Torah Study – Lesson 9

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Basically, today I want to finish the topic of ukimtot, and then we’ll be able to draw the conclusions from it and move on to the issue of what Torah study is, what we’re trying to achieve, and what and how to do it. Last time we talked about the logic of the ukimta, and I said that when the Talmud reads a source in the Mishnah or an amoraic statement that speaks about a case, it looks at it through casuistic glasses. Meaning, what we really have here is a case that comes to demonstrate a principle or illustrate a rule, and therefore when the Talmud asks how that rule is implemented and runs into technical problems, it proposes an ukimta. But the ukimta doesn’t mean that we’re talking about the specific case in which the Talmud set it up. Rather, the ukimta is the place where we can see the appearance of that rule in a clearer, more accurate way. And we talked about a Jewish holiday that comes after the Sabbath at the beginning of tractate Beitzah, and I said there that the Talmud basically sets it up — that is, the Talmud says that an egg laid on a Jewish holiday may or may not be eaten, a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. According to the opinion that says it may not be eaten, we’re talking about a Jewish holiday that follows the Sabbath. The claim was that it’s not about a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath; it’s about every Jewish holiday. What the Talmud is saying is not that the egg that was laid may not be eaten, but that food has to be prepared. In other words, it states the general rule. The example was an egg that was laid, but it comes to illustrate a general principle. The general principle says that food on a Jewish holiday must be prepared. You can’t eat — it’s forbidden to eat on a Jewish holiday — food that is not prepared. Specifically regarding the example of the egg, that’s simply not true, because the egg really is prepared. If it’s laid on the holiday, then it finishes becoming prepared the day before, so what’s the problem? It’s prepared. Therefore they said, fine, we’re talking about a Jewish holiday that follows the Sabbath. But that’s not meant to say that the Mishnah is coming to introduce a law relevant specifically to a Jewish holiday that follows the Sabbath. The Mishnah is coming to state a general law, that food on a Jewish holiday has to be prepared. The example we took from the egg is problematic, so in order to understand it through the example, we have to place it on a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath, that’s all.

[Speaker B] So why couldn’t it have brought a better example, one that didn’t have this problem?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every example will have problems, and we’ll need ukimtot, because the general law never appears directly in the example.

[Speaker B] But maybe there are better examples?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes, maybe no, and maybe they also wanted to teach something about the example. Meaning, it could be that beyond wanting to teach the law, they really wanted to teach that an egg is something with a problem in it, because it finishes earlier, and we need to understand that preparation by Heaven also counts as preparation. The Talmud there talks about the fact that the egg’s preparation happens on its own. It’s not that I do something to that egg. The question is whether something like that is also called preparation or not, so maybe they wanted to gain some side bonus too.

[Speaker C] Are you asking why the Talmud doesn’t begin with its conclusions?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No — why it doesn’t bring a more clear-cut example.

[Speaker C] Because then there wouldn’t have been the ukimta and the whole discussion. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what he’s asking. Why do we need all this discussion? Bring the normal example and you don’t need the whole ukimta.

[Speaker C] Apparently that’s how it…

[Speaker B] They could have brought an example — even if it wasn’t enough, they could have brought more examples.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They could have simply written: a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath, an egg laid on a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath.

[Speaker C] Why, why does the Mishnah say it that way? It doesn’t state principles, it doesn’t say…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I said that the Mishnah, or the Talmud, assumes that no — we don’t like working with principles, we like working with examples. I spoke a bit about the limitations of working with rules and things like that.

[Speaker D] So I want to ask: then as learners, when we study the Mishnah, can we take every Mishnah and derive its principle ourselves?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We have to, not just can. Does every Mishnah yield a principle? The Talmud teaches us that when we look at a Mishnah — and also at the Talmud itself — when we read an example, we need to understand that it’s an example meant to clarify a principle. The medieval authorities (Rishonim) make ukimtot for passages in the Talmud. If something doesn’t fit, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) make ukimtot when a Talmudic passage doesn’t work out.

[Speaker D] Every Mishnah we read, we derive a principle from it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In principle, yes.

[Speaker E] Everything comes…

[Speaker D] …to express a principle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud comes to teach us how to do that even in cases where the Talmud itself doesn’t do the example for us. So now various implications come out of this, and I tried to demonstrate them last time on the sugya in Beitzah. First, the ukimta — maybe the central implication — is that whenever we see an example, we need to understand that the Mishnah is not coming to introduce the example, or the Talmud is not coming to introduce the example. It is coming to introduce a principle that this example illustrates. Second, whenever we make an ukimta for a Mishnah or for some amoraic statement, the ukimta will not contain the main novelty of that statement. Meaning, obviously if we say that we’re talking about a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath in the first Mishnah in Beitzah, that means the novelty of the Mishnah is not coming to tell me some law about a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. It’s coming to tell a law about every Jewish holiday, because the Mishnah wrote ‘a Jewish holiday’; it didn’t write ‘a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath.’ The ukimta can never contain the main novelty of the Mishnah, because otherwise the essence would be missing from the text — the Mishnah should have written the novelty. The assumption is that the Mishnah wrote what it wanted. There is no imprecision in the Mishnah. It wrote what it wanted. The novelty is about every Jewish holiday, and therefore it wrote it about every Jewish holiday, and not only about a Jewish holiday after the Sabbath. The problem arises only with the example, that’s all. So now let’s see another interesting example. There is a Mishnah at the beginning of the second chapter of Pesachim. I mentioned it when we began our discussion of ukimtot. The Mishnah says this: ‘Any time that it is permitted to eat, one may feed it to domesticated animals, wild animals, and birds, and sell it to a gentile, and it is permitted for benefit. Once its time has passed, it is forbidden for benefit, and one may not use it to fire an oven or a stove.’ That’s what we need for our purposes. So what does it say? At the beginning: as long as leavened food may be eaten, before the holiday, you may feed it to domesticated animals, wild animals, and birds, and sell it to a gentile, and derive benefit from it — so there is no prohibition, everything is permitted. Once its time has passed, it is forbidden for benefit and one may not fire an oven or a stove with it. A strange Mishnah. When there’s no prohibition, there’s no prohibition, and when there is a prohibition, there is a prohibition. A fascinating novelty. Fine, right — you’re telling me that before the prohibition of leavened food begins, do whatever you want, and after the prohibition begins, it’s forbidden. Well. I don’t know — do I need permission to eat bread on Hanukkah? Is that what the Mishnah is saying? On Hanukkah you can eat bread. Right, that’s what it says. Hanukkah is before Passover, so you can eat bread. It’s strange. Okay then, ‘its time has passed’… what? Does that mean its time has passed?

[Speaker F] It’s forbidden.

[Speaker C] At the time when it’s already forbidden to eat.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] During the time of the prohibition. From the sixth hour, say — it doesn’t matter — or during the holiday itself.

[Speaker F] The fourteenth? That’s called ‘its time has passed’?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No — on the fourteenth, why would it be forbidden? ‘Once its time has passed, it is forbidden for benefit.’

