides, chapter 10, halakhah 17, a distinction is brought between two exemptions of unintentional action: an exemption that applies throughout the Torah, based on lack of desire for the prohibited result, and a Sabbath exemption based on knowledge, so that if one knows the result will occur, that is considered intention, and if one does not know, it is unintentional action. The text clarifies that these two exemptions are not claims of duress, but claims of absence of transgression, because action done in this way is not defined as a prohibited labor offense at all.

Moving to Mere Involvement Through Clarifying Unwitting Violation

The text presents mere involvement as the next topic and defines that clarifying it first requires clarifying the concept of unwitting violation, because mere involvement seems to lie “between” categories of absence of transgression and mitigation of punishment. It states that unintentional action is not unwitting violation when the person is aware of the possibility of a prohibited result, even if it is not certain, and that unwitting violation is understood as mitigation in punishment: the transgression is committed, but instead of stoning there is a sin-offering. The text distinguishes between error in law and error in fact, and remarks that error in fact can approach mere involvement when the person does not know at all that what he is doing is a certain halakhic act.

The Mishnah “A Great Principle” and Types of Unwitting Violation

The starting point is the Mishnah in the chapter “A Great Principle”: one who forgot the basic principle of the Sabbath and performed many labors on many Sabbaths is liable for one sin-offering; one who knows the basic principle of the Sabbath but forgot that today is Sabbath is liable for each and every Sabbath; one who knows it is Sabbath but forgot the prohibition of certain labors is liable for each and every primary category of labor; and one who performs many labors all of one type is liable for one sin-offering. The text explains that intentional violation requires three kinds of knowledge: that there is such a thing as Sabbath, that today is Sabbath, and that this action is prohibited; and the three types of unwitting violation are the absence of one of those three items of knowledge. It states that the number of sin-offerings is determined by the number of unwitting errors that led to the transgression, but a sin-offering does not come for the mere forgetting itself unless that error was realized in action.

Error in Law and Error in Fact, and the Example of the Maharik

The text notes that usually there is no difference between error in law and error in fact, but it brings the Maharik, cited by the Rema in Even HaEzer, in the context of a Jewish married woman who committed adultery unwittingly. According to the Maharik, if the error is in law — meaning she knew this was not her husband, but did not know it was prohibited — she becomes forbidden, because there is here an act of betrayal and a deliberate dissolution of the marital bond in practical terms. But if the error is in fact — meaning she thought it was her husband — she does not become forbidden, because she did not intend to dissolve the bond. The text formulates that the consideration there is not the severity of the sin, but the definition of the act as betrayal of the marital bond.

The Nature of Liability for a Sin-Offering: For the Act or for the Unwitting Error

The text presents a common “absolute” view that the sin-offering comes for the prohibited act, and the unwitting nature only changes the punishment from stoning to a sin-offering. Against this, it proposes an innovation that liability for the sin-offering is for the forgetting itself, provided that the forgetting came to expression in action, so that the action is a condition and not the source of the liability. According to this innovation, it becomes simple why the number of sin-offerings corresponds to the number of unwitting errors, because each sin-offering atones for an unwitting error that was actualized. Therefore, one who forgot the basic principle of the Sabbath brings one offering even if he performed many acts, while one who knows the basic principle of the Sabbath but forgets each individual Sabbath brings one for each Sabbath, and one who knows it is Sabbath but forgets the labors brings according to the number of his acts of forgetting.

Afikei Yam, Rashi, and the Ran: Combining Acts versus Liability for the Unwitting Error

The text brings from Afikei Yam, part 2, siman 5, an inquiry about someone who ate two olive-sized portions of forbidden fat in one lapse of awareness and is liable for one sin-offering, and asks whether the reason is that “liability for a sin-offering is on the unwitting error,” or whether in principle there should have been two sin-offerings and only a scriptural decree exempts with one offering so long as he did not become aware in between. The text shows that Afikei Yam himself continues and formulates the first side as “as though he ate them truly in one act,” and concludes that even there the sin-offering is still understood as applying to the act, and one unwitting error merely combines multiple acts into one act; therefore there too there is no full acceptance of the possibility that the liability is directed to the unwitting error itself.

The text points to Rashi’s wording, “for there the liability is on the unwitting errors,” as a basis for the idea that the sin-offering stems from the unwitting errors, and sets this up as a dispute against the Ran in tractate Nedarim 17a, who compares the division of olive-sized quantities in naziriteship to the division of lashes by separate warnings and to the division of sin-offerings by two separate lapses of awareness, and explains that without such division “it is called only one eating.” The text concludes that the very comparison in the Ran shows that the Ran understands liability for a sin-offering as liability for the act, whereas Rashi understands the liability as being “on the unwitting errors.”

Implications: Causing a Secular Jew to Violate the Sabbath, and Other Examples

The text brings the example of a secular person driving on the Sabbath and asks whether it is permissible to step into the crosswalk and cause him to stop and turn on the brake lights, and presents the argument that it is “absurd” to prohibit this, since he is in any case committing countless actions. It proposes a radical claim that one who does not believe in the binding force of Jewish law is not a person subject to commandment-observance and is not a person subject to transgressions, and therefore there is no causing of transgression here at all. It is even argued that if such a person put on tefillin before repenting, he did not fulfill a commandment and must put them on again. It adds that even according to a more moderate view, if the sin-offering comes for the unwitting error, then adding another act within that same unwitting error does not increase the source of liability, and therefore does not count as “causing” the person to sin. The text extends this also to the question of whether it is permissible to set up secular people for marriage when it is clear they will stumble in prohibitions. The text concludes that this topic will continue in a separate discussion later on.

Okay, the topic of this series, this course—I’m not sure what to call it—is the rules governing the labors. And not everyone was here in the first semester, so I’m trying to synchronize things a bit. In the first semester, the basic topic of the rules governing the labors was really an attempt to clarify broad concepts that apply to the Sabbath labors. Various concepts that can show up in all the labors and either limit liability or define the conditions for liability. Concepts like a labor not needed for its own sake, unintentional action, misoccupation, indirect causation, an unusual manner of performing an act, inadvertence, all sorts of things of that type. Two people doing it together. All these rules are really rules in the laws of the labors. There’s the list of labors—the thirty-nine primary categories of labor and their derivatives, and so on—but in all these labors there are certain rules that determine when I incur liability and when I don’t. If I did it unintentionally, then I’m not liable. If I did it as a labor not needed for its own sake, I’m not liable, even though I performed an act that is one of the forbidden labors. Right? If I did it inadvertently, I’m liable for a sin-offering, not stoning. If I did it indirectly, or two people did it together, all sorts of things of that kind. So the subject is really the rules governing the labors. What are the rules that determine how and when I violate labor prohibitions on the Sabbath? That’s the topic. I began with the definition of Sabbath labors in general—what Sabbath labors are supposed to be. Intentional, thoughtful labor. The rule that tells us what the forbidden labors even are, where we derive them from. We derive them from the Tabernacle. Is it connected to the Tabernacle? Is it not? We saw different approaches on that, I’m not going back into all of that now. What is the relation between primary categories and derivatives? How did we arrive at the idea that there are thirty-nine primary categories of labor, as listed in the Mishnah in the chapter “General Principle”? And what is the status of the derivatives in relation to the primary categories? How do we derive them from the primary categories? Why are these derivatives and those primary categories? So usually the accepted principle is that the primary categories are what is written in the Torah. But nothing is written in the Torah. In the Torah only carrying out is written, right? “Let no man go out of his place on the Sabbath day,” and kindling: “You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day,” this week’s Torah portion. “You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.” So therefore—but even those things are not written in order to tell us that they are forbidden, because otherwise it would have had to write all the labors. And the labors are not written. So we learn it from the Tabernacle, or whatever, in various ways. So of course that brings back and raises the question: then why were carrying out and kindling written explicitly? There are explanations for that. Kindling was written either to separate the liabilities, or to teach that it is only a prohibition—there’s a dispute among the Tannaim. It may be there to teach some specific law. Regarding carrying out, that appears only in the medieval authorities (Rishonim), not in the Talmud. And the medieval authorities (Rishonim) write that this is an inferior labor. I wouldn’t have thought one is liable for it had the Torah not written it, because carrying out doesn’t make any change in the object, it just moves it from place to place. Who says that’s even something significant? And that brought us to the dispute between Rashi and Tosafot Rid over what really is the criterion that determines the labors forbidden on the Sabbath. According to Tosafot Rid, it looks like this is just a collection of prohibitions that were all written under one verse, “You shall not do any labor,” but they are basically a set of thirty-nine separate prohibitions. In contrast, Rashi understands that no, it’s