Preparing for Passover – Lesson 3

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re starting. Hello. For now, what we’ll do is keep microphones muted, only if someone wants to comment, so that we don’t have all kinds of background noise here. I’m sharing the summary, because that way we’ll also be able to see the sources there, so it’ll be in front of our eyes as well. Good. In the first two lectures we dealt with two things. In the first lecture I basically spoke about the Passover offering and its meaning—the fusion of the individuals into the collective public. In the second lecture I spoke about the nature of the prohibition of leaven, where I basically argued that this is not a regular prohibition of eating and deriving benefit like the other prohibitions of eating and benefit in the Torah, but rather a prohibition whose foundation is historical, and whose purpose is to create a kind of simulation of what happened in the Exodus from Egypt. Just as in the Exodus from Egypt they didn’t eat leaven but matzah, so too we are supposed not to eat leaven but matzah. And we saw various halakhic implications of that—for partial quantities, and for the relationship between the prohibition of benefit and the prohibition of eating. In the summary, if anyone saw it, she could also see further halakhic implications regarding nullifications, mixtures—there are many, many halakhic implications to this principle. That was the second lecture. Now we continue on toward the obligation of elimination, and the question is what the relationship is between that and the prohibitions of bal yera’eh and bal yimatze. In the previous lecture—just to locate ourselves—in the previous lecture the discussion was mainly about the prohibition of eating and deriving benefit from leaven. Now I’m continuing; basically we’re going through all the commandments of Passover here, and I’m trying to show the essence that each such commandment has. So we started with the commandment of the Passover offering and the second Passover. We continued with the prohibition of eating and deriving benefit from leaven on Passover. And now I’m speaking about the obligation of elimination and the prohibition of the presence of leaven, which is basically the two prohibitions of bal yera’eh and bal yimatze. The references you saw there—I’m not going back into that because the details aren’t important for us. The differences between them, by the way, are not a simple conceptual question. On the face of it, it seems there is no difference. Any leaven for which one violates bal yera’eh, one also violates bal yimatze, and vice versa. Even though from the literal meaning it sounds like we’re talking here about not seeing leaven and that it should not be found with us. But in the Sages—in the Talmud in Pesachim page 5 and in other places—it seems that there really is no difference, and every time one violates bal yera’eh one also violates bal yimatze, and vice versa. You don’t actually have to see it with your eyes in order to violate bal yera’eh, and conversely, if I see with my eyes something that isn’t in my domain, then I haven’t violated the prohibition. When I walk past a non-Jewish bakery on Passover and I see leaven—or even a bakery of Jewish sinners and I see leaven—I haven’t violated bal yera’eh. Bal yera’eh applies only when the leaven is in my domain, so it’s not really a prohibition on seeing. Although, what I said when we studied Pesachim many years ago—it was six years, I think, maybe seven, also at Matan, with Ruti and Nechama remembering—there I spoke about differences that nevertheless do exist between bal yera’eh and bal yimatze, but that’s conceptual esoterica. In the standard understanding, it’s the same thing. Now, in addition to bal yera’eh and bal yimatze, which are prohibitions on there being leaven in my house, there is also the positive commandment of tashbitu, and that’s what I want to begin with. This is positive commandment 156. I’m reading from Maimonides’ Book of Commandments. Commandment 156 is that we were commanded to destroy leaven from our houses on the fourteenth day of Nisan, meaning on Passover eve. And this is the commandment of eliminating sourdough starter. And this is what He, may He be exalted, said: “But on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses.” Of course, the meaning includes both sourdough starter and leaven, as we saw in the previous lecture as well—there is no difference. In the language of the Torah, when it speaks about elimination it specifically mentions sourdough starter. When it speaks about eating, it usually speaks about leaven, because that’s generally what is eaten. But the Sages already tell us—and I mentioned this in the previous lecture—that there is no difference. Sourdough starter and leaven are the same both with regard to the obligation of elimination and with regard to the prohibition of eating and deriving benefit. “And the Sages also called it”—I continue reading in Maimonides—“the commandment of destruction,” meaning the destruction of leaven. “And in the Talmud in the tractate Sanhedrin of the Talmud of the people of the West”—you know who the people of the West are? The people of the Land of Israel, which lies west of Babylonia—so the Talmud of the people of the West is the Jerusalem Talmud, written in the Land of Israel, as opposed to the Babylonian Talmud. “They said: with regard to leaven one is liable for both a positive and a negative commandment: a positive commandment for its destruction, as it is written, ‘You shall remove leaven from your houses,’ and a negative commandment, ‘No sourdough starter shall be found in your houses.’ Behold, the laws of this commandment have been explained in the first chapter of Pesachim,” where there are several passages dealing with this commandment. So what does Maimonides say? There is a positive commandment to eliminate the leaven and the sourdough starter from our houses, and in parallel he is already hinting here that there are also the two negative commandments I mentioned earlier—bal yera’eh and bal yimatze. And apparently there is duplication here. The prohibitions and the positive commandment say the same thing; both of them are basically telling us: make sure there is no leaven in your house. One says it in passive language—it says, if you have leaven in your house you violate two prohibitions, bal yera’eh and bal yimatze—and the other says it in active language: make sure you don’t have it, remove the sourdough starter from your houses. But really, these three prohibitions—let’s speak about two, the prohibition and the positive commandment; for our purposes right now the two prohibitions are the same thing—the prohibition and the positive commandment are basically saying the same thing, just in different language. There’s a duplication between them. And the question is: why, if so, do we need the positive commandment at all—or the prohibition, it doesn’t matter—there is some kind of duplication here. They’re saying the same thing. What’s the difference between saying to me, make sure you eliminate the leaven, that you don’t have leaven in the house, and saying to me that if you have leaven in the house you violate a prohibition? It’s the same thing. In both situations, what is required of me is to make sure I don’t have leaven on Passover. So why do we need both the positive commandment and the prohibition?

[Speaker B] A positive commandment is active—it requires you to do something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not a simple question.