[Speaker F] I’m surprised by the expression ‘its time has passed.’

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] ‘Its time has passed’ means the time of Passover has already arrived. It’s the antithesis of what was written earlier. ‘Any time that it is permitted to eat, one may feed it to domesticated animals, wild animals, and birds, and it is permitted for benefit.’ ‘Its time has passed’ means its time of permission has passed — in other words, the time of prohibition has already begun, and that’s it, you can’t do anything. Fine. Okay, so the Talmud discusses this issue of ‘it is permitted for benefit’ and ‘once its time has passed it is forbidden for benefit.’ So the Talmud says as follows: ‘Any time that it is permitted to eat, one may feed it to domesticated animals, wild animals, and birds, and sell it to a gentile, and it is permitted for benefit.’ That’s the first sentence. On that the Talmud asks: ‘And permitted for benefit? Peshita!’ Obviously, if the time of prohibition has not yet begun, then it is permitted for benefit. The Talmud answers: ‘No, it is necessary in a case where he charred it before its time.’ And it teaches us in accordance with Rava, for Rava said: ‘If he charred it before its time, it is permitted for benefit even after its time.’ Meaning, what are we talking about? We’re talking about someone who burned the leavened food before the time, and as Rava said, if you burn the leavened food before the time, then it is permitted for benefit after the time. So first of all, fine — burned leavened food is not leavened food, so what’s the problem?

[Speaker F] What? That doesn’t fit the latter clause. Why? If it’s charred, then afterward it’s permitted for benefit.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he charred it before the time, then it’s permitted for benefit even after the time.

[Speaker F] And if that’s the ukimta, then after the time it should be permitted?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. If you charred it after the time, then it is forbidden to derive benefit from it. If you charred it before the time, then it is permitted to derive benefit from it even after the time. But if you charred it after the time, then it is forbidden. Obviously. And therefore the interpretive setup is about leavened food that was charred before the time. So the latter clause of the Mishnah doesn’t work out, because it says you may not use it to fuel an oven—so if I charred it before the time, am I allowed to use it as fuel? Obviously yes. The latter clause is talking about a case where you charred it after the time, or ate it after the time. The whole interpretive setup is about charring. If you charred it before the time, that means the time of the charring, not the time of the eating. The time of eating is always Passover. The difference between the first clause and the latter clause is the question of when you charred it, not when you eat it, because outside Passover obviously everything is permitted—nobody is talking about outside Passover. The whole question is when you charred it; that’s the difference.

So really, yes—once again there’s some strange interpretive setup here: you charred it before the time and you eat it after the time, and none of this appears in the Mishnah. Couldn’t the Mishnah have said that? If it’s talking about this weird case, what is it, the case of the dog at night, as they say? After that, the Talmud says, the Talmud says: if you charred it before the time, you are allowed to eat it after the time. But it doesn’t say that! Yes, that’s what the Mishnah says. That’s the interpretive setup. If you charred it before the time, you are allowed to eat it after the time, because the fact that it’s permitted to you before the time is true even without charring, so there’s no need to talk about before the time. The novelty is that it is permitted to eat even during the prohibited time if you charred it earlier. Okay?

After that, look at the Talmud later, on the next passage: “Once its time has passed, deriving benefit from it is forbidden, and one may not use it to fuel an oven or stove.” The Talmud asks: “Once its time has passed, deriving benefit from it is forbidden”—that’s obvious! Why is that obvious? What is obvious here? After all, if you charred it before the time, that’s the first clause of the Mishnah, right? So what is the latter clause? If you charred it after the time. Is it really so obvious that if I charred it after the time I may eat leaven on Passover? We’re talking about bread that had entered… entered into Passover, I burned it—am I allowed to eat it? Charred after the time—obviously forbidden. Why is it obviously forbidden? Because it was leaven that Passover came upon. Not “came upon”—I’m in the middle of Passover. It was leavened food, but now it isn’t leavened food, it’s ash. Why am I forbidden to eat it? It was leaven when it was leaven; I didn’t do anything. Why is this so obvious?

Because deriving benefit from it is forbidden. Because once leaven enters into… okay fine, but it’s not leaven—I already burned it, it’s like coals, it’s not leaven, it’s ash. What kind of benefit is there in eating coals? Fine, that’s another question—let’s say there is some sort of benefit from it, I use the ashes for covering the blood, never mind. But it’s no longer leaven, so it certainly isn’t obvious. You can say fine, maybe the law is correct, but “obvious”? Why is it obvious?

Now the Talmud doesn’t answer this; it says, “It is only needed for the rabbinic hours,” meaning some other novelty. Is this “obvious” obvious from the Mishnah, or obvious from the previous Talmudic discussion? When the Talmud asks “obvious,” is it because we are already talking about the principle of this charring, or because it is obvious from the Mishnah? But it isn’t explicit in the Mishnah. Still, either way. No, because if at the end of the previous Talmudic discussion it brought the example of charring, then maybe from the concept of charring one can say “obvious,” meaning from the Mishnah itself. Why—what is obvious about it? If they learned a principle of charring, that here there is leaven without the concept of leaven, then during the prohibited time too it should be permitted to eat, since it isn’t leaven. More than that, it should be permitted to eat—why should it be forbidden? Because it is forbidden? If you char it during the prohibited time, then even afterward you are forbidden to eat it, even though it is no longer leaven. So I’m saying: maybe that’s true, but to call it obvious is difficult.

So what I want to argue is something else entirely. It’s exactly the same point—that is, this is a misunderstanding. In the Talmud, when the Talmud sees the Mishnah here, this interpretive setup is not coming to say that the Mishnah is dealing with leavened food charred before the time. Nonsense. The Mishnah is dealing with all leavened food. It’s just that the Mishnah says that leaven before Passover has no prohibitions on it. Now, when can prohibitions of leaven be relevant? Only during the festival. So how can there be a situation in which leaven is leaven “from before Passover” and it is still relevant to discuss regarding prohibition of eating and deriving benefit? If you are in the middle of the festival, then it is festival leaven. If you are before the festival, then there are no prohibitions, so what is there to discuss? How do you produce a situation in which you can say: there is leaven that belongs to before the festival, and on such leaven there are no prohibitions?

I’ll maybe give you an example. There is a Tosafot in tractate Sukkah, where Tosafot discusses the prohibition of the decorations of the sukkah during the intermediate festival days. And there there are contradictions in the Talmudic sources: in some places it seems that by Torah law the whole sukkah is forbidden for benefit because it was designated for God, and in the Talmud in tractate Shabbat it appears that it is because of muktzeh—set-aside status—the decorations of the sukkah are forbidden only because of muktzeh. Doesn’t matter, there are various contradictions.