one prohibition, and there is one underlying thread that runs through all the labors, and that is creativity. Meaning, these are different ways of creating things. Doing meaningful creation. And so the prohibition is really to create on the Sabbath. There are thirty-nine ways of creating, but it is all basically one prohibition. According to Tosafot Rid, it seems that creation is not the significant factor, but rather there are thirty-nine prohibitions that were written under one verse, though they are different prohibitions. Therefore, according to Rashi, if the criterion really is creativity, then I understand why carrying out is an inferior labor. Carrying out is inferior because it creates nothing. The object basically looks exactly as it did before; it just changed location. According to Tosafot Rid it’s a bit harder—why is carrying out an inferior labor? So we already saw among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) that there are different explanations for why carrying out is an inferior labor. Some medieval authorities (Rishonim) say indeed because it creates nothing in the object. Some medieval authorities (Rishonim) say because its parameters are not conceptually intuitive. Nachmanides, I think, for example. What does that mean? To carry from a private domain to a public domain, yes—but from one private domain to another private domain, no. Why not? What’s the difference? Why should that matter? Meaning, the definitions here—the boundaries of the labor—seem unintuitive. Therefore it’s an inferior labor, not because it’s non-creative. And I said that this seemingly reflects the dispute between Rashi and Tosafot Rid. According to Rashi, for whom the degree of creativity is what matters, it is natural to say that carrying out is inferior because it creates nothing, it isn’t creative. According to Tosafot Rid, for whom the degree of creativity is not what determines things, then the inferiority of carrying out isn’t because it’s not creative. Creativity is not the relevant parameter. So it’s probably because its definitions are unclear, not intuitive. Now beyond that, we also saw that if there really are thirty-nine ways of creating, then I would expect creations of another kind that resemble those creations also to be forbidden, and that really is the concept of derivatives. Derivatives are other ways of creating. I look and see whether it resembles one of the forms of creating that appear in the Torah, or the thirty-nine primary categories of labor, and then that too will be forbidden—that’s a derivative. But it’s more than that, because in fact it doesn’t even really have to resemble one of the thirty-nine primary categories. After all, even the thirty-nine primary categories are not exclusive in that sense; they’re simply different ways of creating. If I now find something that is really creative but doesn’t resemble any of the thirty-nine primary categories, so what? The primary categories merely teach us that there is a general principle that one may not create on the Sabbath. If there is something else that is also creative, in principle I should forbid that too. It doesn’t have to resemble one of the primary categories specifically. Then the question arises: so why do we link derivatives specifically to primary categories? There’s an assumption here that apparently the primary categories exhaust all the modes of creation—there is no mode of creation that won’t resemble one of the primary categories, perhaps—and therefore they really counted them as thirty-nine. In contrast, if I understand that the thirty-nine labors are different kinds of labors, then it has nothing to do with creativity. Then a derivative will be forbidden simply because it resembles a primary category, not because it is also creative. If there is a creation that does not resemble any of the thirty-nine primary categories, there is no reason at all to forbid it. Do you see the difference between Rashi and Tosafot Rid? Or another example: one of the questions I raised—a question I’ve been struggling with for many years and I’ve discussed it with various important Jews and never got a good answer—is why we really do not find, in the primary categories of damages at the beginning of Bava Kamma, that we know they also have derivatives. There are primary categories in damages and there are derivatives. The ox, the pit, the grazer, and the fire; horn, tooth, and foot, and so on. Those are the primary categories. What are the derivatives? Whatever resembles them. But in the Talmud in Bava Kamma 6 there is a derivative learned from two primary categories by means of a common denominator, say fire and pit together. His stone, his knife, and his burden that he placed on top of the roof, and they fell through a normal wind, came to rest, and caused damage—that is learned through a common denominator, an abstract category built from two texts: from fire, because the normal wind moved it from the roof to the ground, and from pit, because in the end it caused damage like a pit in the public domain. So we do find a common denominator. And it’s natural, right? If there are several primary categories, then any derivative that resembles one of the primary categories will be a derivative. But what about a derivative that doesn’t fully resemble either of two primary categories, but from the two primary categories together we can generate it? That too should be forbidden—it’s the common denominator, right? On the Sabbath there is no derivative learned from two primary categories. There isn’t; you just don’t find it. Not in the medieval authorities (Rishonim), not in the later authorities (Acharonim), not in the Talmudic discussions, nowhere at all—except for one exceptional case that I’ll mention in a moment. Why not? I would have expected that just as with the primary categories of damages in Bava Kamma, so too with the primary categories of labor on the Sabbath. If there is a derivative that doesn’t fully resemble one of the primary categories but could be generated from two primary categories, because it resembles different aspects of two of them, why don’t I find that on the Sabbath? Interesting question. So once I thought maybe—in damages there are only four primary categories, so the categories are very broad. It’s entirely possible that there will be a derivative that doesn’t fall under one of those four categories; that’s just too coarse a division. So maybe it resembles only the two together and not either one alone; it doesn’t fit neatly into any one of the four possible boxes. But on the Sabbath there are thirty-nine boxes, so the chance that something won’t fall into any of them is much smaller. So perhaps it’s simply a matter of probability. Not that—what? There is no such labor that falls there, that ought to fall there? No, that’s exactly the point. There is no example, physically there just isn’t. If there were, maybe they would do it there too. And since there is no example, because it can’t happen—the resolution is fine enough that it won’t happen. Okay? That’s one possibility. But I said there is one exception I found. And that exception has to do with spitting. Meaning, the Rema in the Shulchan Arukh brings in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud that one who spits on the Sabbath is liable for a sin-offering. Someone who spits. Now the question is why. What labor is that? What labor is that? Not clear. Okay? So the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) disagreed about this. It’s not entirely clear. Rabbi Menasheh of Ilya—what? Some say it’s winnowing, some say it’s throwing. Winnowing is like winnowing with the assistance of the wind, where the wind helps, and throwing is like throwing in the public domain. So spitting too is like throwing. Of course there is a practical difference. If it’s throwing, then we’re talking about someone spitting in the public domain, not just spitting. If it’s winnowing, then even in a private domain it would be so, because you’re simply doing an act of winnowing; it has nothing to do with domains. Right? So there’s a big difference in how we interpret it. What? It comes out more stringent, because it would apply even in a private domain, not only in a public domain. They’re just different labors. Neither of them is plausible—neither is a plausible interpretation. Now Rabbi Menasheh of Ilya claims that it is both. It is winnowing and throwing together. The Mishnah Berurah brings him. What does he mean? He means this: when you spit in the public domain—in the public domain, right?—then you are really supposed to be liable as one who throws. If you throw something four cubits in the public domain, you are liable, right? Someone who spits is basically a kind of throwing. Right? But here the wind carries your spit. It’s not all coming from your own force. So you can’t learn it from the law of throwing, because in the law of throwing it is my force that carries it four cubits in the public domain. In spitting, the spit by itself would not carry it four cubits; the wind helps it along. So who says one is liable for such a thing? Therefore, from throwing alone you cannot learn to forbid spitting. If so, then winnowing will prove it. Why? Because in winnowing too, even if there is assistance from the wind—winnowing with the assistance of the wind, that’s already in Bava Kamma 60—you are liable. In other words, we see that the assistance of the wind does not prevent liability. Even if you are aided by the wind, you are liable. So it comes out that someone who spits is learned from a combination of winnowing and throwing together. You are really liable as one who throws; the labor you are doing is throwing, and winnowing only helps you understand that assistance by the wind does not exempt you. But if you ask me what he actually did, he did the labor of throwing, not the labor of winnowing. The labor of winnowing is only a side support. It says: don’t think that assistance by the wind exempts you; that’s not true—we see from the labor of winnowing that it’s not true. The Torah forbade intentional, thoughtful labor, and therefore that doesn’t exempt you. Here you have an example of a derivative that is learned from two primary categories together. It doesn’t resemble either of the two primary categories on its own. It doesn’t resemble throwing, because there is assistance from the wind. Why doesn’t it resemble winnowing? Because it isn’t that labor at all. You are not separating anything; in winnowing you separate food from waste, right? You throw it upward, the kernels fall and the chaff blows away; the wind carries off the chaff. So winnowing is one of the selecting labors. Winnowing, selecting, and sifting—all three are forms of separation. Okay? So the winnower is really carrying out a separation here between food and waste. A person spitting is not separating anything from anything. It’s not even remotely similar to winnowing. What’s the connection at all? Right? Therefore it really resembles neither winnowing alone nor throwing alone. But the two of them together can show that spitting is liable. And that is what Rabbi Menasheh of Ilya claims. Then it comes out that there is indeed a derivative here from two primary categories. But it’s not really a derivative from two primary categories in the sense I explained earlier. Earlier I said: what is a derivative from two