[Speaker B] And the prohibition is basically refraining.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll get to that in a moment. It’s not certain that that’s so, but that’s one possibility. We’ll get to it in a moment. I want to introduce a few preliminaries on this matter. Maybe a general introduction that I deliberately didn’t put into the handout, because it’s better that I do it here briefly. There are basically several types of positive commandments in the Torah, unlike prohibitions, by the way—positive commandments have a wider variety of types. The first distinction: the first type is an obligatory positive commandment. An obligatory positive commandment is most ordinary positive commandments. For example, there is a commandment to put on tefillin. So the commandment to put on tefillin—someone who put on tefillin fulfilled a commandment; someone who did not put on tefillin neglected a positive commandment. Okay? That is a regular positive commandment, called an obligatory positive commandment. There is also an existential positive commandment. An existential positive commandment is a commandment such that if you do it, then you have fulfilled a positive commandment, but if you didn’t do it, you haven’t committed a transgression; it’s not neglect of a positive commandment. If you do it, great—you gained something. If you don’t, not terrible. An example of that would be, say, at least according to one view: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says that the commandment of settling the Land of Israel is such a commandment. He claims that if you do it—he himself, as we know, lived in the United States—he says that if you are in Israel, if you live in the Land of Israel, then you have fulfilled the positive commandment of settling the Land of Israel, but if not, you haven’t neglected the positive commandment. It’s a commandment that if you do it, you gain it, but if you don’t, nobody comes to you with complaints; there’s no transgression here. So that is an existential positive commandment. A lot could be said about it, but I’m not going into details now. So basically, what difference have we seen between an obligatory positive commandment and an existential one? An obligatory positive commandment is one whose fulfillment counts as fulfillment of a positive commandment, and whose neglect counts as neglect of a positive commandment. Neglect of a positive commandment is a kind of transgression, because you didn’t fulfill what you were obligated to do, so that’s a kind of transgression. An existential positive commandment is one such that if you fulfilled it, you have fulfillment of a positive commandment, and if not, nothing happened. Fine? So the difference between an obligatory positive commandment and an existential one is that an obligatory positive commandment can be fulfilled and can also be neglected, but an existential positive commandment can only be fulfilled—it cannot be neglected. Even if you wanted to be a sinner, you wouldn’t manage, because if you didn’t do it, then okay, no one has complaints against you. If you did it, you gained a positive commandment, but if you didn’t, nothing happened. Those are the first two types. Now if you apply basic combinatorial logic, of course, you’ll discover that there ought to be two more types. Right? We have a positive commandment that can be fulfilled and can be neglected; and a positive commandment that can be fulfilled and cannot be neglected. So now the third type is a positive commandment that can be neglected and cannot be fulfilled—which sounds a bit strange, but there are such commandments. In Jewish law they’re called a prohibition derived from a positive commandment. A prohibition derived from a positive commandment is—by the way, if anyone can turn on a camera, unless there’s some special obstacle, I’d prefer it, because I’m trying to have some eye contact; I’m even scrolling among the pictures to try to create some eye contact.

[Speaker C] Sorry, what was the example of what you just said—something that can be neglected?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I stopped just for a moment to ask that cameras be turned on; I’ll get back to the lecture in a second, okay? So regarding a prohibition derived from a positive commandment, I said there is a third type: a commandment that can be violated but cannot be actively fulfilled. The example is, for instance, the positive commandment where it says regarding Sabbatical-year produce, “And the produce of the land shall be for you for eating,” and the Sages expound: “for eating, and not for commerce.” Now the standard understanding is that there is no commandment to eat Sabbatical produce; rather, if someone doesn’t eat it but engages in commerce with it, then he has violated this positive commandment. In other words, this is a positive commandment that cannot be fulfilled. If I eat—even though the Torah says “the produce of the land shall be for you for eating”—if I eat those fruits, I haven’t fulfilled a commandment. Only if I didn’t eat the fruits but used them for something else, for example business, then I violated this positive commandment. That’s called a prohibition derived from a positive commandment. What’s the idea behind it? When the Torah says, “And the produce of the land shall be for you for eating,” you have to add the word “only.” In other words: “And the produce of the land shall be for you only for eating,” in order to tell us that another use that is not eating is prohibited. Okay? So really the emphasis is on the “only”—that is, eating is not a commandment; rather, don’t do anything that isn’t eating. Okay, that’s basically what a prohibition derived from a positive commandment is. By the way, there are quite a few of these. There is a dispute in the Talmud, but the halakhic ruling is that a prohibition derived from a positive commandment is considered a positive commandment and classified as such, but in terms of content it actually resembles a prohibition. Because basically what you have here is an actual prohibition: there is a prohibition on trading in Sabbatical-year produce. There is no commandment to eat it; there is only a prohibition on trading in it. But since the Torah says this in active language—it doesn’t say, “Do not trade in Sabbatical produce,” it says, “Eat Sabbatical produce”—therefore it is classified as a positive commandment rather than as a prohibition. Just to complete the picture, something many people don’t know: there is also a fourth type of positive commandment, namely commandments that can neither be fulfilled nor neglected. It’s really remarkable. What are commandments that apparently don’t tell us anything? That is, I can’t fulfill the commandment, and even if I don’t fulfill it, I haven’t neglected a positive commandment. So what does such a commandment say? I’ll give just one example. For instance, positive commandments 95 and 96 in Maimonides’ enumeration: positive commandment 95 is the commandment of annulling vows. When a woman makes a vow, the husband, on the day he hears it, can annul her vow. Just as a sage can release vows for people, a woman’s husband can also annul her vow on the day he hears it; if on that very day he decides to annul it, he can annul the vow. Is there a commandment to annul the vow? Maimonides says no. You may annul it, or you may choose not to annul it. Is there a prohibition against not annulling the vow? Obviously not. If you want to annul, annul; if you don’t want to, don’t. And yet Maimonides counts this as a positive commandment, positive commandment 95. In what sense is it a positive commandment if it imposes no obligation to act and no prohibition against not acting? So why is it a positive commandment? Maimonides explains there that this is a definitional positive commandment. What does that mean? It’s a positive commandment that defines how one can annul a vow if one wishes to do so. If you want to annul a vow, do it in this way—on the day you hear about the vow—and then the vow is annulled. It’s a definition. If you didn’t do it that way, there is no prohibition here; the vow just isn’t annulled. That’s all. In other words, this commandment basically only defines a legal state. It doesn’t impose on me either an obligation to do something or a prohibition on omission. Nothing. Therefore this is the fourth type of commandment. In short, we have four kinds of commandments: a commandment that can be fulfilled and neglected—that is an obligatory positive commandment; a commandment that can be fulfilled and not neglected—that is an existential positive commandment; a commandment that can be neglected but not fulfilled—that is a prohibition derived from a positive commandment; and a commandment that can go unfulfilled and cannot be neglected—that is a definitional positive commandment. The term is mine in the last case. A side remark: if we’re already presenting a kind of map here, then just to complete the picture, there are certain commandments that later authorities tend to treat as existential positive commandments. For example, the commandment of tzitzit. The commandment of tzitzit is that when I wear a garment that has four corners—corners, right? A square garment like that—then I have to put fringes on it. That is the commandment of tzitzit. But if I don’t have a four-cornered garment, then no. Another kind of garment is not obligated in tzitzit. Many later authorities treated this commandment as an existential positive commandment. The question is why it would be considered an existential positive commandment. So they say: because if you don’t have a four-cornered garment, then you haven’t neglected the positive commandment of tzitzit. You’re not required to put tzitzit on another garment. If you have a four-cornered garment, then you have a commandment to put tzitzit on it. Therefore it’s a commandment that can be fulfilled but not neglected. If you didn’t fulfill it, nothing happened. So therefore it’s an existential positive commandment. But that’s a mistake. Why is that a mistake? Because the commandment of tzitzit can be neglected. For example, if I wear a four-cornered garment and do not put fringes on it. In that case, I’m obligated to put fringes on it because the garment is obligated in tzitzit, and I didn’t do it. What does that mean? That I have neglected a positive commandment, right? So you see that this is a commandment that can indeed be neglected. It is not true that it can only be fulfilled and cannot be neglected. Therefore it is not an existential positive commandment. The more accurate definition is: a conditional obligatory positive commandment. What does that mean? Your obligation in the commandment depends on the fulfillment of certain conditions. If you wear a four-cornered garment, the conditions have been met, and a positive commandment is imposed on you—and it is obligatory. If you did it, you fulfilled a commandment, and if you didn’t, you neglected the commandment.