So Tosafot there takes the position that on the intermediate festival days it is forbidden by the law of muktzeh, and there is some kind of migo de-itkatzai or something like that mentioned there. Now the obvious question there is: how can there be a law of muktzeh on the intermediate festival days? Where do we ever find a law of muktzeh on the intermediate festival days? Muktzeh exists either on the Sabbath or on a Jewish holiday. On an ordinary weekday, is there muktzeh? A law of muktzeh? What, is it forbidden on the intermediate festival days to move, I don’t know, a stone? That was on my matriculation exam and I didn’t understand it then either. Okay, so that was the passage on the exam—I’ll never forget it—the class before the end.

And actually you were right not to understand it, I mean that seriously. There are those kinds of people who do understand—you know, my friend always used to say that if you answer one of Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s “requires further analysis,” that’s a sign you have made two mistakes. One mistake is that Rabbi Akiva Eiger somehow missed something when he asked the question, and the second mistake is that you didn’t understand that your answer is not an answer, because otherwise Rabbi Akiva Eiger would already have said it himself. So you always need to make mistakes in pairs—that’s the principle. To reach a correct answer you need to make mistakes in pairs. Minus minus. Yes.

So I thought to myself: why really is there no prohibition of muktzeh on an ordinary weekday? Is it because the concept of muktzeh does not exist on an ordinary weekday? Or does it exist, but on an ordinary weekday it is simply not forbidden to move muktzeh? The concept of muktzeh could exist on an ordinary weekday too; it’s just that on an ordinary weekday it is not forbidden to move it or eat it, that’s all. But the concept could still apply on an ordinary weekday. From Tosafot it seems that the concept of muktzeh does exist on an ordinary weekday, and on the intermediate festival days they actually did forbid it.

There is muktzeh because of prohibition, but if there is no prohibition on an ordinary weekday, then what… No, that’s muktzeh because of a specific prohibition. But in general, the concept of muktzeh—for example a stone—that’s not because of a prohibition; it’s simply because it is not fit for anything. Okay? Intrinsically set-aside. So it is muktzeh; it’s just that on an ordinary weekday what’s the problem? Move muktzeh—there’s no prohibition. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t muktzeh.

I understood the sukkah case as follows: what you designated for the sukkah as decoration, you designated it during the seven days. Yes, but Tosafot says that’s by the law of muktzeh—even applying “since it was set aside” to it—so these are really muktzeh laws just like on Sabbath and holidays. What are muktzeh laws on Sabbath and holidays? It’s something you did not designate to use for work on the Sabbath, not to touch. So I’m saying: you designated things for the sukkah, you decided you’re not touching them, not moving them elsewhere, not taking them out of the sukkah. So what are you really saying? That there is muktzeh even on an ordinary weekday? That if I designated things for the sukkah they are muktzeh even though it’s a weekday? What does a weekday have to do with it? I designated them for the sukkah, not for the weekday.

No, the intermediate festival days are weekdays regarding the laws of muktzeh. Fine—but what does that have to do with the word “designation”? I didn’t designate it. Does the object have the status-name of muktzeh? Before the question of whether it is forbidden—what is forbidden and what is permitted to do with it at all. Why is muktzeh connected to Sabbath? Why not? Why yes? If I designated something to use for work on my car, I designated something for my workshop and from now on I don’t touch it—I don’t take these things out of the workshop, this is what I use in the garage and this is what I use there—“designated” is a word, in Hebrew that is called designating. But the halakhic concept of muktzeh is something not intended for use. Something not intended for use elsewhere than where it is? Elsewhere than where it is? No use at all, period. Not elsewhere. No, no, no—not intended for use at all, in any sense. There are certain types of muktzeh that are only because of the day—for example muktzeh because of prohibition, like was said earlier. But intrinsically set-aside, which is the basic muktzeh, is muktzeh simply because it has no use for anything, not because of Sabbath—there’s simply nothing to do with a stone; a stone is just a stone. Why does muktzeh belong specifically to Sabbath? Why must you connect it to Sabbath?

Where are there prohibitions of muktzeh apart from Sabbath and holidays? It’s not defined, it’s no longer a concept, it’s a halakhic concept. The halakhic concept of muktzeh belongs only on Sabbath and holidays, what do you mean? Where else is there muktzeh? But the act of setting aside is indeed done on a weekday. What—something set aside for the Temple isn’t muktzeh? For consecrated use? Consecration is already designation; you don’t need an act of designation—the opposite, you need an act of preparation, of consecrating. If it isn’t designated for anything then it is muktzeh; you don’t need to set it aside in your consciousness. On the contrary, if it isn’t designated for anything then it is muktzeh. If you want to use it, then maybe you remove it from the category of muktzeh.

Is consecrated property not muktzeh? Is it not set aside for consecration? Maybe that is muktzeh because of prohibition, but as I said, the basic muktzeh is intrinsic muktzeh. Intrinsic muktzeh is not set aside for some specific use; it simply has no human use at all. There are other muktzeh categories, like muktzeh because of prohibition—that’s what was mentioned earlier—that really are set aside only because I designated them for one use and not for another; “set aside for a commandment” is actually more accurate than “set aside because of prohibition.” Set aside for its commandment. That is something truly designated only for that use and not for other uses. But let’s talk about intrinsic muktzeh. Intrinsic muktzeh is muktzeh because it simply has no human use, so that is true on an ordinary weekday too. It’s just that on an ordinary weekday, if you nevertheless want to make some use of it, fine—there is no prohibition of muktzeh. But the concept of muktzeh does apply even on an ordinary weekday.

Fine, one can argue about that there. I’m only bringing this as an illustration for here. What I really want to claim is that the concept of leaven applies all year long; it’s just that all year long there is no prohibition of leaven. Bread is leaven also on Hanukkah, it’s just that on Hanukkah there is no prohibition against eating leaven. Right—it’s not that the concept of leaven doesn’t exist. I’m talking now about the halakhic concept. Obviously there is a thing that ferments; that fact isn’t a great novelty. My claim is that there is a legal status-name—and I will prove it to you from the Talmud here. That is, the halakhic concept of leaven is a concept that exists all year round. The halakhic concept of leaven, not the factual one. Obviously, in the Temple there are things you may not bring as leaven. Right, in the Temple that is in general a consequence; there too it could certainly support this point—the meal-offering, yes, where one brings leaven and unleavened bread. But what I want to claim is that this is what is written here in the Talmud.

What is written here in the Talmud is that the concept of leaven applies even on an ordinary weekday; it’s just that on an ordinary weekday there is no prohibition against eating leaven. Now the Talmud says: that is really what the Mishnah wanted to tell me. It was not talking about leaven charred before the time and after the time; it was talking about all leaven, because the interpretive setups are not explaining what the Mishnah is about. The interpretive setups are a laboratory case through which I understand the general principle that the Mishnah stated. What did the Mishnah say? The Mishnah said that leaven all year long has no prohibition on it. It is leaven, but there is no prohibition on it. So the Talmud wonders: that’s obvious—what practical difference does it make? Obviously. And even if there were—after all, all year long there is no prohibition of leaven. It’s not that there is no prohibition in the object itself of the leaven, but rather I am not prohibited from eating leaven. The prohibition of leaven does not apply outside Passover.