primary categories? That from the two primary categories—after all, what is common to both primary categories? That both are creative. So the derivative too is creative, and therefore one can impose liability for it as well. There is a shared element, and therefore it is called the common denominator. There is a common denominator to the two source cases, and that common denominator is really what teaches me—not the source cases themselves. The two source cases merely show me that there is some shared common denominator that is the basis of the prohibition. So if there is something else with that same common denominator, it too is forbidden. Here it doesn’t work that way. This derivation I described here is not really a derivation by common denominator, even though it looks very similar. There is no common denominator between winnowing and throwing. What is shared by them? What resembles both of them? Nothing. Nothing at all—no, there is nothing similar. You’re not learning that anything that disperses is forbidden. No, that’s not true. Dispersion is not the teaching factor. There is no common denominator here at all. This is not a derivation by common denominator. You learn it from winnowing because really, for what are you being held liable? For throwing four cubits in the public domain. What you need winnowing for is only to negate the exemption due to the assistance of the wind. And so that you shouldn’t think the wind’s assistance exempts you, winnowing proves that it does not. But in the final analysis what you did here is throwing. It is not a common denominator of winnowing and throwing. Common denominator is a topic in its own right in Talmudic logic; I wrote a book about it. In a common denominator, you are essentially taking the intersection of the two source cases—what they share. Here I am doing a union. I take a feature that exists in this one, a feature that exists in that one—only in this one and only in that one—and combine them, and that is what creates the derivative. Not the intersection of the two source cases—the combination, the union, of the two source cases creates the derivative. Okay, let’s close the parenthesis. For our purposes, that is the only example I know of something that looks like a common denominator, and yet even that isn’t really a common denominator, as I just explained. That’s it regarding primary categories and derivatives. So we saw all those things. After that we talked about the status of primary categories and derivatives and saw that there is absolutely no difference between a primary category and a derivative. Liability is the same for both. Both are Torah-level, both require a sin-offering. There is no practical difference between a primary category and a derivative. The only practical difference there is—and even that is a dispute among Tannaim at the beginning of Bava Kamma—is what happens if someone performs a derivative in place of a primary category. Meaning, if you do both a derivative and a primary category within one lapse of awareness, then you are liable for only one sin-offering. Because the derivative is really considered part of the offense of the primary category. But it isn’t that there is actually a difference in status between a primary category and its derivative. Even if you do two derivatives of the same primary category, you are still liable for only one sin-offering. So there is no practical difference in the fact that this is a primary category and that is a derivative. There is a practical difference in dividing all the labors in the world into thirty-nine primary categories. That division matters for counting sin-offerings, but there is no difference between a labor whose status is derivative and a labor whose status is a primary category. It changes nothing. Both require a sin-offering, both are Torah-level, both are exactly the same. So there is really no difference between those two things. After that I began dealing with… Up to that point I had only defined the labors themselves, and then we began dealing with the rules governing the labors. Now what we did in terms of the rules governing the labors was really two things: unintentional action and a labor not needed for its own sake. All right? Now some people weren’t here, so I’m still summarizing a bit. The ultimate claim was that—take the example of unintentional action: someone drags a bench across the ground in order to move it from one place to another and makes a furrow. When he makes the furrow, he is really violating plowing if it’s in a field, or building if it’s in a house. Okay? But when he drags the bench, he has no intention at all of making a furrow. It just happens. He only wants to move the bench from one place to another. That is called unintentional action. Okay, what is a labor not needed for its own sake? A labor not needed for its own sake is someone who digs a pit and needs only the dirt. Meaning, I dig a hole, but all I need is the sand or dirt that comes out of the hole. I don’t need the hole itself. Digging the hole itself is plowing. So I performed an act of plowing, but I didn’t intend to do the plowing as such. I did it for the dirt, not for there to be a hole here. Okay? Now these two are the first two rules governing the labors that we discussed: unintentional action and a labor not needed for its own sake. A very difficult question is: what is the relation between these two? They look very similar. What’s the difference between them? Both? What do you mean, they’re equal? Isn’t the thing made up of both aspects? And therefore? So what? So you can’t take the dirt and leave the… well… Here it’s a labor not needed for its own sake. You can’t, but still you didn’t do it for the pit but for the dirt. I’m asking what the difference is between a labor not needed for its own sake and unintentional action—not the relation between the dirt and the hole, but between the dirt-and-hole case and the furrow-and-bench case. What’s the difference? After all, in both cases you did something for a permitted purpose, but in practice you performed an action that is a forbidden labor. So is this called unintentional action? Then someone who digs a pit and needs only the dirt should also be unintentional action. What’s the difference between them? So I said—I brought Rabbi Abba bar Mammel, I’m not getting into all the details now—but the claim is that when you do two acts, one forbidden and one permitted, and you intend the permitted one, that is unintentional action. When you do one act—you dig a pit—but your goal is a permitted goal, you also did something that created a forbidden result, but your purpose was permitted, namely to take the dirt—that is called a labor not needed for its own sake. One difference, for example, is that with a labor not needed for its own sake, even if it is an inevitable result, you are still exempt. What is an inevitable result? “Will one cut off the head and it not die?” It means someone who cuts off a chicken’s head because he wants to give his son a soccer ball to play with—using the head. Okay? Now he has taken life on the Sabbath, he killed the chicken. But yes, I wanted a soccer ball; I didn’t want to kill the chicken. So they tell him: yes, but there is no such thing as taking the head without the chicken dying. “Will one cut off the head and it not die?” What, you’ll cut off its head and the chicken won’t die? In a case where the relation between the two acts in unintentional action is such that you cannot do one without the other, the second will necessarily happen, then even Rabbi Shimon admits that in such an inevitable-result case one is liable. You are liable even in that situation. In contrast, with a labor not needed for its own sake it is always an inevitable result. When you dig a pit, there will always be a pit when you remove the dirt; one cannot exist without the other, and yet you are exempt. So an inevitable result creates liability in unintentional action. In unintentional action you are exempt only if it is not an inevitable result, only if one can happen without the other. If one cannot happen without the other, you are liable. In a labor not needed for its own sake, even in a case of inevitable result you are exempt; that is usually the case of inevitable result in a labor not needed for its own sake. You are doing both things, one depends on the other, okay? That is a case of inevitable result, and yet you are exempt. Why? Because it is a different exemption. A labor not needed for its own sake is not the exemption of unintentional action. Okay? I discussed the question of what falls under the definition of intentional, thoughtful labor. Which of these two exemptions comes from the phrase “intentional, thoughtful labor”? Seemingly only the exemption of a labor not needed for its own sake. Why? Because the exemption of unintentional action exists throughout the Torah. The exemptions of intentional, thoughtful labor are unique to the Sabbath. So it is not plausible that the exemption of unintentional action comes from the laws of intentional, thoughtful labor. But we saw a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) even regarding a labor not needed for its own sake—whether it belongs to the exemption of intentional, thoughtful labor. And conversely, we saw medieval authorities (Rishonim) who held that even unintentional action is an exemption from the laws of intentional, thoughtful labor. Then the question arises: so why does it exist throughout the Torah and not only on the Sabbath? So we saw Rabbi Chaim on Maimonides in chapter 10, law 17, and other later authorities (Acharonim) who follow him, claiming that there are two exemptions of unintentional action. There is the unintentional action of the entire Torah, and the unintentional action of the Sabbath. The unintentional action of the Sabbath is from the laws of intentional, thoughtful labor, and the unintentional action of the rest of the Torah is not connected to intentional, thoughtful labor. What is the difference? Rabbi Chaim says that the exemption of unintentional action in the rest of the Torah applies when you do not want the forbidden thing. You do it for the sake of the permitted thing; you are not interested in the forbidden thing. That is the unintentional action of the whole Torah. It hinges on will. Okay? The unintentional action of the Sabbath hinges on knowledge, not on will. If you know that the forbidden result will occur, then that is intentional. If you don’t know, then it is unintentional. The question is not what you wanted, but what you understood was going to happen here, what you knew. So here it’s knowledge and there it’s will. All right? That is his claim, and therefore these are really two different exemptions. That opens up the possibility of saying: okay, so the Sabbath exemption really is from the laws of intentional, thoughtful labor. The exemption that applies throughout the Torah has nothing to do with intentional, thoughtful labor; it’s a different exemption. Okay? Which of course also exists on the Sabbath, because the Sabbath is a particular case within the general laws of the Torah. But the Sabbath exemption is only on the Sabbath. The exemption of the rest of the Torah exists both throughout the Torah and also on the Sabbath. The Sabbath exemption is only in the laws of the Sabbath. Okay. That’s what we saw there. One more