[Speaker E] Like Grace after Meals. Exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like Grace after Meals.

[Speaker E] Or covering the blood.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Most—many commandments are like that. The commandment of Grace after Meals applies only if you ate to satiety. If you didn’t eat to satiety, you don’t need to recite the blessing. Does that mean the commandment is existential? Not at all. If you ate to satiety and didn’t recite the blessing, then you have neglected a positive commandment. Therefore this is a commandment that can be neglected. It’s a conditional obligatory positive commandment. It’s not an existential positive commandment. Fine. So in any case, we have four types of commandments.

[Speaker E] And regarding the fourth type, could that also apply to warning one’s wife in the case of a suspected adulteress? Again? The commandment of warning—whether there is a commandment to warn, or whether most decisors say there is no commandment to warn.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and then it’s just a definition. Yes. By the way, I’m not entirely sure—I think that isn’t even counted in the enumeration of the commandments at all.

[Speaker E] Only Rabbi Akiva thought it was a commandment, I think.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I mean that in principle, when you open the books of commandments, I don’t think you’ll find a commandment to warn. You’ll find the law of the suspected adulteress if he warned her and she secluded herself.

[Speaker E] Ah, so that’s not even in your fourth category.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it isn’t counted at all. It’s just one of the details of the law of the suspected adulteress: if he warned her and she transgressed, then there is the law that one performs the procedure of the suspected adulteress. Okay. Now another point, and here it already brings us back to the issue of leaven. When Maimonides says there is duplication between the positive commandment to eliminate leaven and the prohibition of bal yera’eh and bal yimatze, what does he mean? What kind of commandment is this tashbitu? It can be understood in several ways. It can be understood that the commandment of elimination is a positive commandment to perform an act of elimination on the leaven. It can also be understood that the commandment is one that merely tells me: you don’t need to perform an act of elimination, just make sure you don’t have leaven. For example, if I reach Passover—right before Passover, on the 14th—and there is no leaven in my house. I simply finished it all, ate everything. There’s no leaven left in my house. If the commandment is to eliminate actively, then of course I would still somehow need to arrange for there to be leaven and eliminate it, right? In order to fulfill the positive commandment of eliminating leaven. But if the commandment is only to make sure I don’t have leaven in the house, then no problem—I have no leaven in the house. I don’t need to buy leaven and eliminate it. Right? So the question is whether the commandment is defined as a commandment about the act of elimination, or whether the commandment is defined as one that there should be no leaven for me. But those are not all the possibilities; there’s another possibility too. Actually—before I spell them out, I’ll just explain what this means regarding the duplication between the prohibition and the positive commandment. We said that really the prohibition and the positive commandment say the same thing—the prohibition says it in passive language: if you leave leaven you’ve violated a prohibition, and the positive commandment says it in active language: make sure you don’t have leaven. But really, to say that they have duplicate content—that’s not entirely precise. Why not? Because if I define the positive commandment of elimination as a commandment to perform an act of elimination, then that is not something duplicated by the prohibition. The prohibition does not require me to perform an act of elimination. The prohibition only says that if I have leaven in the house, I violate a prohibition. If I don’t, then there’s no problem. But if the positive commandment of tashbitu tells me that I must perform an active act of elimination, then that is not the same content as the prohibition. There is no duplication at all. It’s something entirely different. Right? But if the positive commandment is defined merely as a kind of prohibition derived from a positive commandment—meaning if I have leaven left in the house, I violate the positive commandment, but I am not obligated to perform an active act of elimination—if that is the definition of the positive commandment, then it is entirely duplicative of the prohibition, right? Then it says exactly the same thing. Because what the positive commandment says is not “perform an act of elimination.” It says “make sure you don’t have leaven.” Well, the prohibition also says that: make sure you don’t have leaven. So there, indeed, there is ordinary duplication between a prohibition and a positive commandment. They really do have the same content. And I mentioned in your handout as well that Maimonides’ position in the sixth root—Maimonides, as I already mentioned, has fourteen roots before the Book of Commandments, and there he discusses the rules for how commandments are defined, how the count of commandments works. In the ninth root Maimonides writes that if there are commandments with the same content, they are not counted. It’s duplication. One does not count as separate commandments two commandments that appear in the Torah but have the same content. In the sixth root he…