So the Talmud searches for a situation in which we can separate between two timelines. There is the timeline of what the leaven belongs to: is this weekday leaven or Passover leaven? That is the timeline of the object itself, yes? Is this object weekday leaven or Passover leaven? That is one question. The second timeline describes when I perform the act of eating. At what time do I perform the act of eating? Do I do it on Passover or on an ordinary weekday?

Now usually you can’t separate those two things, because when I eat the leaven, then that leaven is the leaven of that moment—of Passover—and I am also eating it then. If I eat it before the festival, then that leaven is weekday leaven, but I am also eating it on a weekday, so that tells me nothing about this principled statement that weekday leaven has no prohibition on it. The Talmud is looking for a way to disconnect these two timelines from one another. How can there be a point in time at which… when would I find myself in a situation where I eat leaven on Passover? From the standpoint of the eating, it would be Passover, but from the standpoint of the leaven, it would be weekday leaven. Do you understand that here we will see exactly the novelty of the Mishnah? Because the Mishnah wants to tell me that leaven that belongs to a weekday has no prohibition on it. That’s what the Mishnah wants to say. Even if you eat it on Passover.

And the Mishnah wants to say why weekday leaven has no prohibition on it even if you eat it on Passover. But where can such a case be found? Every time you eat it on Passover, it will also be leaven that belongs to Passover. You eat bread on the holiday of Passover, so the bread is Passover leaven and you are also eating it on Passover. When can there be a situation in which I eat during the festival leaven that is weekday leaven? How does that happen? The Talmud says: through charring. Charring? Charring. Yes. Charring is not the case the Talmud is talking about. The case the Talmud is talking about is all leaven, and what it wants to say is: leaven before its time is permitted for benefit. That is what it said—don’t add a word. The interpretive setup adds no word. What is written in the Mishnah is what it says, period: that leaven before its time is permitted for benefit. That’s all. No need to add a word. There is no inaccuracy in the Mishnah at all.

You mean permitted for benefit even during the festival? Exactly. To that the Talmud says: even if there could be a case where you manage to eat pre-festival leaven during the festival, that too would be permitted, because leaven from before the festival has no prohibition on it. The only question is: how can such a thing happen? It normally doesn’t happen. So to that the Talmud says: I have an interpretive setup of charring. That’s all. It’s that simple.

So if that’s the case, then what the Mishnah says is exactly what it needed to say; it could not have said it better than it did. It is not forced. That is what it means. It’s simply like that.

Now look at something nice. The Talmud continues. I asked earlier: “Once its time has passed, deriving benefit from it is forbidden”—so the Talmud asks: obvious. I asked: what is obvious? “Once its time has passed, deriving benefit from it is forbidden”—meaning, before you were talking about charred before the time, now you say if charred after the time then it is forbidden, even if so what? What’s the issue? Fine. But since it is leaven that is leaven from during the festival, that is why it is forbidden. So why is it obvious? The answer is: because the Mishnah is not talking at all about leaven charred before or after the festival. The interpretive setup is not explaining what the Mishnah is about. The Mishnah is about ordinary leaven. The Mishnah is not speaking about leaven charred before the festival and after the festival. The Mishnah says: weekday leaven is permitted for benefit; Passover leaven is forbidden for benefit. That is what the Mishnah says. We are only looking for where we will see a practical expression of that principle.

So in the first clause, we did that with charring. But in the latter clause I know what the practical expression is: eat the leaven during the festival. That will be festival leaven, and the prohibition also is that you are eating it during the festival, and therefore it is forbidden. So about that the Talmud asks: yes, but that’s obvious. In the first case, the Talmud asked how you would see it—not that it is obvious, but how you would see this thing. How will you see a practical expression of the fact that pre-festival leaven is permitted to eat—that there is no prohibition of leaven on it? How will you get to a case where you eat it during the festival and it still remains pre-festival leaven? The second question is not that sort of question. The second question is the ordinary “obvious” of the Talmud. Obvious! Fine—leaven during the festival is forbidden for benefit. I don’t need interpretive setups to see that. The interpretive setup is simply: eat leaven during the festival. It is leaven from during the festival and it is being eaten during the festival, and that’s all. So about that the Talmud asks: obvious.

If the interpretive setup were explaining what the Mishnah is about, then there would be room to ask the Talmud: what is obvious about this? The Mishnah is talking about charring. But I’m saying no: the Mishnah is talking about ordinary leaven, not charring and nothing else. Nobody dreamed about charring. The Mishnah is talking about ordinary leaven, saying that pre-festival leaven has no prohibitions on it, and post-entry-into-the-festival leaven has prohibitions on it. So when the Talmud asks on the latter clause, “leaven after the time has prohibitions on it”—obvious. Of course. That is the Torah prohibition of leaven—what do you want? It’s just plain obvious. You follow? This is clear proof that the interpretive setup is not explaining what the Mishnah is about. The interpretive setup is not coming to say that the Mishnah is introducing a novelty about leaven charred before the festival and eaten during the festival; that is not the Mishnah’s topic. The Mishnah is telling me a law about all leaven.

The case of the interpretive setup comes to show where I will see this law in practice, and therefore it is always only a solution for creating the laboratory in which you can see this general law appear, where this general law becomes visible. Okay? In ordinary cases that law always exists; you just won’t see it. Pre-festival leaven has no prohibitions on it, but you won’t see that there are no prohibitions on it, because even without the prohibition I would be allowed to eat it, since before the festival I am not prohibited from that thing—it is on the person; no prohibition is imposed on me against eating leaven before the festival. So you won’t see it. Therefore they look for a laboratory case in which you can see this general law appear. That is what the interpretive setup does.

How is this not like object and person? Yes—it’s as if the Mishnah says “the leaven,” right—pre-festival leaven in the object, is permitted to the person, even when the person is within the festival. Exactly—that’s the point. There are two timelines: one timeline determines what the leaven belongs to. The second timeline determines when I perform the act of eating. But usually they go together. If you are at this moment, then it’s all at this moment—the leaven is there and the act of eating is there. How can you disconnect these two timelines? How can you eat during the festival leaven that belongs to before the festival? If you are eating it now, then it is now’s leaven. So to that the Talmud says: char it.

Now let me show you two formulations among the medieval authorities who speak about this, on page 21b. 21a is the Mishnah and 21b is the Talmud. When the medieval authorities here discuss this question, what good is charring, they already note—most of them, practically all of them—that if you burn the leaven completely, then of course it is ash and you can do whatever you want with it. A new entity has come into being, meaning it is no longer the leaven at all. It doesn’t matter when, yes? So the time no longer matters. This is talking about charring; that is why they say “charring” and not “burning.” There is a difference between charring and burning. Even in our Hebrew, charring means burning but not completely. Toast. Yes, toast—or very dark toast. But toast is forbidden to eat on Passover. According to this, you would be allowed to eat toast on Passover. So this is toast, very dark toast, well done, as they say. Well-done toast is permitted to eat on Passover—you need to understand according to this Talmud. You’re allowed to eat toast on Passover. That’s a startup, for anyone interested, anyone looking. If you toasted it before the festival. Yes, if you toast it before the festival. But toast keeps—you can do it before the festival. There is some practical relevance here for sick people or special situations where they need medicines. But yes, you probably need to char it significantly.