important remark: these two exemptions are not exemptions under the laws of duress. It’s not that I didn’t intend it, I was forced, I’m not guilty. Okay? There is no duress here; you could have known this would happen. So that’s not the point. Rather, once you didn’t intend it, you are exempt because you did not commit the offense. These are not arguments of duress—“I’m not guilty, forgive me”—rather, it is simply not defined as an offense at all. There is no basis for prosecution—not that you have a duress argument saying “I didn’t intend it,” but rather once you didn’t intend it, there is no basis to prosecute you in the first place. The discussion is about guilt, not about punishment. Right? You know, like in court: there’s the verdict and there’s the sentence. The verdict is whether you are guilty. The sentence is how many years in prison or how much money you’ll pay. Okay? Now at sentencing you always bring mitigating circumstances—I was under pressure, I had a difficult home life, all kinds of things like that. That has nothing to do with the verdict. I want to know whether you stole or didn’t steal, whether you murdered or didn’t murder—what do I care what your home life was like? When I come to sentence you, I say: okay, if there are mitigating circumstances, you’ll get a lighter punishment. Right? So there are arguments for absence of guilt, and arguments for reducing punishment. The arguments of unintentional action and a labor not needed for its own sake are not arguments for reducing punishment. They are arguments for absence of guilt. You didn’t violate the prohibition—not that you are exempt from the punishment; there is no prohibition here. Because the definition is that doing things in this manner is not a forbidden labor. Okay? There are various implications of this. Fine, let’s leave that; we didn’t already discuss it and I don’t want to go into it now. So that is another important remark regarding these two rules that we have studied so far: unintentional action and a labor not needed for its own sake. Now in this semester I want to continue dealing with the rules governing the labors. And I want to begin—because after unintentional action and a labor not needed for its own sake, the natural next topic is misoccupation. Misoccupation is another thing from that whole cluster of topics of unintentional action and labor not needed for its own sake. The difficult question is how to define misoccupation. What is its relation to unintentional action? It looks almost exactly the same. But in order to understand or define the concept of misoccupation better—both its difficulties and the explanation of them—I first need to clarify another concept, and that is inadvertence. Because with misoccupation we will see that in some respects it resembles inadvertence, and in other respects it resembles unintentional action. Notice: unintentional action, for example, is not inadvertence. When I drag the bench, I understand that a furrow might be created here. It’s not that I’m inadvertent about that. It’s not certain that a furrow will be created, because it’s not an inevitable result, but I understand that a furrow might be created. In such a case I cannot call myself inadvertent. The fact that it’s not certain to happen doesn’t make me inadvertent. If I’m aware of the possibility that it will happen, even if it isn’t certain, I’m not called inadvertent. So this is not an exemption under the laws of inadvertence. Inadvertence, for example, is an exemption that also means absence of punishment—not just absence of… sorry, also absence of punishment; it is an argument for mitigating punishment. The question is whether it is also an argument regarding the very issue of whether you committed an offense or not. Plainly, no. Someone inadvertent committed an offense. He just receives mitigation in punishment because he was inadvertent, so he is not liable to death; he is liable to a sin-offering. Okay? So those are arguments about punishment. In that sense, inadvertence is completely different from unintentional action and a labor not needed for its own sake, which are arguments for absence of guilt, absence of offense—not for reduced blameworthiness. Okay? In contrast, with inadvertence I am not claiming that I did not commit the offense. I committed the offense; I just did it inadvertently, and therefore I have arguments for mitigation in punishment. Okay? With misoccupation we will see that it somehow falls between those two categories. Therefore I want to prepare the ground by studying inadvertence first, and after that we’ll return to dealing with misoccupation. So let’s start with inadvertence. Yes. The starting point is a Mishnah in the chapter “General Principle.” The Mishnah says as follows, at the beginning of the seventh chapter of tractate Sabbath, pages 67–68. “They stated a great principle regarding the Sabbath.” All right. Mishnah. “They stated a great principle regarding the Sabbath: anyone who forgets the essence of the Sabbath and performs many labors over many Sabbaths is liable for only one sin-offering. One who knows the essence of the Sabbath and performs many labors over many Sabbaths is liable for each and every Sabbath. One who knows that it is the Sabbath and performs many labors over many Sabbaths is liable for each and every primary category of labor. One who performs many labors that are all of one type is liable for only one sin-offering.” So there are really four laws in this Mishnah. Let’s try to distinguish among them. Really it is three types of inadvertence, plus a final separate clause. What are the three types of inadvertence? When I perform labor on the Sabbath intentionally, or when I perform labor on the Sabbath inadvertently, then if it’s intentional I know it’s the Sabbath, I know there are Sabbath prohibitions, and I know that the action I am doing is an action that has been forbidden, one of the Sabbath prohibitions. Okay? I need three forms of knowledge in order to be intentional. The three types of inadvertence involve giving up one of those three forms of knowledge. The first case in the Mishnah: “one who forgets the essence of the Sabbath.” What does that mean? He simply does not know that there is a Sabbath prohibition in the Torah. He doesn’t know there is such a thing as the Sabbath at all. Okay? From his standpoint, Sabbath is day seven. There’s day six and day seven. He doesn’t understand that there is a day of a different kind here. So in such a case, if he performed many labors over many Sabbaths, he is liable for only one sin-offering. Meaning, he violated several primary categories of labor on this Sabbath, and on the next Sabbath, and on the next Sabbath, and how many sin-offerings does he owe altogether? One. Okay? That is the first case. The second case: “one who knows the essence of the Sabbath.” What does that mean? He knows there is such a day called Sabbath and that it has prohibitions, right? And he performed many labors over many Sabbaths; he is liable for each and every Sabbath. So what did he forget? Right. On each of those Sabbaths he didn’t know that today was the Sabbath. He thought it was Wednesday. Fine? So he is liable for one sin-offering for each Sabbath, even though on each Sabbath he performed several primary categories of labor. But that doesn’t matter. He owes one sin-offering for each Sabbath. The first person owed one sin-offering for his whole life. The second owes one sin-offering for each Sabbath. Okay? The third case: “one who knows that it is the Sabbath and performs many labors over many Sabbaths is liable for each and every primary category of labor.” What’s happening here? What does he know and what doesn’t he know? He is still inadvertent—he brings a sin-offering, so this isn’t intentional. What did he forget? Ah—so he knows the essence of the Sabbath, he knows there is a Sabbath in the Torah and in the world, right? He also knows that today is the Sabbath—that’s the second piece of knowledge. What he doesn’t know, or forgot, is that selecting is forbidden on the Sabbath, and he also forgot that trapping is forbidden on the Sabbath, and he both selected and trapped. Fine? But he selected five times and trapped another three times. How many sin-offerings is he liable for? Two, right? At least two for every… yes, for every Sabbath at least he owes two. Not just two overall. On each Sabbath, apparently, he owes two. But there are discussions about that in the Talmud. Why? What’s the point? Because once he knew that today is the Sabbath, then everything is determined by the number of lapses. Right? Let’s go back to the three possibilities. If I forget the essence of the Sabbath and don’t know at all that there is a Sabbath in the Torah and in the world, then how many lapses did I have? How many instances of inadvertence? One. I can perform many primary categories of labor, ten times each primary category, on every Sabbath. Bottom line: all of that happened because of one lapse that I had—I simply don’t know there is such a thing as the Sabbath. Okay? So I bring one sin-offering. The number of lapses determines the number of sin-offerings. Okay? In contrast, if I know there is such a thing as the Sabbath in the world but I forgot that today is the Sabbath, and last week too I forgot that it was the Sabbath, and the week before that I forgot that it was the Sabbath—I lost track. I thought these were Wednesdays, and really they were Sabbaths. Okay? In such a case one might have said that this is one lapse, because I made one mistake and that mistake led… but no, I didn’t forget once. Three times I forgot that today is the Sabbath. Okay? So I bring one sin-offering for each Sabbath, even though on each Sabbath I committed many offenses. Why? Because the number of my lapses is equal to the number of Sabbaths, and therefore the number of my sin-offerings is also equal to the number of Sabbaths. You see again: the number of lapses determines the number of sin-offerings. Fine? What happens in the third case? I know there is a Sabbath in the world and in the Torah, I know that today is the Sabbath, but I didn’t remember that selecting is forbidden on the Sabbath, or that trapping is forbidden on the Sabbath, or gathering sheaves, or sewing, or demolishing—whatever you like. Okay? I forgot all of those. So I have to bring a sin-offering for each and every lapse. Why? Because the number of my lapses really is equal to the number of primary categories I violated, right? Probably for every Sabbath, because the intervening days divide things up. That’s a dispute between Rashi and Tosafot, and I’m not getting into those details because those are complicated Talmudic discussions. But I’m saying on the basic level, we see here in the Mishnah that the number of sin-offerings is determined by the number of lapses. However many lapses you had on the way to this offense—that’s the number of sin-offerings you bring. If you committed many offenses in one lapse, you bring one sin-offering for them. If you committed a hundred offenses but in the background there were only three lapses, then you bring three sin-offerings. Okay? Meaning, the number of sin-offerings is not determined by the number of acts but by the number of lapses that led to the act. Now of course you don’t bring a sin-offering for the mere fact that you were mistaken—only if you committed an offense