[Speaker F] Can I ask? It’s interesting regarding a family—say they’re all celiac in the family and all year they don’t keep any leaven at all. It’s simply a house without leaven all year round. So the question is really whether on the 14th of Nisan they would have to make sure to buy some—or maybe you could say, don’t finish all the leaven, wait until…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s the same thing as what I said before. There’s no difference between that and what I said earlier about an ordinary house where the leaven just happened to run out. Same thing. What I said there is true here too. Okay. So I’m saying that Maimonides says in the sixth root—that was in the ninth root—that commandments which are duplicative, that have the same content, are not counted as separate commandments. In the sixth root Maimonides says that if the duplication is between a prohibition and a positive commandment, then it is counted, even though they have the same content. Why? This could be expanded on, but I’ll say it briefly. I think the explanation is that there is a difference between saying—for example, with leaven—suppose they have the same content. The positive commandment of tashbitu tells me: make sure you don’t have leaven. It doesn’t tell me to perform an active act of elimination; it just says in active language: make sure you don’t have leaven. And the prohibition of bal yera’eh and bal yimatze also basically says the same thing—that if you have leaven, you violate a prohibition. What’s the difference between them? There is still a difference between them. And therefore when it is formulated as a prohibition and as a positive commandment, that is not considered duplication. They are counted as two commandments. Why? Because what the positive commandment says is basically that the state in which I have no leaven is a desirable state, a positive state. The prohibition says that the state in which I have leaven on Passover is a negative state. Do you understand the difference? It’s ostensibly the same thing, but these are two sides of the coin. That is, the prohibition basically says: beware of the state in which you have leaven on Passover. To be found with leaven on Passover is a problematic state. According to that view, if I have no leaven on Passover, then nothing happened—everything is fine—I am simply not in the problematic state, but I didn’t do anything positive. But if the conception of the commandment—if there is a positive commandment that tells me to make sure your house is free of leaven, then if my house is free of leaven, it’s not only that I avoided a negative state; rather, I am in the positive state the Torah required of me. This is the state of having no leaven in the house, and that is a big difference between positive commandments and prohibitions: a positive commandment points to the state of being without leaven as a positive state, while a prohibition says that the state of having leaven is a negative state. Okay? There are differences between them, but right now I’m not going into practical implications; maybe later I’ll mention something about that. I return to the possibilities for understanding the relationship between the positive commandment and the prohibition concerning leaven. Basically I’m saying this: one possibility—I’ve said two possibilities so far, right? In the summary this is basically those A and B items. I said there are two possibilities. The first possibility is that there really is duplication between the prohibition and the positive commandment. There is no difference in practical content, but there is a difference in conceptual content: the positive commandment tells me that a house free of leaven is a positive state. The prohibition tells me that a house that is not free of leaven is a negative state. But in practice there is no difference. It’s only a conceptual difference. The second possibility says that the positive commandment of tashbitu has an entirely different practical content from the prohibition. It imposes on me an obligation to perform an act of elimination, which the prohibition obviously does not impose. The prohibition only tells me: make sure there is no leaven in the house. I don’t care whether you do actions for that or not. The positive commandment of tashbitu—that’s also the literal meaning, right? “You shall remove leaven from your houses.” What does that mean? Perform an act of elimination on the leaven. According to this conception, the duplication between the prohibition and the positive commandment is not duplication at all. There is a difference in practical content between them. The prohibition doesn’t obligate me to eliminate, and the positive commandment does obligate me to eliminate. There’s a very clear practical implication here: if I have no leaven when I get to Passover—there simply wasn’t any in the house, it ran out, or it’s a celiac household—okay? Then in that situation, from the standpoint of the prohibitions, there is no issue; everything is fine. I have no leaven in the house, so I’m not in the negative state. The negative state is when I do have leaven in the house, so there’s no problem. But if the positive commandment of tashbitu imposes on me an obligation to perform an act of elimination, then clearly I need to buy leaven and eliminate it. If the positive commandment of tashbitu does not tell me to perform an act of elimination but only says that the state of being without leaven is a positive state, then again I don’t need to buy leaven, because I am already in the positive state. So what’s the issue? Okay? So there is a difference between defining the commandment of elimination as a commandment to perform an act of elimination, or to be in a state where the leaven has been eliminated, where I have no leaven on Passover. Now, each of these two possibilities could itself be understood in two sub-possibilities. There is one way to understand that the positive commandment concerns a state, not an action—what I said before, right? That is, to be in a state where there is no leaven in my house. You don’t need to perform an act of elimination; rather, I need to be in a state where there is no leaven in my house. But even that itself can be understood in two ways. One possibility is that this is a prohibition derived from a positive commandment. That means: if I have leaven in the house, I have violated the positive commandment of tashbitu. If I do not have leaven in the house, I have not fulfilled a positive commandment; nothing happened. This is the positive commandment of the third type that I described in the introduction—it is basically a prohibition derived from a positive commandment, right? So in that case, tashbitu is really some sort of prohibition. It is not really a positive commandment at all. It tells me that if you have leaven, you violated this prohibition—except that the violation is neglect of a positive commandment rather than a prohibition, but you still committed a violation. That’s one possibility. A second possibility: no—if you have a house without leaven, then you have fulfilled a positive commandment. Again, you don’t need to perform an active act of elimination, because the commandment concerns the result. But if the proper result has been achieved, whether by an act or not by an act, then I have fulfilled the commandment. It’s not just that I avoided violating a positive commandment; I fulfilled the commandment. So there are two ways to understand the positive commandment even on the side that it is talking about a state and not an act of elimination—rather, a state of a clean house. Is the state such that, if it is achieved, I fulfilled a positive commandment? Or is it that I did not fulfill a positive commandment, and only if the state is not achieved did I violate the positive commandment? So those are the two nuances within the conception that the positive commandment is not about action but about the result. There are also two nuances within the second conception, the conception that says tashbitu imposes on me an obligation to destroy the leaven, a positive act. One could say as follows: that the act is a positive act in the absolute sense. What does that mean? If you don’t have leaven in the house—buy some. Buy some in order to fulfill the required act, the positive commandment of acting to eliminate the leaven. You are obligated to do that act. A second possibility is that this is a conditional obligatory positive commandment—the type I defined in the introduction. What does that mean? If you have leaven in the house, then you have a commandment to perform an act of elimination on it. If you don’t have leaven in the house, then fine. It’s like someone who didn’t eat to satiety and therefore is not obligated to recite Grace after Meals. This positive obligation is imposed only on someone who has leaven in the house. Someone who has no leaven in the house does not need to buy leaven in order to have some. Just as I have no commandment to eat to satiety in order to become obligated in Grace after Meals. If I ate to satiety, then the commandment is imposed on me; if not, then not. Okay? If I have a four-cornered garment, I need to put tzitzit on it. If I don’t, then no—nothing happened. Okay. So each of those two definitions is itself divided into two possibilities. Fine. There is another possibility, which maybe I won’t go into in detail—I’ll just mention it generally—and that is this Nachmanides that I brought here. Again, I didn’t give it to you on the sheet so that we wouldn’t get bogged down in it. The claim is as follows: Nachmanides basically says in Kiddushin that there are prohibitions whose whole point is really to ensure that we perform the positive commandment. For example, “Do not place bloodguilt in your house” and “You shall make a parapet for your roof.” When a person has a house with a roof, he needs to put a parapet there so that people won’t fall off the roof. So regarding this there is a positive commandment: “You shall make a parapet for your roof,” but there is also a prohibition: “Do not place bloodguilt in your house.” What is the relationship between these two? Nachmanides says this is a prohibition whose entire point is only to spur us to fulfill the positive commandment. That is, if you do not put up a parapet, then know that you will also be a wrongdoer—you will violate a prohibition. Not only have you neglected the positive commandment of making a parapet, but you have also violated the prohibition “Do not place bloodguilt in your house.”