No, I’m not saying this in the sense of “the normal manner of eating.” A sick person also eats such things. We are talking about doing something that destroys. Now one has to think conceptually what kind of processing we would say has the same status as charring. We do not have the courage of the Amoraim. The Amoraim—just imagine any decisor today daring to say that someone who makes toast on the eve of the festival can eat toast during the festival. But that is what the Amoraim here said. They said: if you char it before the festival, you can eat it during the festival. They are permitting the prohibition of leaven. Someone has a very special diet and he must eat these things—let’s see the decisor who will permit it. After the Talmud already said it—not inventing the permission, after the Talmud already said it. I’m saying again: if it is charred well-done, it is permitted. By the law of the Talmud, it is permitted; it was ruled that way in Jewish law. That’s it. Up to that point, that’s the dispute. But again, this is not fully burned.

But because of hysteria they would have to burn it hard enough that they’ll burn your house down, not just the toast. Don’t turn me into well-done toast. In any event—and that was done on the holiday itself. The Jerusalem faction. Done with a variation, with the left hand they’ll burn it. What’s that? With the left hand.

You know, Rabbi Akiva Eiger asks about a Talmudic passage—there is a discussion in the chapter “All Sacred Writings” in tractate Shabbat, where the Talmud discusses indirect erasure of the Divine Name. Someone puts the Name into water and it gets erased. So I didn’t erase it with my hands; I put it into water and there the Name is erased. The question is whether I violate a prohibition. The Talmud says he is exempt. If someone does it indirectly—“You shall not do so to the Lord your God,” it is forbidden to destroy the Name, but indirectly you are exempt.

Rabbi Akiva Eiger asks about this: in the case of the condemned city, it says in tractate Sanhedrin that if there is a mezuzah in the city, then they do not apply the law of the condemned city there. Why? Because the verse says, “You shall burn all its spoil in the town square.” You cannot take out all its spoil, because the mezuzah you cannot burn. And once you cannot carry out the law on all its spoil, then the law of the condemned city is not applied, because we require the verse as written. The verse has to be carried out exactly as written. So Rabbi Akiva Eiger asks: what is the problem? Burn the mezuzah indirectly. You can burn the mezuzot indirectly. Do it indirectly. “You shall not do so to the Lord your God”—indirectly is fine. What’s the problem? Why not do that? He says you are exempt.

No, that’s rabbinic. But by Torah law, if there is no law of the condemned city because by Torah law you can’t burn it—rabbinically there is a prohibition, but by Torah law you can burn it—so why is there no law of the condemned city in such a situation? I immediately thought—I think I later saw this from Rabbi Isser Gordon—but it seems to me there is a mistake in the question. Why? Of course it’s my double mistake, because it’s Rabbi Akiva Eiger. But why is there a mistake in the question? Because when you burn that mezuzah indirectly, then you have not fulfilled the commandment of burning the condemned city by Torah law. After all, you want to burn the mezuzah in order to fulfill the commandment of the condemned city, because all its spoil must be burned. So if you say that indirect action is not your direct burning, then true, there is no prohibition of burning the Name, but you also have not fulfilled the commandment of burning the condemned city. So in practice, if you did not fulfill the commandment on all its spoil, then it still does not apply. Exactly. So if there is no prohibition in it, there is also no commandment in it, and once again you have not fulfilled the commandment of burning all the city’s spoil. Yes. So here too, if they burn me with the left hand, then maybe they didn’t violate the holiday prohibition, but they also didn’t fulfill the burning commandment, so what good does it do me. Fine. You take every joke this seriously—good health to you, dear straightforward Kohen. No, I don’t even take my own wordplays seriously; I deflect them in the other direction.

Okay, so now I’ll bring two formulations in the medieval authorities, and let’s see the difference between them, because it’s really just an anecdote. The Meiri writes as follows. He explains why, if you charred it before the time, you are allowed to eat it even after the time. “And that which he mentioned even after its prohibition, where he charred it before its prohibition to the point that it left the category of food”—yes, he is just bringing the Talmud—“meaning that it was charred even inside, and it is permitted for benefit, such as for fuel or anything else. And the same applies that it is permitted for eating”—not only permitted for benefit; one may also eat it—“for its eating is not considered eating once it has left the category of food, since no prohibition applies to it at all, because it is mere ash.”

Okay, so he says it has left the category of food. So of course the question arises: then what happens if you char it after the time? If you char it after the time, once again it has left the category of food—why can’t you eat it? Why does charring after the time not help? Because that is the wording of the Mishnah, yes. Why? It’s a nice novelty, but why? What is the logic?

“Anything charred after its time is forbidden for benefit, because once the prohibition of leaven has taken hold of it, its prohibition does not depart until complete burning”—meaning until it becomes coals—“and then it is entirely permitted even after its time, for with things that are burned, their ashes are permitted, and coals have the same law as ashes. Anything that has not reached that point, even though it has been thoroughly charred, remains forbidden, because the prohibition of benefit has taken hold of it and does not depart.”

What is he saying? With charring we are not talking about complete burning. If it were complete burning, then even if you burned leaven during the festival you would be allowed to derive benefit from it. Incidentally, as is known, that is a dispute among the medieval authorities—the famous dispute discussed by Rabbi Chaim in the stencil edition—whether leaven is considered one of those things whose commandment is to burn them, such that their ashes are permitted because their commandment has been fulfilled. But things whose commandment is to bury them—if there are prohibitions of benefit where the commandment is burial, not burning, and you burned them—then it is forbidden to use the ashes, because in essence it remains a prohibition of benefit. With things to be burned—the simple understanding—the aim of the prohibition of benefit is that you should burn it. Once I burned it, then everything is fine; what is the problem? With things to be buried there is just a prohibition of benefit. It makes no difference whether you burned it or not; it is not in order that you should burn it. Okay, there are debates about that too, but let’s say that is the simple explanation.

Now he assumes that leaven is among the things to be burned, the Meiri. Not everyone agrees with that. Leaven is among the things to be burned, since according to Jewish law we do not rule like Rabbi Yehuda—even crumbling it and scattering it to the wind suffices—meaning we do not specifically need to burn the leaven. But still, if you burn it, you fulfill “you shall destroy it,” and therefore it is called among the things to be burned. Therefore he says: if you burned the leaven completely, there is no problem; you may use the ashes. Here, when he says “charred,” he does not mean complete burning. He means well-done toast. Okay?