as a result of that lapse. If I forgot that selecting is forbidden on the Sabbath and then, by chance, I didn’t select anything—I had no need to, so I didn’t select. Then true, I forgot that selecting is forbidden on the Sabbath, but I do not bring a sin-offering for that. I bring a sin-offering only where this was realized in action. That lapse was expressed by the fact that I actually selected; only then am I liable for the sin-offering. So notice: there is a very delicate tension here between two parameters. On the one hand, what determines the number of sin-offerings is the number of lapses. On the other hand, it is not that I bring the sin-offering for the lapse itself, because otherwise I could bring the sin-offering even without having done the act of offense. Just the fact that I forgot would make me bring the sin-offering. No—the act of offense is needed in order to make me liable for the sin-offering. So there is an interesting interplay here between lapses and acts. You need both lapses and acts in order to become liable for a sin-offering. The number of lapses determines the number of sin-offerings, but no sin-offering is brought unless that lapse found practical expression, unless I actually did it. Okay? And that is the interesting interplay I want to explore a bit—the relation between the lapse involved and the act that I performed. Before I move on, notice that on the basic level—and this is a distinction often made—there is another kind of lapse that can occur. And that is the lapse where I don’t know at all that the action I am doing is an act of selecting. I know that selecting is forbidden, I know that today is the Sabbath, I know that there is a Sabbath in the Torah, but I don’t know that this sort of thing is called selecting. Or I don’t know that what I’m doing right now is the labor of selecting at all. Okay? That already begins to approach misoccupation. Do you see the misoccupation? Misoccupation is someone who doesn’t notice that he is engaged in something. Okay? That too is a kind of inadvertence. There are really two basic kinds of inadvertence, the first of which is divided into the three types I spoke about before. There is legal inadvertence and factual inadvertence. Legal inadvertence means not knowing that today is the Sabbath, or not knowing that selecting is forbidden on the Sabbath, or that trapping is forbidden. All of those are legal lapses. A legal rule escaped me. I made a mistake in some halakhic detail. Okay? That is legal inadvertence. There is factual inadvertence. Factual inadvertence is when something in reality escaped me—for example, someone who doesn’t know that today is the Sabbath. Not knowing that today is the Sabbath is not a legal mistake, it’s a factual mistake. He simply doesn’t know that today is the Sabbath; he thought today was Wednesday. Okay? That is factual inadvertence. There is another factual inadvertence: I don’t know that this kind of thing is called selecting. That already starts approaching misoccupation. Therefore it doesn’t appear here in the Mishnah, this type of lapse, because it isn’t really inadvertence—it is probably misoccupation. But we’ll leave that, because misoccupation is the next topic. Okay? So that’s just a remark. Maybe one more thing about that remark—it’s worth mentioning an anecdote. Usually we do not distinguish between legal inadvertence and factual inadvertence. Both are just inadvertence. There’s no difference between the two. But there are places where such a distinction is made. For example, the Maharik, quoted by the Rema in Even HaEzer, argues as follows: you know that the wife of a priest who is raped becomes forbidden to her husband and to the rapist. Even though she was raped, she is not at fault. But the wife of a non-priest who is raped—or inadvertent, it doesn’t matter—does not become forbidden to her husband. Okay? Now what happens, says the Maharik, if the wife of a non-priest committed adultery inadvertently? Then she does not become forbidden. The Maharik says: it depends what kind of inadvertence. If she simply did not know—if she didn’t know that adultery is forbidden, she didn’t know that a married woman is forbidden to commit adultery—then in that case she does become forbidden. Even though in terms of the laws of inadvertence she is inadvertent. It is legal inadvertence. She didn’t know adultery was forbidden, okay? She missed a law; that is legal inadvertence. Yet she becomes forbidden. Why does she become forbidden? Because the prohibition of the woman to her husband is not because of the offense as such. The reason she doesn’t become forbidden in the usual inadvertent case is not because she isn’t guilty. Inadvertence here is not the point that she is not guilty, but rather because she did not betray her husband. She did not intend to dismantle the marital bond. But here, if she did not know that adultery is forbidden—she still did intend to dismantle the marital bond. In practice she wanted to commit adultery, or to have sexual relations with someone who is not her husband—that is called dismantling the marital bond. It doesn’t matter at all whether that is forbidden and whether she knew that it was forbidden; that is not the point. The point is that she dismantled the marital bond, and therefore she becomes forbidden to her husband. When, in a case of inadvertence, does she not become forbidden to her husband? When she was factually mistaken, not legally mistaken. For example, she thought she was having relations with her husband; she thought her partner was her husband, she didn’t realize it was someone else. Then she does not become forbidden to her husband. And again, why? Not because she was inadvertent and therefore the offense is less severe, but because she did not betray her husband—she did not intend to dismantle the marital bond. This is not about stringency and leniency; that is the Maharik’s innovation. The difference between inadvertent and intentional is not that the inadvertent case is lighter and therefore we are lenient with her. No. Rather, in inadvertence she did not intend to dismantle the marital bond, and that is not called betraying her husband. But all that is only if she was factually mistaken—she didn’t know it wasn’t her husband, she thought she was having relations with her husband. But if she was legally mistaken, she knew it wasn’t her husband, she just didn’t know it was forbidden, then in practical terms she intended to destroy the home, so she destroyed it. So here, for example, is a halakhic context in which we do distinguish between legal inadvertence and factual inadvertence. There are decisors who also make distinctions regarding a double doubt: if there is a legal doubt and a double doubt, some decisors argue that one should not be lenient with a double doubt if it is a legal doubt. If it is a factual doubt, then with a double doubt one is lenient. Fine, but that is less important for our purposes. Okay. So now the question is this. We saw earlier—I’m returning to inadvertence—we saw earlier that the liability of the inadvertent person, the number of his sin-offerings, is really equal to the number of lapses. But the sacrifice does not come just for the lapse, because in fact it requires the condition that the act of offense be committed in order to obligate you in the offering. So exactly what is the relation between the lapse and the act? What exactly obligates one to bring the sin-offering? That is really the question. There are at least two ways to understand what the sin-offering comes for, what one becomes obligated for. One can understand—and this is usually how people think of it—that liability for a sin-offering is liability for the act that you performed. You desecrated the Sabbath, you selected on the Sabbath, something like that, and therefore you owe a sin-offering. Okay? But if you had done it intentionally, you would be liable to stoning; if not intentionally but inadvertently, then for that act you owe a sin-offering. But the liability is liability for the act, for the offense that you committed. The offense that you committed is that you selected on the Sabbath. Forgetting that selecting is forbidden on the Sabbath is not an offense. It nowhere says that I have to know that selecting is forbidden on the Sabbath; it says that selecting on the Sabbath is forbidden. That’s what’s forbidden. Okay? So what is there to bring a sin-offering for because I forgot? I bring a sin-offering because I selected. Only why do I bring a sin-offering and not become liable to stoning? Because I am inadvertent and not intentional. If intentional, I’m liable to stoning; if inadvertent, I’m liable to a sin-offering. Okay? That is basically a conception of the sin-offering as a punishment. The sin-offering is a kind of punishment, just a reduced punishment because your guilt is reduced. Okay? That is the accepted view. Not just the accepted view—the absolute accepted view. No one thinks otherwise except me. In a moment I’ll show you why I don’t think so. But anywhere you look, as far as anyone deals with this, that is the assumption. Okay? That the liability is liability for the offense, because after all, for what are you bringing the sacrifice? You bring the sacrifice because you selected on the Sabbath, not because you forgot. Forgot, forgot—what can you do. Forgetting is not an offense. The offense is the selecting. The fact that you forgot is relevant in the sense that it is not a reason to be stricter with you—not for that do you receive punishment. On the contrary: the fact that you forgot is a reason to be lenient with you, because for that offense you would really be liable to stoning, but because you forgot we are lenient with you—you are not liable to stoning, you are liable to a sin-offering. All right? I want to suggest a different proposal. I want to claim that one is liable for the sin-offering because he forgot, not because of the offense. It’s just that a lapse that did not find expression in practice does not incur liability. Meaning, there is a condition that this lapse be realized in action, because otherwise one is not liable to a sin-offering for that lapse. I can for one moment forget the law of selecting—so what, for every moment I forgot that selecting is forbidden, I bring a sin-offering? That’s impossible to define. Right? It’s not workable. And what if I’m simply not thinking about it? I didn’t forget at that moment, I just wasn’t thinking. One moment he thinks about it. So what, I also forgot, and immediately I’m liable to a sin-offering because for a moment I didn’t think that selecting is forbidden? What, do I have to think constantly about all thirty-nine primary categories of labor? That’s absurd, right? You can’t define such a thing. Therefore it makes a lot of sense—even if I want to claim that the liability to a sin-offering is for the lapse—you can’t define it as the lapse pure and simple. It has to be a lapse that found expression in action. Once you forgot and as a result selected, then you are liable to bring a sacrifice. But the sacrifice comes for the lapse, not for the act; the act is a condition. For a lapse that brought about practical realization, one is liable to a sin-offering. That is the proposal I want to make. Now understand that according to this proposal it is very simple why the number of sin-offerings is equal to the