[Speaker F] So the whole point of the prohibition is to push the person to perform the positive commandment. It’s a strange example, because we would have thought exactly the reverse—the whole point of the parapet is so that we don’t place bloodguilt in our house. I mean, why do we care about the parapet itself? A parapet by itself has no independent significance.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting question, I agree with it, but I don’t want to get into it here because it would require us to enter other topics. For my purposes, I just want to put on the table this option of a prohibition whose whole purpose is to support a positive commandment. One of the implications, for example, is that if this positive commandment were time-dependent, then women are exempt from time-bound positive commandments, right? What would happen with the prohibition? After all, with prohibitions, even if they are time-dependent, women are obligated. Nachmanides says no: if there is a prohibition whose whole purpose is just to make sure that you fulfill the positive commandment, then someone who is exempt from the positive commandment will obviously also be exempt from the prohibition. So in essence, if the content of the prohibition is only to make sure that you fulfill the positive commandment, then in substance this prohibition is really just another kind of positive commandment; it’s only phrased in negative language in order to push you to fulfill the matter. That too is a possible relationship between a prohibition and a positive commandment. For now I’m just putting it on the table without getting into too many details. By the way, there could also be another possibility: that the positive commandment comes to make sure you don’t fail with respect to a prohibition. For example, in our case, the act of removal is required of me in order to make sure I don’t end up in a situation where I have leaven and violate “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found.” Then it comes out that the positive commandment supports the prohibition, not that the prohibition supports the positive commandment. Okay, there are different possibilities here. Good, now let’s enter the topic itself. Until now this was just introduction. The Mishnah in Pesachim on page 21—I marked it on the sheet—the Mishnah says as follows: “Throughout the time when it is permitted to eat, one may feed it to domestic animals, wild animals, and birds, and sell it to a gentile, and one may derive benefit from it.” Yes, as long as the prohibition on leaven has not yet begun, do whatever you want with the leaven. “Once its time has passed,” once the prohibition on leaven takes effect, “it is forbidden for benefit”; leaven is forbidden to eat and also forbidden for benefit, “and one may not fire an oven or stove with it.” Fine, you may not derive benefit from it. Rabbi Yehuda says: “The destruction of leaven is only by burning”—and this is the important part for our purposes, so let’s focus on it for a moment—Rabbi Yehuda says: “The destruction of leaven is only by burning,” and the Sages say: “One may even crumble it and scatter it to the wind or cast it into the sea.” The “even” here—there is a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim) whether the reading is “or/or” or “and also,” okay, or “and.” In any event, what’s the dispute? Rabbi Yehuda claims that the destruction of leaven must specifically be done by burning, and the Sages say: you can burn it, you can crumble it and scatter it to the wind or throw it into the sea or whatever—what matters is that you make sure you don’t have leaven in your house. On the face of it, the dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and the Sages is exactly the question I raised earlier, right? Because Rabbi Yehuda, who says it specifically has to be burned—where would you place him in terms of the conception of how he understands the positive commandment of “you shall eliminate”? Which of the earlier options that I mentioned?

[Speaker B] The deed as an action.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do you agree? Rabbi Yehuda—if Rabbi Yehuda held that the positive commandment’s whole point is only to make sure I don’t have leaven in the house, that there is no need specifically to perform an act, then why would it matter whether it was done by burning, crumbling, throwing it into the sea, or whatever you want? What difference does it make? The main thing is that in the end I’m left with no leaven in the house, right? Why does Rabbi Yehuda require specifically burning? It seems that Rabbi Yehuda understands that the positive commandment of “you shall eliminate” imposes on you an obligation to perform an act of elimination, and more than that, he says this act of elimination must specifically be done in the form of burning. That’s an added layer. But beyond that addition, with respect to the question I raised at the beginning—how do we view the commandment? The positive commandment of “you shall eliminate”—it seems quite clear that according to Rabbi Yehuda, it is defined as a commandment to perform an act of elimination, not a commandment about the result: make sure there isn’t leaven in your house. Because if it were a commandment about the result, then do whatever you want, as long as in the end there isn’t any leaven in your house. Why should I care whether you do it by burning, crumbling, scattering to the wind, throwing it into the sea, or whatever you want? And that is exactly what the Sages argue against him. The Sages, who say “one may even crumble it and scatter it to the wind or cast it into the sea”—what are they saying? Why should I care how you do it? In the final analysis, you should be left with a house without leaven. If you accomplished that by burning the leaven or by throwing it into the sea, what do I care? Do whatever you want.

[Speaker G] But in both cases there is an action. Even if he crumbles it or if he burns it, in both cases there’s an action. I don’t understand the difference.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s an action because I need one, but not because one has to perform an action.

[Speaker B] But if there wasn’t any leaven, then—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to everyone, I have to make sure that the leaven disappears. How do I do that? So the Sages say: do it however you want.

[Speaker F] The act of burning is an act that’s kind of more active—you have to make an effort for it. The act of throwing it, crumbling and throwing it, seems like something more incidental. I wouldn’t see it that way.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I wouldn’t see it that way. In my opinion, these are two active actions. The question is whether it matters to you at all what the action looks like—what action to perform. So according to Rabbi Yehuda, if it matters to him how the action is done, then clearly in his view there is a point to performing an act of elimination. Because if there were no point in performing an act of elimination, then why should I care? Do it by burning, do it by crumbling—just make sure that in the end there won’t be leaven in your house. And seemingly that is exactly what the Sages are arguing against him.

[Speaker B] Do it in any form, because why should I care? In the final analysis, what matters is the result—that you have no leaven in the house. That’s all. Wait, but according to Rabbi Yehuda you need to perform an active action, so do you need to have leaven in order to eliminate it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Seemingly. Everything we said earlier, I’m now hanging on a dispute among Tannaim. Earlier I presented the general question: how do we define the commandment of “you shall eliminate,” with all its implications—whether to buy leaven if I don’t have any, and all the other implications. Now I’m saying: those same two possibilities that I laid out, seemingly that is the dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and the Sages.

[Speaker H] Wait, Rabbi, but maybe one could understand the Sages in another way too. That is, maybe they also claim that an action is required—they just say that the action can be this or that or that. Meaning, not necessarily that they think no action is needed.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a correct comment; we’ll get to that in a moment. But for didactic purposes I’m presenting it this way right now: seemingly these are the two possibilities. In a moment we’ll really see that it’s not exactly like that, or it doesn’t have to be like that. That’s the dispute, okay? But on the face of it, if I were reading this Mishnah simply, and I already had in hand the two possibilities I described earlier, then I would say that this is probably the dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and the Sages. The Sages say: why should I care? Do it however you want. So apparently what matters to them is only the result. Just that in the end I not have leaven; it doesn’t matter how I arrive at that result. Rabbi Yehuda, who says it matters very much how you do it, apparently thinks that not only the result matters, but also the path. You need also to perform an act of elimination, not just reach the point where there is no leaven in your house. It seems to me that for now this is the natural explanation. Okay?

[Speaker E] And Iris asks whether this can be explained as object-focused versus person-focused.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not necessarily related to object-focused versus person-focused; we’ll get to that later. Because one could understand that a person has to perform an act of elimination, but that this act is a law about the object. The leaven must be destroyed, eliminated. Or it could be about the person—the person must perform an act of elimination. In both, we follow the view that an act of elimination is required. If the law is about the result, then it is quite clearly person-focused. I have to make sure that in my house I won’t have leaven; there’s no object-focus here, the object isn’t relevant. But on the side that there is an obligation to perform an act of elimination, that is still open to both possibilities. Okay, now I’m reading Maimonides in chapter 3, Jewish law 11: “How is leaven destroyed? He burns it, or crumbles it and scatters it to the wind, or throws it into the sea.” So whom does he rule like?