So what does he say? If you did that before the festival, then it left the category of food, and therefore you may use it. Meaning, “left the category of food”—completely burned? No, not completely burned—it’s toast. He means that it left the category of leaven, not the category of food. If it had left the category of food, that would be complete burning. Rather, it is no longer leaven. Leaven is something that ferments; toast no longer ferments, okay? It’s over.

So that is if he charred it before the time. If he charred it after the time, then what? He says here: anything charred after its time is forbidden for all benefit, because once the prohibition of leaven has taken hold of it—even though now it is no longer leaven after the burning—still in its previous phase the prohibition of leaven had taken hold of it. And as long as its essence has not changed—this is not complete burning where a new entity has come into being, but only a change of form, some sort of alteration of form—then in that situation the prohibition does not depart. Meaning: there was a prohibition of leaven on it, and it remains forbidden as leaven even though now it is not leaven.

So what is he basically saying? Exactly what we said before, right? That in fact this thing is currently not leaven. It is the leaven of before; it is not leaven of the festival itself. It is pre-festival leaven that I am now eating during the festival. But when I eat it during the festival, it is not leaven from the standpoint of this point in time. It is leaven of that earlier time, and I am eating it now. What? But it is forbidden because it entered the festival as leaven. No—if it entered the festival as leaven, then there is no such thing as “charred before the festival.” Now if it entered the festival as leaven, then what happens? Why am I now forbidden to eat it after I charred it? Not because it is leaven now—it is not leaven. I am now eating the leaven from the beginning of the festival. This is leaven that belongs to the beginning of the festival, but leaven from the beginning of the festival is forbidden to eat even though now it is not leaven. It is leaven from the beginning of the festival, and leaven from the beginning of the festival is forbidden to eat. That is how the Meiri explains it, and as long as it has not changed completely. Yes, if it changed completely—then that is not that object at all, it’s a different object. Okay? So that is how the Meiri explains.

The Maharam Halawa says something very similar, but in my opinion it is a different principle. He too separates the two timelines; that is clear, that is the plain meaning of the sugya. It’s just that they separate them differently; they explain the separation differently. So the Meiri explained it as I said before: this is basically a process of freezing. The burning is a freezing—it’s very interesting. When we char the leaven, we freeze its status. Meaning: if it was forbidden for benefit when I charred it, then it remains forbidden for benefit even though now it is not leaven. If I did it before the festival, then I froze the pre-festival status, when it was in fact permitted for benefit. Where will the practical difference be? Suppose I charred it in the sixth hour. In the sixth hour leaven is forbidden to eat but still permitted for benefit. Okay? Now I charred it in the sixth hour. Now I come to eat it during the festival. Forbidden to eat, permitted for benefit? Forbidden to eat, right? And for benefit? Permitted. Benefit is permitted. Why? Because that is its frozen status—its status there is what remains now, right? That is the practical difference.

Let’s look at the Maharam Halawa. “And Rava said: If he charred it before its time, it is permitted for benefit after its time”—meaning he charred it until it left the category of bread and became unfit even for a dog’s consumption, then it is permitted for benefit after its time. “And it says ‘for benefit’ because it is not fit for eating.” Why does it say benefit, when it is permitted even to eat? Because yes, it is not fit for eating, so there is no reason to talk about eating. “But if he wished to eat it, then yes—it is mere dust. And specifically if he charred it before its time.”

Now here is the key sentence: “Specifically if he charred it before its time. But after its time, since it was once forbidden because of leaven, it is forever forbidden. And it turns out that this person is deriving benefit from that which had been forbidden to him. Unless he burned it completely until it became ash, in which case it is permitted.” That is what he says, like the Meiri. But notice: his explanation is different from the Meiri’s. His explanation says—at least that’s how I understand it—“and it turns out that this person is deriving benefit.” If I charred it during the festival, not before the festival, and now I eat it after the charring—it is forbidden. Why is it forbidden? The Meiri says: it is forbidden because its status was frozen. The moment of charring is the determining moment. At that moment it was forbidden for benefit and eating, so now too it is forbidden for benefit and eating.

But he says no. If you are eating it now, then “it turns out that this person is deriving benefit from what had been forbidden to him.” Meaning: once the festival began, you charred the leaven, and now you eat it. Why is that forbidden? It is forbidden because it turns out that the act of charring was an act of deriving benefit from leaven. Because the charring allowed me now to eat it; it turned it into a non-leaven. So now when I eat it, I have violated no prohibition in the eating itself, because now I am not eating something that is leaven—it isn’t leaven; it left the category of food, that is what he says. But now when I eat it, what becomes clear? That when I charred it, I took leaven and did a trick that succeeded in producing benefit from it. I turned it into something I can now eat. So it comes out that I am deriving benefit from the leaven that existed then.

If that’s so, then even if it were completely burned, shouldn’t it be forbidden? Ah—that’s the question, I’ll get to it in a moment. But before that. Do you understand what I’m saying? He is basically claiming this: it’s not that the status is frozen. The status is not frozen. Right now it is not leaven, because it was charred, and therefore in principle I can eat it. But if I eat it now, it turns out that I violated a prohibition when I charred it. When you charred it—because you charred it afterward. You charred it during the festival, yes. Why? Because that charring is what permitted me to eat it. So basically I took leaven that was forbidden for benefit, I did a trick on it that enables me to eat it, so he says that through that trick I profited from that leaven, and therefore it is forbidden to me.

So the problem is not in the object, the problem is in the person. The problem is in the act you performed when you charred it. I don’t know whether I’d call it object or person. Fine—the problem is what you did. The problem is not in the eating now; I said the problem is in the eating, but no: the problem is in the leaven—you derived benefit from it.

Wait, you said there are two axes here: one axis of the person himself and one axis of the leaven. Yes. Right now what you are saying according to the… what’s his name? Maharam Halawa. Maharam Halawa. You’re saying he doesn’t relate to the leaven, to the object itself, but says: you did a trick that turned this object into something permitted for benefit. Okay. How did he suddenly move over to the person and stop relating to the leaven that was already within Passover? So that’s what I’m saying—on the contrary, he is relating to the leaven that existed then. The description is right, though I’m not sure I’d call it object and person. Once I burned the leaven, I did… for example, take orlah or something forbidden for benefit. Now I sell it to someone. Fine? That is called prohibited benefit. Why? Because the money I received in exchange for the orlah is benefit that I produced from the orlah, even though I didn’t eat the orlah and didn’t use it for something involving bodily pleasure. But I produced benefit from the thing.

Now what happens if I take this leaven and sell it to someone? That is prohibited benefit. Now that is what I did. Basically… I turned it into something worth money. So I took something forbidden for benefit and turned it into something worth money, something edible. So here too I produced benefit. That’s prohibited benefit. But that’s one thing because it’s forbidden, and it’s also forbidden because it was leaven on Passover. No, he explains the principle like this. It’s not an additional thing. You are giving the Meiri’s explanation. Maharam Halawa does not understand the Talmud that way. Rather, he claims: why is it forbidden to eat the leaven once it was charred during the festival? Because when you eat it, it becomes clear that the charring itself was an act of deriving benefit. So the Meiri relates to the leaven itself and its state, while Maharam Halawa relates to what you did with it, to the act of producing benefit. You can put it that way.