number of lapses. Because the sin-offerings are brought for the lapses. For each lapse you had, you bring the sin-offering. On condition that it be realized in action—fine—but bottom line, how many sin-offerings will I bring? According to the number of lapses I had, because each sin-offering comes for a lapse. So if I had three lapses, I bring three sin-offerings. The acts are only a condition, because without that I would not be liable for the lapse, but what obligates the sin-offering is that I forgot. This is a big innovation, because according to this view it comes out that the sin-offering is not a punishment at all, because there is no punishment for forgetting. There is no prohibition against forgetting. Where does the Torah say that it is forbidden to forget the laws of the Sabbath? It says it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath—that’s what it says. But it turns out that the novelty of the sin-offering is that it does not really come for an offense. A sin-offering comes for the lapse. The Torah wants to impose a sanction on one who forgets, if it is realized in action. It may be that this is meant to prevent you from doing forbidden acts, but in practical terms the sin-offering is brought for the lapse and not for the forbidden act. That is the proposal I want to make here. I’ll say again: the simple consequence is that according to my approach, it is very simple why the number of sin-offerings is equal to the number of lapses. Because the sin-offerings are brought for the lapses; however many lapses you had, that is the number of sin-offerings you need to bring. Because each sin-offering comes to atone for the lapse you had. Okay? Therefore someone who forgets the essence of the Sabbath brings only one sin-offering, no matter how many offenses he committed, because he brings the sin-offering for forgetting the essence of the Sabbath—for the lapse. That is what makes him liable for the sin-offering. It has to be realized in action; without that you’re not liable. But once it is realized, I don’t care in how many forms—it’s one lapse, so you bring one sin-offering. In contrast, someone who forgets on each Sabbath that it is the Sabbath—he knows the essence of the Sabbath, but he forgets—how many sin-offerings does he bring? One for each Sabbath. Why? Because that is the number of forgettings he had. He brings a sin-offering for each lapse he had, for each instance of inadvertence he had. What about someone who knows the essence of the Sabbath and knows that today is the Sabbath but forgot that selecting is forbidden or that trapping is forbidden or that gathering sheaves is forbidden? Then he brings sin-offerings according to the number of forgettings he had, according to the number of lapses he had—again. All right? So the number of lapses equals the number of sin-offerings; the number of sin-offerings equals the number of lapses. I think that is an excellent indication for the proposal I made here, namely that the sin-offerings are really brought for the lapses. The lapse is not just a condition; the lapse is the thing for which one brings the sin-offering, and the act is only a condition—it has to find practical expression, otherwise one is not liable for it. Sometimes the act can also define how many lapses there were—fine—but in the end I bring the sin-offerings for the lapses, and therefore the number of sin-offerings is equal to the number of lapses. Now take a look. Afikei Yam, the brother-in-law of Rabbi Chaim Ozer—Achiezer, right? Afikei Yam is a book of various discussions in Jewish law and conceptual learning, a book of assorted topics, so to speak. In part 2 he devotes two sections to discussing liability for a sin-offering in inadvertence—what is the nature of liability for a sin-offering. So I’m quoting passages here from section 5. Look at the first passage. “Regarding what we hold, that one who eats two olive-sized pieces of forbidden fat in one lapse is liable only for one…” Here the feminine is actually fine—sin-offering really is feminine, I don’t know. “I have to investigate the reason for the matter.” Yes, one who eats two olive-sized portions of forbidden fat in one lapse owes—on forbidden fat one owes a sin-offering; one who eats forbidden fat inadvertently owes a sin-offering, one who eats intentionally incurs death by Heaven, all right? But if you do it in one lapse—meaning, you forgot that forbidden fat may not be eaten—and you ate two olive-sized amounts, you owe one sin-offering. Why? Because your lapse was one, right? You just forgot that it’s forbidden; if you didn’t know it was forbidden fat, that’s inadvertence. “I have to investigate the reason for the matter: whether the reason is because liability for the sin-offering is for the lapse, and since he did not become aware in the meantime it is one lapse, and even though he ate this one in the morning and that one in the evening, still the whole thing is one lapse and he is liable only once, as though he had eaten them literally at the same time…” Even according to Rabbi Eliezer, who holds according to Rava, and so on—not important—because if they are two, he is liable twice, even though it is one lapse. But if they were literally at the same time, even according to him he is liable only once, as explained there. “And so it seems to me from the language of Rashi in tractate Sabbath 72, at the end of the gloss beginning ‘and so on’: and this is unlike moments of awareness between one eating of forbidden fat and another, which divide according to all opinions; for there liability is for lapses, and since there is awareness in between, it turns into two lapses.” If you remembered in the middle—forgot, remembered, and then forgot again the same thing—how many lapses are there? Two. Even though you forgot the exact same thing, if you remembered in the middle—if you forget and continue forgetting it for two hours, that’s one lapse. If you forgot for fifteen minutes, remembered, and after fifteen minutes forgot again, and each time you ate more forbidden fat, okay?—that is called two lapses, and you owe two sin-offerings. Fine? So Rashi says: why does the awareness in between divide? If there is awareness in the middle, you owe two sin-offerings, because there are two lapses here. Says Afikei Yam: you see from Rashi that the liability is liability for the lapse, seemingly like the proposal I made. In a moment I’ll explain why I think it’s not exactly that, but seemingly like what I proposed: that liability for the sin-offering is for the lapses; the number of lapses determines the number of sin-offerings. “And so too it seems from the language of the Talmud, that lapses divide—he owes only one because it is one lapse, and the liability is for the lapse.” I didn’t bring the second side yet—one moment. I only brought the first side. The second side—I’ll quote that too. Okay, see? We finished the first passage, which presents the first side: that liability is for the lapse. “And there is room to say that even according to the Rabbis, who disagree with Rabbi Eliezer, they hold that since there were really two acts, in principle he should be liable twice; but it is a decree of Scripture that so long as he did not become aware of his sin in the meantime and had not yet become obligated in a sacrifice, one sacrifice exempts him for both of them, like the law with a woman after childbirth,” and so on. “But if he became aware in the meantime between one eating and the other, since he already became obligated for this eating to bring a sacrifice, it no longer makes sense that this sacrifice should exempt him for what he will eat afterward. And a practical implication of this will be explained below.” What are the two sides? Seemingly what I said above, right? The first possibility is that liability for a sin-offering is for the lapse, therefore if there was awareness in between, those are two lapses, so you owe two sin-offerings. The second possibility is no: liability for the sin-offering is for the act, only if there is awareness in between then it is considered like two acts. If there is no awareness in between, then the one lapse joins the two acts as though you ate them at one time. And awareness? The awareness in between, the recollection. You forgot that forbidden fat may not be eaten, remembered that it’s forbidden, and then forgot again. So there is awareness in between. Now if I had not known that forbidden fat is forbidden and did not remember in the middle, and I ate two olive-sized amounts of forbidden fat, then since it was done under one lapse it is considered one big act. One big act incurs one sin-offering. Okay? Notice—not because there was one lapse, but because there was one act. According to this view, liability for the sin-offering is for the act, not for the lapse. What role does the lapse play? It simply joins the two acts and they are considered one eating. But if you know in the middle, if there is awareness in the middle, that awareness divides the two acts. For that one you already became obligated in a sacrifice, and now you remembered, so that act is already a separate act. If you forget again, you owe another sacrifice. So in short, his two possibilities are seemingly these: according to the first possibility, the liability for the sacrifice is liability for the lapse, and therefore if there was no awareness in the middle there was one lapse, so you owe one sin-offering. According to the second possibility, he says this is a decree of Scripture in the laws of sin-offerings. In truth you really owe two—there were two eatings even if in one lapse—but there is a scriptural decree that if it happened in one lapse, that joins the two acts together, it is considered one act, and still they exempt you so that you owe only one sin-offering and not two. If there was awareness in the middle, since there are two acts, you owe two sin-offerings. According to the second view, liability for the sin-offering is for the act, not for the lapse. The lapse merely tells me how many acts there are here, right? According to the first view, the liability is for the lapses. Why do I say this is only seemingly so? If you look at the language of Rashi that he quotes, I think that really is what it says—that it goes by the lapses. But look at how he formulates it: “I have to investigate the reason for the matter, whether the reason is because liability for the sin-offering is for the lapse,” seemingly what I said, that liability for the sin-offering is directed toward the lapse itself, “and since he did not become aware in the meantime it is one lapse.” Up to here—if he had stopped here—I would say that this is exactly my proposal. But notice he continues: “And even though he ate this one in the morning and that one in the evening, still the whole thing is one lapse and he is liable only once, as though he ate them literally at the same time.” Why does he need to say “as though he ate them literally at the same time”? There was one lapse, therefore he owes one sin-offering. You can see he doesn’t really mean that. He means: if there is one lapse, then it is as though he ate them at one time, so there is one act here, and because there is one act he owes only one sin-offering. So even according to this view, the sin-offering is really for the act, not for the lapse. It’s just that if the lapse is one lapse, then it’s considered