[Speaker B] Like the Sages. But he prefers first of all burning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait—first of all, he rules like the Sages, right? That you can do anything. Either burn it, or crumble it and scatter it to the wind, throw it into the sea, do whatever you want. Seemingly he rules like the Sages. In our translation, what does that mean? That basically it’s result-oriented, right? Basically what matters is that you not have leaven in the house. I don’t care whether you do it by burning or some other way. The main thing is the result. Seemingly—for now—that’s what we’ve seen up to this point. Now he continues: “If the leaven was hard and the water does not destroy it quickly, he crumbles it and afterward throws it into the sea. And leaven upon which a landslide fell,” and so on—all that is not important right now. “And if he burned it”—I’m reading here—“and if he burned it before the sixth hour, it is permitted to derive benefit from its coals during Passover.” Why? If he burned it before the sixth hour, then the leaven had not yet become forbidden. So when I burned the leaven, basically I have coals. Coals are not leaven, so there is no problem—use them even during Passover. Coals are no longer bread; coals are something else. But “if he burned it from the sixth hour and onward, since it is forbidden for benefit”—that is, if you burned it after the sixth hour, then it was already leaven. Now when you burn it, then the coals or the ashes are ashes of leaven, unlike before. Maimonides says: in such a situation, “he may not fire an oven or stove with it, nor bake with it, nor cook with it. And if he baked or cooked, that bread and that cooked dish are forbidden for benefit. And likewise its coals are forbidden for benefit, since he burned it after it had become forbidden for benefit.” And this is the important part for our purposes in Maimonides. So on the one hand Maimonides rules like the Sages. There are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who rule like Rabbi Yehuda, but most medieval authorities (Rishonim)—and that’s how we rule in Jewish law—rule like the Sages. And Maimonides says that if we burned the leaven after the sixth hour, when it was already leaven, it is forbidden to use its ashes and its coals. They are forbidden for benefit. Okay? That’s what he says. For now those are the data. Just as an aside, we are very used to the fact that on the eve of Passover everyone goes out and burns the leaven. Why do they burn it? After all, one can do whatever one wants. Since there are decisors who rule like Rabbi Yehuda, we beautify the commandment and are stringent to do it by burning as well. But still, someone who can’t burn can also crumble it and throw it to the wind or throw it into the sea—that’s also fine. Okay? Just don’t leave the leaven even in the public domain in such a way that it is still accessible to people passing by, who might mistakenly take it and eat it. That’s rabbinic, and one has to be careful that it not happen.

[Speaker F] This year it may actually be relevant—I’m not sure they’ll even allow people to go out for destroying leaven in public areas.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another discussion—what we’ll do this year. Right now I’m speaking in general.

[Speaker H] Can I ask a small halakhic question? So throwing it in the trash—does that count as throwing it into the sea, or is that problematic?

[Speaker B] Throwing it into the trash?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Into your private trash—if the leaven really is no longer fit for eating, then that’s fine. No, I mean the trash outside—the trash bin on the street. The outside trash is fine, but your own trash I think can also be fine, even though the custom is not to do that. Because if the leaven remains with us, all that remains is the concern lest someone come to eat it, because after all we nullify the leaven. The obligation to eliminate the leaven is only because of the concern lest one come to eat it. And a concern lest one come to eat something from the trash—seems to me that doesn’t exist.

[Speaker B] The cats can take it out of there. I can’t hear. The cats can take it out the way they do, and someone could stumble because of that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The cats from my trash bin in the house? No, not from the house—from the public bin.

[Speaker B] I’m talking about the trash in the house.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We have a cat at home, and it doesn’t seem to me that she takes things out of the trash. Okay, fine, but technically speaking that is okay. The custom is not to do that; the custom is yes to destroy it, as I said earlier, but in principle, according to the strict law, that is okay. One has to remember that with leaven we—well, we won’t have time to discuss this—but the Talmud says that “he nullifies it in his heart, and that is enough.” That means that in principle, according to the strict law, if we nullified the leaven then we fulfilled the commandment of “you shall eliminate.” There is no need to burn, no need to destroy, no need for anything—it is nullified. Everything we do beyond that is only rabbinic matters out of concern lest I come to eat it. There are those who want to argue that if the leaven is still significant and fit for eating, then there is some flaw in the nullification. Maybe you did not seriously mean the nullification because it is significant leaven. I’m not sure that’s true, but there are people who argue that. Anyway, not our topic. What?

[Speaker B] There are people who put things out for destruction—when they search for the leaven, the search for leaven, they leave a few crumbs because of the search.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is according to the mystical tradition of the Ari.

[Speaker B] But according to the Sages, is that unnecessary?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to the Sages’ approach, if you accept that with the Sages this is only a result-oriented question—later we’ll see more, but yes. For now, according to what we’ve said, then yes. But the search for leaven is a rabbinic law regardless. And the point now is this: if there is a commandment to perform an act of elimination, then seemingly you need to leave the crumbs. But even that isn’t entirely precise, because we perform the act of elimination during the cleaning. You don’t specifically need the crumbs of the search for that. There are people who want to argue that the crumbs are there so that the blessing over the search not be a blessing in vain. But simply speaking, if I do the search it is not a blessing in vain—what difference does it make that I didn’t find anything? The obligation is to search, not to find. So therefore I don’t think it is a blessing in vain. In my opinion that isn’t halakhically grounded. The ten crumbs are by way of mysticism because of the Ari or something like that, so they scatter ten crumbs, but according to the strict law there is no need to do that. Okay, I’m moving on. Now we are entering the core of our problem. In Jewish law there are various kinds of things that are forbidden for benefit—we also discussed this last week—there is orlah, mixed plantings in a vineyard, meat cooked with milk, leaven—all these are things that are forbidden not only to eat but also to derive benefit from. There are two categories that the Mishnah and the Talmud distinguish. There are prohibitions of benefit that must be burned, and these are called “the burnables,” and there are prohibitions of benefit that are “the buriables.” What does “the buriables” mean? It means it is enough to bury them; they do not need to be burned. Now, “the buriables” are not specifically about burial. Rather, the point is that they do not have to be burned. That is, you need to make sure not to derive benefit from them, but there is no obligation to burn them, okay? Why bury them? They are buried as a rabbinic matter; one buries them only so that you won’t come to eat them. After all, if you didn’t burn them, they’re still around, and who knows—by mistake you could eat them or derive benefit from them. Therefore they tell you: bury it, so that you don’t come to the matter and stand in a situation where maybe you’ll derive benefit or eat from it. Okay? That is called “the buriables.” “The burnables” are prohibitions of benefit that have to be burned, okay? That is the law. There is an obligation to destroy them, to burn them, to eliminate them from the world. Now the Talmud says as follows: “The burnables”—is that Torah-level? What? The burnables. That they have to be burned? The simple understanding is yes, although even about that there is discussion, because there are those who want to say, for example, that crumbling and scattering to the wind is also like burning, but you need to destroy them—that is, you need to perform an act of destruction. Now I’m emphasizing the Talmud in Temurah 34. I’m reading: “All those that are buried may not be burned, and all those that are burned may not be buried. Rabbi Yehuda says: if one wanted to be stringent with himself and burn the buriables, he is permitted. They said to him: one is not permitted to change.” Now we won’t enter into their give-and-take at the moment, but the Rabbis, according to whom Jewish law follows, make a very clear distinction: the burnables must be burned and may not be buried. Why? Because there is an obligation to destroy them. If you bury them, you have not destroyed them, right? A commandment of action, as I said earlier about “you shall eliminate.” So you have to destroy them, and if you buried them, you did not perform an act of destruction. Therefore you must burn them, and you may not bury them. The great novelty is on the opposite side: that the buriables may not be burned. Now that is surprising, because the buriables, as I said earlier, there is no obligation to bury them and also no obligation to burn them. You only need to make sure that you won’t eat them, that you won’t reach a situation where you come to eat them or derive benefit from them. So what’s the problem? I burn them, and that will ensure that I won’t derive benefit from them.