It seems to me that you’re reading the Maharam as though the act of charring itself… but maybe one can read him differently, more simply, as saying: I am now eating something that at the onset of the festival was forbidden. That isn’t the same thing. But in the end I derived benefit from that earlier leaven—not that I am violating a prohibition now. In fact I think he means that if he had not eaten it, the charring itself might still have been forbidden. Because with charring—suppose you sell it. Selling prohibited benefit—suppose you sell the prohibited benefit, take the money, and throw it into the sea. Did you violate a prohibition? Yes? Yes—since the money came into your hand. The fact that you chose to throw it into the sea is something else. So here too—you turned the thing into something worth money. Now you choose not to use it, not to eat it. So what? But you transformed it, you derived benefit; you turned the thing forbidden for benefit into something valuable, something usable. So it should have said it is forbidden to char it. What? So it should have said it is forbidden to char it, not that it is forbidden to eat it. Right—that is what he says. According to Maharam Halawa, that is seemingly what follows.

Now maybe he would say that only when you actually eat it does the charring count as an act of deriving benefit. Why? Because in practice this thing is not fit for eating; it left the category of food. So it is not true that I turned it into food worth something—people do not eat such a thing. If I now come and eat it, that is assigning it importance; I have treated the thing as significant. And then that means that the charring was an act of deriving benefit, and therefore he needs the actual eating in order to forbid it.

And there is eating—that’s one thing—and there is also benefit. You can derive benefit from this thing in various ways other than eating. Is that also forbidden? No, and that you can always do. Yes, right. But if it is no longer considered leaven, perhaps if no one eats it then it is not considered benefit from leaven. That’s already like complete burning. Regarding the prohibition of charring—you said it comes out that only if he eats it, because most people do not eat charred food. But if he gets some other benefit from the fact that it becomes an object permitted for other kinds of benefit besides eating? So that is what Shmuel asked. And I said: once it is unfit for eating, that is already like being completely burned—unless you actually eat it. What about ordinary benefit? Say, for example, covering blood—still, that is a benefit. True, but that is benefit from something that is not leaven; that is something else. After all, if it is ash, if it is burned completely, then that too is permitted, right? Why? Because when I burned it and turned it to ash, I still created ash for myself for covering blood. Fine—commandments were not given for benefit. Although here I think it would still be a prohibition. To that I’ll come back in a moment regarding complete burning.

Look at the practical difference. The Ritva writes that if he burns the leaven in the sixth hour, when it is permitted for benefit and forbidden for eating, then it remains permitted for benefit and forbidden for eating. I claim that according to the Meiri that is correct; according to Maharam Halawa that is not correct. According to Maharam Halawa it should also be permitted to eat. Why? Because when… you eat the leaven now—what does that mean? That the charring was an act of deriving benefit. That is a prohibition of benefit, not a prohibition of eating. Meaning, if you eat it now, you are not violating a prohibition of eating; you are violating a prohibition of benefit. Because in the eating itself—you are not eating leaven. You are allowed to eat it. The problem is that the charring created food for you, so the charring was an act of deriving benefit. But benefit was permitted in the sixth hour. That is the practical difference. This ruling of the Ritva is a practical difference between the Meiri and Maharam Halawa. Yes. Okay?

Wait, wait—we said Maharam Halawa I understand. How do you explain the Meiri? The Meiri says the status is frozen. Meaning, if you burned—charred it in the sixth hour, the law that applied there applies now. The Meiri holds that now, when you eat it, you have violated a prohibition of eating, not a prohibition of benefit. You are now eating leaven—except that the leaven in the object is leaven from the eve of the festival or leaven from the festival itself, depending on what case you’re talking about. Okay. Maharam Halawa is not talking about that. Maharam Halawa says that when you eat it now, it becomes clear that the charring was an act of deriving benefit. You violated a prohibition of benefit, not a prohibition of eating, and there was no prohibition of benefit in the sixth hour, so what is the problem?

Does that mean that Maharam Halawa does not read the interpretive setup the way you do? No, he does read it the way I do. He breaks apart the difference between the two timelines, but his explanation for why the two timelines become detached is different from mine. The same logic exactly. The explanation is a different explanation, but both do the same thing for the interpretive setup. The interpretive setup has to separate the time when I perform the act from the leaven from which I derive benefit or on which I perform the act. Okay, those are our two formulations.

Okay, now of course there remains only the question: what happens with complete burning? After all, according to this logic—just as an aside—according to this logic, when I burn the leaven completely during the festival, then it should also be forbidden for me to eat it, right? Because when I burned the leaven, then according to Maharam Halawa I created a situation where the burning itself was an act of deriving benefit. So why does it matter that now it is complete ash? After all, the question is not what you do now, but how you characterize the act of charring or burning. So if you have now created something fit for use, then that means the burning was an act of deriving benefit. Why should that be permitted?

So I think the answer has to be that once you burn it completely, it is no longer that thing. It is already a different object. A new entity has come into being. Yes. Meaning, it is not considered that you did an act upon that earlier object; you have already changed it, it disappeared, and now there is another object here. “A new entity has come into being”—you see that in a number of places in the Talmud. Therefore, when you char it, the object is still the same object. It is no longer leaven; it underwent a change in characteristics, it is no longer leaven, but it is still the same object that was there before. Ash is not considered the same object that was there before; it is a different object. You did not perform the prohibition on it—it is simply a different object.

So there is an axis of leaven/non-leaven, and there is an axis of object/not-object. Right, those are two separate axes. And in addition there is also the axis of when the person performs the act. Yes, in general.

Okay, good. So here I’m finishing the issue of the interpretive setups. I’ll just note—you keep surprising me every time, yes? How do you arrive at these things? When does this happen? It seems to me—when do you sit and learn these things? Tell me the process. What goes on in your mind when you try to understand these axes and all these things? I’ll tell you. This is a secret I heard once in the name of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, from my lecture teacher who learned with him. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman was discussing with them some issue—he was studying in Kol Torah. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman discussed with them a halakhic question in the laws of Sabbath. And he brought them some proof from some initial assumption in Tosafot in tractate Bava Kamma somewhere.