like one act. So how is that different from the second view he proposed? There too he says the same thing: if the two acts are under one lapse, then it’s like one act. Yes, but there he defines it as a decree of Scripture—in the laws of sin-offerings, not in the laws of lapses. Not in the laws of lapses—there is a law in the sin-offerings that if you have already become liable for a sin-offering for this matter, and there was no awareness in between, then that same sin-offering will count for everything—a scriptural decree. According to the first view, the lapse joins the two acts into one act and therefore you owe one sin-offering. The first view says that this is in the laws of lapses; the second view says it is in the laws of sin-offerings. It is a rule in the laws of sin-offerings. Your number of lapses was actually two, but there is a law in the sin-offerings that if the two acts were done in one lapse, then there is a scriptural decree that one sin-offering covers both. Do you understand that this is really a nuance? In the end he is not really raising the possibility that liability for the sin-offering is directed to the lapse itself. No. He claims that the lapse joins the acts and makes them into one eating, and therefore you owe one sin-offering. So here too the liability is for the act, not for the lapse. Therefore I want to suggest a third proposal—not really a third, because in my view the difference between his two options doesn’t really exist—a proposal. The conception he offers, on both its sides, is that liability for the sin-offering is liability for the act, and the lapses can at most determine how many acts there are here. And the second proposal that I am suggesting is: no, liability for the sin-offering is for the lapse involved, and the number of lapses determines the number of sin-offerings—not because it determines the number of acts and therefore the number of sin-offerings, but because the number of lapses determines the number of sin-offerings because sin-offerings come for lapses. Okay? That is the proposal I’m making, and in my opinion it is neither of his two options. But notice: the formulation he brings from Rashi, I think, really does say what I’m saying. Look—this is the Rashi, see? “And this is unlike moments of awareness between one eating of forbidden fat and another, which divide according to all opinions; for there liability is for lapses, and since there is awareness in between, it turns into two lapses.” Here it really says what I’m saying, right? “Liability is for lapses.” The liability of the sin-offering is for the lapse, and if there are two lapses, you owe two sin-offerings. Rashi does not continue and say: yes, and therefore it is like one long eating, and therefore you owe one sin-offering. He doesn’t need that. He says: this is one lapse, so of course you owe one sin-offering. Fine? So I think Rashi really says what I’m saying. But Afikei Yam finds it so impossible that the sin-offering could be brought for the lapse itself, that on both sides of his investigation he refuses to assume that possibility. On both sides of his investigation the sin-offering comes for the act, not for the lapse—that much is obvious to him. And he will not accept the other possibility at all. And I claim that this is because he understands the sin-offering as a punishment—just a reduced punishment. So it comes for the act; the act is the offense, and you deserve punishment for it, only the punishment is reduced. But then the question arises: so why is the number of sin-offerings equal to the number of lapses? Then he has to resort to a decree of Scripture. Forget the decree of Scripture—what is the simpler plain sense? That the number of lapses determines the number of sin-offerings because the sin-offering comes for the lapse, not for the act. The lapse is what makes you liable to the sin-offering. Okay? Now he says, “Now let us return to what I wrote above,” in the next passage there—I’m skipping a bit in section 5 there. “Now let us return to what I wrote above, that there is room to say that there, in one who eats two olive-sized portions of forbidden fat and is liable only once, this is because it is considered one eating and as one who ate at once.” Here it is much stronger that the first possibility—the first possibility meaning, it is like one act of eating and therefore he owes one sin-offering. The sin-offering is for the eating, even according to his first possibility. Fine? And he says, “And it appears to me that this is indeed the view of the Ran in tractate Nedarim 17a,” and this is his language, quoting the Ran: “Therefore, one who made his Nazirite vow dependent on whether he eats…” meaning he says: if I eat such-and-such, if I eat an olive-sized amount of something, I will become a Nazirite. And he ate several olive-sized amounts, so he incurs several periods of Naziriteship. So he says: “One who made his Naziriteship dependent on ‘if I eat,’ for every olive-sized amount on which he made the Naziriteship dependent, and if he ate many, that is, many olive-sized amounts, and they warned him between each olive-sized amount, telling him that if he eats it he will incur one Naziriteship for it, he is liable for each and every eating.” Fine, that’s the law there in the Talmud. If each time after he ate one olive-sized amount they tell him: do you remember? You obligated yourself that if you eat an olive-sized amount you incur Naziriteship. And then he ate another olive-sized amount. Then for each such eating he incurs another Naziriteship—or thirty days of Naziriteship? No, thirty days of Naziriteship. He ate one olive-sized amount, they warned him, and he ate another olive-sized amount, so for each such eating he incurs thirty days of Naziriteship. If they didn’t warn him in the middle and he ate two olive-sized amounts, then he incurs only thirty days of Naziriteship and not sixty. Okay? So the Ran explains why: “And it seems to me that for this reason we require that he be warned between each olive-sized amount, because these eatings are no stronger, for obligating Naziriteship when he made it dependent on them, than for obligating a sacrifice and lashes when he swore that he would not eat this loaf. And just as to incur a sacrifice and lashes we require a division between each olive-sized amount—regarding lashes by warning and regarding sacrifice by two lapses of awareness—so too here, when he made Naziriteship dependent on them, we require warnings that divide.” What is he saying? The discussion there in tractate Nazir—I mean Nedarim—we are familiar with these kinds of divisions in two contexts. In inadvertence, the division determines how many sin-offerings you owe, and there the question is whether you remembered in between—how many lapses you had. Regarding liabilities in intentional violation, for example lashes, then if they warned you in the middle, you incur another forty lashes. If they did not warn you in the middle, then even if you ate two olive-sized amounts, you owe only forty lashes. So in these two halakhic contexts we speak of divisions: divisions for sin-offerings and divisions for lashes. Divisions for sin-offerings are in inadvertence, and divisions for lashes are in intentional violation. What creates the divisions in inadvertence? Awarenesss. If I remembered in the middle and then forgot again, that is two lapses. So what divides the lapses is moments of awareness in the middle, recollection in the middle. What divides things for lashes? Warnings. Right? I did something intentionally, they warned me, I became liable. They warned me again and I did it again, I became liable again. If they didn’t warn in the middle—one warning covering two olive-sized amounts—I am liable once. Warnings divide regarding liability for lashes in intentional cases; recollections divide regarding liability for sin-offerings in inadvertent cases. Now the Talmud in Nedarim is speaking about neither of these. It is discussing something completely different. Someone vowed Naziriteship if he eats an olive-sized amount of something. Okay? Now there the warning is not warning in order to make him liable for punishment—it isn’t punishment. He simply vowed that if he eats, he will incur Naziriteship. There’s nothing wrong with eating. Eat, you didn’t violate a prohibition; you just vowed that for each eating you incur Naziriteship. Okay? So the warnings there are not warnings to establish liability to punishment, that he is culpable, but only to make sure that he is aware that this olive-sized eating will obligate him in Naziriteship. Okay? So this is neither the discussion of division for sin-offerings nor the discussion of division for lashes. The Ran says: yes, but what difference does that make? Just as we use division regarding sin-offerings, and likewise regarding lashes, so too here we will require warning regarding Naziriteship obligations. What’s the difference? Naziriteship is the same thing—that is the Ran’s claim. Okay? Yes, so he says: “And it seems to me that for this reason we require that he be warned between each olive-sized amount.” Why do we need to warn him? This is neither a sin-offering nor lashes in an intentional case. The question is how many Naziriteships he incurs. Where did they even come up with the idea that warnings are needed here? That is basically what the Ran is trying to explain. So he says: “For this reason we require that he be warned”—why must he be warned between each olive-sized amount?—“because these eatings are no stronger for incurring Naziriteship, when he made it dependent on them, than for incurring a sacrifice and lashes when he swore that he would not eat this loaf.” Sacrifice in inadvertence and lashes in intention, right? “And just as for incurring sacrifice and lashes we require a division between each olive-sized amount—regarding lashes through warning and regarding sacrifice through two lapses of awareness, that is recollections—so too here, when he made Naziriteship dependent on them, we require warnings that divide. For certainly, although we say that one who swore not to eat this loaf swore regarding each and every olive-sized amount, right? He swore concerning each olive-sized amount, and nevertheless if they warned him only once he receives lashes only once. Why? He ate many olive-sized amounts. Yes, but the warnings determine how many sets of lashes he gets, right? And in all Torah prohibitions, one is liable for each olive-sized amount involved, and even so he does not receive two sets of lashes except with separate warnings. And for a sacrifice too he is liable only once unless there were two lapses of awareness. So too here, when he made Naziriteship dependent on eating a loaf, there must be warnings dividing between each olive-sized amount in it; otherwise it is called only one eating and he incurs only one Naziriteship for it. So it seems to me, in my humble opinion.” End quote. So that is the citation from the Ran. What does Afikei Yam learn from it? He says: “It emerges explicitly from his words that under one lapse it is called only one eating.” Right? What does the Ran say? The Ran is basically saying—how can he compare this? What is there to compare between inadvertence, intention, and Naziriteship? What is the basis of comparison? Why is this the same thing at all? I would actually question the Ran not only on the