[Speaker B] Maybe the horse will eat it? What? Maybe the horse will eat it, so that you don’t come to a situation where you fail.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why?

[Speaker E] But that’s a stringency that leads to leniency.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Burning is much better than burying. Burying—

[Speaker B] It could still be found, exposed. And what about their ashes? With the burnables, you can derive benefit from their ashes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, I haven’t yet gotten to deriving benefit from the ashes; we’ll see that shortly. At this stage, what is written here in the Talmud is that the buriables may not be burned. Why? So the Talmud continues and says as follows: “All those that are buried may not be burned—what is the reason? Because with the buriables, their ashes are forbidden, whereas with the burnables, their ashes are permitted.” There is a rule that says this: prohibitions of benefit of the type called buriables—if I burned them, the ashes themselves are also forbidden for benefit. Prohibitions of benefit of the type called burnables—if I burned them, the ashes are permitted for benefit. And Maimonides also rules this way in the laws of blemished consecrated animals: “All the burnables may not be buried, and likewise all the buriables may not be burned, because although he is being stringent by burning them”—that is, burning is a stringency, it is stronger than burying—“he has thereby been lenient with respect to their ashes, for the ashes of the buriables are forbidden.” What does that mean? He says this: maybe let’s read Tosafot once more—I referred you to that Tosafot. Tosafot says this. He explains first of all the basic law. The basic law is that if I burned the buriables, the ashes are forbidden for benefit even though they are ashes. If I burned the burnables, the ashes are permitted for benefit. That is the basic law. What is the idea behind it? So let’s read Tosafot: “The reason requires examination. Scripture commanded that they be burned. Once he has done so, it is as though its commandment has been performed, and there is nothing whose commandment has been performed that remains subject to misuse. Here too, once its commandment has been performed, its prohibition is gone, its prohibition is gone,” and so on. What is he basically saying?

[Speaker B] Rabbi, is this not only with burnables, but with anything whose commandment has already been performed—then it’s permitted for use?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anything that is forbidden for benefit—after its commandment has been performed, you are allowed to derive benefit from it. Basically—there are different explanations of this—but one explanation, which I think is the strongest, is an explanation that says that the whole prohibition of benefit is intended to make sure that you use it for the commandment and not for something else. That is why they forbade you to derive benefit from it. Because it is designated for the commandment—don’t do something else with it. Once you have already performed the commandment, then what is the problem? Why forbid deriving benefit from it? Okay? That’s one explanation. Another explanation says that once it’s ashes, it’s already ashes, so it is already—

[Speaker J] Why did he say “as though”? Basically, what he wants to include in Tosafot is a broader principle, that things whose commandment has been performed—their benefit is permitted. He says “as though.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, because with regular burnables, unlike leaven—we’ll see that in a moment—the commandment to burn is not a positive commandment explicitly counted in the Torah. It is one of the details of how to deal with a prohibition of benefit. “There is nothing whose commandment has been performed that remains subject to misuse” is said about consecrated items. When I offer a sacrifice, after I’ve finished performing the commandment with it, it becomes ordinary property. You can do whatever you want with it. Why? Because its commandment has already been performed. Okay? Now, there both the prohibition of benefit is written explicitly in the Torah, and the obligation to offer it is also written explicitly in the Torah. With burnables, this is simply a category that the Sages derive concerning various kinds of prohibitions of benefit that need to be burned, but not that there is an explicit positive commandment to burn. And therefore I think Tosafot calls it “as though its commandment has been performed,” because it isn’t a commandment explicitly written in the Torah, but yes, halakhically one has to do it.

[Speaker B] But why distinguish between burnables and buriables, rather than between that whose commandment has been performed and that whose commandment has not been performed?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We are talking in the context of prohibitions of benefit. Prohibitions of benefit are divided into burnables and buriables. So if I burned the burnables, their commandment has been fulfilled. If I burned the buriables, I fulfilled no commandment by doing so. There is no commandment to burn them. Therefore the ashes of the buriables are forbidden, and the ashes of the burnables are permitted. But that is only the basic law. From this there now emerges the law relevant to us, namely that because of this it is forbidden to burn the buriables. Why? Because if you burn the buriables, you will come to derive benefit from the ashes; you’ll think, it’s already ashes, so that’s permitted and everything is fine—when in fact the ashes are forbidden for benefit. Therefore the Sages say: even though, seemingly, burning the buriables is the best thing imaginable, much better than burying them, still this is a fence the Sages made. Since you may come to derive benefit from the ashes, the Sages say: don’t burn the buriables. In order not to get entangled with the ashes, bury them, and that’s all. With the burnables there is no problem, because if you burned them, the ashes are permitted, so I have no problem with your burning them. Even if you derive benefit from the ashes, that is permitted. Okay? That is the law. Now I move to the Mishnah there in Temurah 33b, and I asked you: look in the Mishnah—where do they classify leaven? Is it among the burnables or among the buriables?

[Speaker B] Maybe it depends on at what hour it was burned?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I’m talking, let’s say, for the sake of—

[Speaker F] The simple meaning of the Mishnah is among the burnables; it has to be burned.

[Speaker B] Its ashes are permitted, so it’s among the burnables.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the Mishnah—in a straightforward reading of the Mishnah—what does it say there?