So the students were amazed. They asked: how did the Rabbi think of that Tosafot? What does it have to do with this? It doesn’t seem connected to the discussion at all. So he said to them: look, do you really think that when I’m dealing with a question in the laws of Sabbath, I run through the whole Talmud in my head with Rashi and Tosafot? Incidentally, he probably remembered everything—he could have done it, he could have done it—but it would have taken time. It isn’t practical. You can’t retrieve the information that way. When I learned that Tosafot, I already thought that this would be the implication. Meaning, when I was studying in Bava Kamma and I learned that Tosafot, I understood that from that initial assumption of Tosafot one could bring proof to such-and-such a question in the laws of Sabbath. So now it remains with me. When I come to this question, I already remember that there is some Tosafot from which one can extract something. I don’t even remember exactly how to extract it, but I know that if I look there, it will come out. You see? When you think about it at the time you are dealing with the sugya, then now you are looking for an example, an interpretive setup that illustrates the principle you wanted to explain here. It’s not that now I thought about all the sugyot in the whole Talmud and said: ah, this is the wonderful example. When I studied the sugya, I said to myself: what kind of interpretive setup is this? It’s an illogical interpretive setup. What is “charred before its time,” and what is the second “obvious,” and everything else I asked earlier? So I’m saying: when you think about it in real time, you’re in the sugya, and you ask yourself: okay, so what is this coming to teach? What is the principle they are trying to say here?

Fine. Just one side note on this sugya, no longer connected to the topic of interpretive setups. On the margins of this sugya. Maimonides, here, based on the splitting of timelines—Maimonides in the third root writes as follows. “The third root: it is not fitting to count commandments that do not apply for future generations.” There he discusses whether to count certain commandments or not, and in the third root he says that commandments that applied only temporarily and not for future generations are not counted. “Know that their statement, ‘613 commandments were said to Moses at Sinai,’ indicates that this number is the number of commandments applying for future generations, because commandments that do not apply for future generations have no connection to Sinai, whether they were said at Sinai or elsewhere.”

“And others also erred in this root”—that is the Halakhot Gedolot; he constantly attacks it there—“and counted, because his ability constrained him,” and so on, “the verse ‘the Levites shall serve no more’ after age fifty,” and other prohibitions that applied only in the wilderness, and the Halakhot Gedolot included them in the count of commandments. But these are commandments for their time only; they are not relevant.” So people ask him: what about erasing the seven nations, for example? Erasing the seven nations, or the war against Amalek—it is no longer relevant today. So why is that counted among the commandments?

Maimonides himself felt this difficulty. In positive commandment 187: “We were commanded to kill the seven nations and destroy them, for they were the root and first foundation of idolatry,” and that is what He said, “You shall surely destroy them,” and He explained to us in many verses that the reason is so that we not learn from their denial. There are many verses there—I once spoke about this, about the Avnei Nezer, remember? About positive commandments dependent on time, remember, with the contradiction in Sefer HaHinukh? I mentioned it once—another one of those jokes. He writes it seriously, but to me it’s a joke.

There is a contradiction in Sefer HaHinukh regarding women’s obligation. In the commandment of destroying the seven nations, he does not exempt women, but in destroying Amalek he writes that it is not a woman’s way, and a woman is exempt from the war against Amalek. So the Avnei Nezer asks—he writes this seriously—he says as follows: if the commandment of destroying the seven nations is done so that they not cause us to stumble, right, in idolatry—then, he says, if I have someone from the seven nations whom I see on Sabbath, am I allowed to kill him? He says yes. It is a labor not needed for its own sake. Meaning, you kill him so that he not cause you to stumble in prohibition; you are not killing him in order to kill him. It is like trapping a snake.

There are three things where one who does them is exempt—exempt, but forbidden—and in three things the exemption is exempt and permitted; one of them is trapping a snake. One who traps a snake so that it not harm him—that is a labor not needed for its own sake. It is permitted to do that on Sabbath. There is a question whether because of danger or not—that is a dispute among medieval authorities. But it is permitted to do it on Sabbath. Why? Because it is a labor not needed for its own sake: you do not need the snake dead; you kill it so it won’t bite you. So here too the same thing. You kill them so that they not cause you to stumble, not because there is a commandment to kill them. So this too can be done on Sabbath. And if it can be done on Sabbath, then the commandment applies all seven days, so it is not time-bound, and therefore women are also obligated. But with Amalek, you kill them because there is a commandment to kill them, not because they will cause you to stumble. So that is forbidden on Sabbath, because it is not a labor not needed for its own sake. So that applies only six days, and therefore it is a positive commandment dependent on time, and women are exempt. He writes all this seriously. These pilpulim of the Poles—you cannot imagine where they end up. It is unbelievable.

In any event, Maimonides says, yes, that the basis of these things—there one could spin forever and cause you to stumble—and plant denial there, “that the reason for this is so that we not learn from their denial,” because that’s what Maimonides says: the reason for the labor not needed for its own sake, the reason for the killing, is so that we not learn from them. And then he says: “And perhaps a thinker will think that this commandment does not apply for future generations, since the seven nations have already been lost.” He himself asks that question. So why do I count the seven nations? After all, this is a commandment that does not apply for future generations.

“And this would indeed be thought by one who has not understood the meaning of ‘applies for future generations’ and ‘does not apply for future generations.’” Whoever asks this question did not understand what I said in the third root, says Maimonides. “For a commandment whose end is reached upon completion of its purpose, without this being dependent on a set time, is not said to be one that does not apply for future generations. Rather, it applies in every generation in which there exists the possibility of that matter. Would you think that when God will utterly destroy the seed of Amalek and cut it off completely, as will be speedily in our days as He promised us”—I don’t know what he’s talking about, that already happened, but he thinks Amalek is still wandering around somewhere, I don’t know—“for ‘I will surely blot out the memory of Amalek’—would one then say that the commandment ‘you shall blot out the memory of Amalek’ does not apply for future generations? That would not be said. It applies in every generation so long as any descendant of Amalek is found; there is a commandment to destroy him. Likewise to kill the seven nations and destroy them: this is a commandment with which we were commanded, and it is an obligatory war. And we are commanded to search them out and pursue them in every generation until they are gone and no person remains from them.”

“And so we did, until they were finished and cut off by David, and the remaining ones were scattered and mixed among the nations until no distinct name remained for them. But because they were cut off, does the commandment with which we were commanded to kill them thereby cease to apply for future generations?” It is not dependent on time. It is not dependent on time. The commandment is always to kill them; it’s just that we finished the job. Fine? So that is not called a commandment dependent on time.

What he is really claiming is—again, this is somewhat similar to the interpretive setup I spoke about in the Talmud—there are two timelines. There is one timeline where you ask yourself when I am obligated, and there is another timeline that asks when there is an object on which I am obligated in the commandment. So he says: if I finished the job, then the object no longer exists; it is the object of then. I am still obligated. Only here, of course, it is the reverse, because in the Talmud it goes by the time of the object. That is what determines whether there is or isn’t a prohibition. The consequence is that it has to be in the second Passover-time axis, otherwise there is no practical difference whether there is any prohibition or not. But there Maimonides says: I count for future generations only something that is in the person himself. If the person himself is obligated in it for future generations, I count it. I do not care that the object itself no longer exists, belongs to a past time, is already dead. That does not matter. I am still obligated. There is simply no practical case in which to realize it, because it is already over.

So here too, this is the same division, only taking the other side. For the counting of commandments, what matters is specifically my timeline. For the prohibition of leaven, what matters is the timeline of the object itself.