comparison he makes between division in intention and inadvertence and division in Naziriteship, but even on the comparison between division in inadvertence and division in intention. Even within that itself—what connection is there between those two? In inadvertence, why does recollection in the middle determine the number of sin-offerings? Because the number of sin-offerings is determined by the number of lapses. If you remembered in the middle, there is another lapse, right? But division in intention is something completely different—it’s determined by the number of acts. So why are warnings needed in the middle? That’s a different law; it has nothing to do with division of lapses. The Ran’s very comparison between division in inadvertence and division regarding lashes itself indicates how he understood the matter: not that the lapses are the reason for the sin-offerings, but that the act is the reason for the sin-offerings, and the whole question is how many acts there are here. Meaning, since if you have no recollection in between it is one act, and if you have no warning in between it is likewise one act for an intentional case, then regarding Naziriteship too, if you have no warning in between it is as though you ate one eating and therefore incur one Naziriteship. The Ran’s very comparison says that the Ran apparently understands like the possibility that the sin-offering comes for the act, not for the lapse. Right? That’s what he says: “It emerges explicitly from his words that under one lapse it is called only one eating. And likewise for lashes with one warning. And for this reason, when he made Naziriteship depend on eating, even though here warning has no relevance to lashes, nevertheless without a warning that divides between each olive-sized amount, only one Naziriteship takes effect, because it is one eating. And this is explicitly like what we said above.” In terms of his own investigation, he takes this to prove from the Ran that it is considered one eating. But for our purposes, the Ran basically holds that liability for the sin-offering comes for what? For the act, for the eating, and the lapses only determine how many acts there were. In contrast, the Rashi cited earlier by Afikei Yam disagrees with the Ran. He holds, in my opinion, like what I said. Yes, what Rashi says—“and this is unlike moments of awareness between…” yes, “and this is unlike moments of awareness between one eating of forbidden fat and another, which divide according to all opinions; for there liability is for lapses, and since there is awareness in between, it turns into two lapses.” He does not say that because there is awareness in between there are two acts. Rather, there are two lapses here. He really forgot twice. If he forgot twice, he owes two sin-offerings. In short, this is probably a dispute between Rashi and the Ran. Rashi understands that liability for the sin-offering is for the lapse involved, for the fact that you forgot. And the Ran understands that your forgetting only determines how many acts there were here. If you remembered in the middle, then there were two acts. If you didn’t remember in the middle, then it is one act. So the quantity of lapses only determines how many acts of eating or how many desecrations of the Sabbath there were. But the sin-offering comes for the number of desecrations of the Sabbath, not for the number of lapses. One of the implications, for example—I wrote an article about causing a secular person to sin. Is it permitted to cause a secular person to commit a sin, for instance desecrate the Sabbath? For example, a secular person is driving a car on the Sabbath. Am I allowed to step onto the crosswalk, causing him to stop, he presses the brakes and the brake light goes on? There are decisors who want to say that I am forbidden to step onto the road in such a situation; I need to wait until the road is empty. It’s forbidden to cross the road otherwise. That sounds completely absurd to me. Not only absurd in the sense that it is difficult—absurd because it’s not true. Why is it not true? No, but you asked him, you caused him to light a light. Okay, I claim that this person is, just on the basic level, think about it—the person commits ten thousand prohibitions in half a minute. He ignites the engine, an internal combustion engine; he kindles there inside the engine, I don’t know, a number of RPMs, right? How many times a minute are you doing that? Thousands of times a minute. Okay, so now the lights outside are the stumbling block? So now instead of ten thousand offenses he has ten thousand and one? A million, not ten thousand—one million and one, because there are thousands per minute, and if he drives an hour it can reach a million. Okay? So the lighting of the lights sounds quantitatively unreasonable. It simply isn’t logical that such a thing should be considered causing sin. But there I wanted to make a more fundamental claim. I want to claim that in general it is impossible to cause the secular person to sin, because after all he is doing it inadvertently—he doesn’t know that it is forbidden. How many lapses does he have? One, right? He doesn’t know that it is forbidden to do this on the Sabbath. He doesn’t know it’s forbidden. He knows religious people think it’s forbidden. That isn’t called knowing. He doesn’t understand that such a thing is forbidden. He knows there are Indians who think it’s forbidden to do this—that isn’t called knowing. Another common mistake, yes—that someone thinks that if a person knows all of Jewish law he is not like a child captured among the gentiles. Someone who knows all of Jewish law is absolutely like a child captured among the gentiles, as long as he thinks of it as learning Indian culture. There too he knows all the customs of the pagans, but it never enters his mind that this is relevant to him, that it is actually binding. So he is entirely like a child captured among the gentiles; it has nothing to do with anything. Someone who grew up in a religious home can be completely like a child captured among the gentiles if he reaches the conclusion that this whole thing is simply not logical, not true, not binding—then he is a child captured among the gentiles. Because it does not enter his mind that this thing is forbidden. Inadvertence means someone who knows that it is forbidden, or forgot that it is forbidden, or forgot that this is called selecting or something like that—that is called inadvertence. A child captured among the gentiles is under duress. There is a dispute in the Talmud whether that is duress or inadvertence; that requires a separate analysis. But on the basic level it is duress. So what I really want to claim is that a person who does not believe—not “does not believe” in the sense that he does not understand this to be binding—there is no possibility of causing him to sin, even if you wanted to. That is not called causing sin. It is not called causing sin for two reasons. The more radical reason is that even if he does it, it is not an offense. He is not in the realm of commandments and transgressions—that is my claim in that article. A secular person, someone who doesn’t believe, is not in that category. He cannot perform commandments even if you put phylacteries on him; and if he repents at noon he has to put them on again, because he didn’t put on phylacteries today. Why? Didn’t Chabad stop him in the street and put on phylacteries with him? That is not the commandment of putting on phylacteries, it is nothing, it’s nonsense. He cannot fulfill commandments. Someone who does not believe in obligation does not fulfill commandments. He is not a person who can fulfill commandments. And I claim he also is not a person who can commit transgressions. If he desecrates the Sabbath, that is not Sabbath desecration. Therefore causing him to do it is not called causing sin at all, because I did not cause him to commit an offense. He did not commit an offense. And I’ll say it in a formulation that doesn’t go all the way to that… to that radical view that I am arguing for—just a second—even if we do not go all the way to that radical view, I am making a more moderate claim here. Suppose I cause him to commit an offense that is only inadvertent—let’s say he really is inadvertent, ordinary inadvertent. Fine, not like I say that he is not in the category of commandments and transgressions at all. He is inadvertent. Even then, adding one more act under the same lapse is not called causing him to sin. Because if the problem is the lapse involved, then he has already done that—he already lapsed in that respect. What difference does it make if he now realizes it in action one more time? If you hold like Afikei Yam and the Ran, then each separate act that he performs is another act of offense. The number of lapses is some condition, but there is still an offense in each inadvertent act you do, and each one can obligate another sin-offering. But if you hold like what I’m suggesting, like what Rashi says, then the offense is the lapse involved. And that lapse he had anyway, whether I step into the road or not. He doesn’t know that it’s forbidden to drive on the Sabbath, right? So when I step into the road, he is just doing one more act under that same lapse. Nothing happened. Right? The act of offense is not really an offense at all, and the number of his lapses has not increased. So that is not called my having caused him to sin. Do you understand the difference? What is that? Oh, yes? On the other side of the street? Yes. There’s no barrier here. Oh, yes? Okay. There’s some right-of-way issue here, I don’t know what now… If I… if I arrange a match, yes—if they’ve run out of fenugreek. What? They’ve run out of fenugreek. So the claim is, do you understand that if I… if I take it this way, then the whole problem with inadvertence is not the forbidden act he performed at all. And that is what I want to sharpen here. The problem is not that he performed a forbidden act; the problem is the very lapse that led him to perform the forbidden act. Now with a secular person driving a car, he already had the lapse or lack of knowledge; I didn’t bring that upon him. And for that he is already liable to whatever he is liable to—a sin-offering, I don’t know exactly what, if you think he is liable to a sin-offering. The fact that I caused him to do one more act by force of that same lapse changes nothing; it did nothing to him. All right? So that is one implication of this approach. Yes? So if I have a secular friend, yes, and I suggest a secular girl to him, when I know with certainty that they will violate forbidden sexual relations—yes, I think that’s permissible. If I know with certainty that they will violate forbidden sexual relations? Yes. What, think about the rabbi who performs the marriage for such a couple. That’s even more than suggesting—he creates the marriage. He creates the prohibition. On the contrary, he will have relations with her while she is menstruating—what do you mean, they don’t observe family purity. There will be adultery there—are you crazy? You’re violating “do not place a stumbling block” in a massive way. So how does he do it? If you rely on the first argument—that the first act will help for the rest of life? What, when she is a hundred years old she’ll come again? Okay, let’s stop here. Next time that will already be a separate topic.