[Speaker H] But according to Maimonides it’s among the buriables.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we’ll get to Maimonides. “Leaven on Passover shall be burned”—that’s what it says. First of all let’s see, first of all let’s see. First of all the Mishnah. We’ll get to Maimonides in a moment. The Mishnah says—

[Speaker J] No, but already Rabbi Yehuda and the Sages—and the Mishnah is probably according to Rabbi Yehuda.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly. Therefore I’m saying, let’s read the Mishnah. The Mishnah says: “These are the buriables”—yes, I highlighted the Mishnah—consecrated items, and so on and so on and so on, and likewise meat cooked with milk and unconsecrated animals slaughtered in the Temple courtyard, and so on. “And these are the burnables”—I’m now reading from here—“and these are the burnables: leaven on Passover shall be burned.”

[Speaker B] But it says here “on Passover,” not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m speaking about leaven at the time of prohibition. I’m speaking about leaven at the time of prohibition. I haven’t gone into the details here of before the time of prohibition or after the time of prohibition.

[Speaker B] No, but the letter meaning “on Passover” is a sign that this is when it was already forbidden.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, I’m speaking about such leaven. Leaven from before Passover cannot be among the burnables; there is no obligation to burn it.

[Speaker F] Also after the sixth hour, from the moment leaven is already forbidden, even if it’s before Passover, that already counts as the time of prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, obviously. It’s the time of prohibition.

[Speaker F] And that is included in “leaven on Passover,” meaning that time which is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not before the sixth hour.

[Speaker F] Not before—after.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Before the sixth hour, what’s the problem? You can even eat it; it’s not among the burnables. Right. So “leaven on Passover shall be burned.” So seemingly leaven is among the burnables, right? The Talmud there on 34 says, “And these are the burnables”—that’s a quotation from the Mishnah. “The master said: ‘Leaven on Passover shall be burned.’ Our Tanna anonymously taught like Rabbi Yehuda, who said: the destruction of leaven is only by burning.” That means the Talmud explains that the Mishnah that says leaven is among the burnables follows the position of Rabbi Yehuda from tractate Pesachim. Rabbi Yehuda, whom we saw in Pesachim—right, remember?—that Rabbi Yehuda says one has to burn it, and the Rabbis say “one may even crumble it and scatter it to the wind or throw it into the sea.” So the Talmud here says that the Mishnah in tractate Temurah follows the position of Rabbi Yehuda from tractate Pesachim. Why? Because only according to Rabbi Yehuda is leaven among the burnables; according to the Rabbis, leaven is not among the burnables, right? Therefore the Mishnah here, which says that leaven is among the burnables, probably follows the position of Rabbi Yehuda. According to the Sages, it is not necessarily among the burnables. You can also burn it, but burning is not required—that would be what is called buriables.

[Speaker F] That fits Rabbi Yehuda better.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is what is called buriables. “Buriables” means: do whatever you want.

[Speaker H] No, not exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t have to burn it.

[Speaker H] No, but if according to the Sages it were among the buriables, then you wouldn’t be allowed to burn it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, that’s already the rabbinic law that forbids burning, and that’s the next complication we’ll get to. But according to the strict law, Torah law, with the buriables you can do whatever you want. The question is why we don’t say here that rabbinic law—that if it is among the buriables you may not burn it. We’ll get to that in a moment.

[Speaker B] But according to the Mishnah in Pesachim, yes, they’re speaking about the time right before the prohibition comes in, when Rabbi Yehuda says it has to be burned.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. That’s a dispute between Rashi and Rabbenu Tam. I’m not getting into it now, but simply speaking it’s after—or also after—or after. Anyway, I don’t want to get into before the time of prohibition and after the time of prohibition, because that gets terribly complicated. The “you shall eliminate” of before the time of prohibition and the “you shall eliminate” of after the time of prohibition. So for now I’m not entering that point. Let’s now summarize for a moment what emerges from the picture we’ve seen so far. Basically, in light of the Talmud in Temurah and the Mishnah in tractate Pesachim and all the rules we’ve seen here, it comes out as follows: according to Rabbi Yehuda, leaven is among the burnables. According to the Rabbis, leaven is among the buriables. And now let’s see the implications. According to Rabbi Yehuda, one must burn the leaven and may not do anything else with it—not burying, not crumbling into the sea, nothing else, right? It must be burned. What is the law of the ashes?

[Speaker B] Permitted. No, but if he burned it after the time of prohibition, then it’s forbidden.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s permitted.

[Speaker F] Permitted, permitted, but if according to Maimonides it was burned before the sixth hour, after that already—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait, wait—no. Work it out with me. Don’t use other knowledge you have. According to Rabbi Yehuda, leaven is among the burnables, right?

[Speaker E] And their ashes are permitted. Their ashes are permitted, right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And with things that are burnables, you have to burn them and may not do something else, right. Another thing: if it is among the burnables and I burned it, the ashes are permitted for benefit. Okay? That is what follows from the calculation. In a moment we’ll see whether that fits or doesn’t fit, but that’s what follows from the calculation. According to the Rabbis—according to the Rabbis, leaven is among the buriables, right? So what does that mean? It may not be burned. Their ashes are forbidden. Their ashes are forbidden. It must be buried; it may not be burned, right? And if you violated this and burned it anyway, even though you may not, the ashes are forbidden for benefit. Okay? Let’s continue the calculation. We saw that Maimonides rules like the Sages—

[Speaker B] Meaning that leaven is among the buriables.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does that mean? That in principle it should be forbidden to burn leaven, because it is among the buriables, and its ashes should be forbidden, right? Now what does Maimonides actually write? We saw it above. Its ashes are indeed forbidden, right? He says you may not cook with it—

[Speaker B] Right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But “if he burned it”—I’m pointing it out; do you see?—“But if he burned it from the sixth hour and onward, since it is forbidden for benefit, he may not fire an oven or stove with it, nor bake with it,” and so on. That means the ashes are forbidden for benefit—that actually fits. What doesn’t fit is what he writes at the beginning of the law: “How is leaven destroyed? He burns it, or crumbles it and scatters it to the wind, or throws it into the sea.” Why “he burns it”? It is forbidden to burn it! It’s among the buriables.

[Speaker H] But that question is on the Sages too. The Sages themselves also said that it is permitted to burn, and that’s not Maimonides’ issue alone.

[Speaker F] The Sages didn’t say that—in the Mishnah at least they didn’t say that it is forbidden to burn, but rather that one may burn and the other things are also possible. So according to that there isn’t a contradiction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there is a contradiction. Maimonides—but as Sivan said, the difficulty already exists in the Talmud. It’s not only on Maimonides. But there is a contradiction. Because the Sages say this is among the buriables, not among the burnables. So I understand—then seemingly what should have been the case? That it would be forbidden to burn it. But the Sages say it is permitted to burn it, just not mandatory; you can also do something else. Why? If leaven is among the buriables, then it should be forbidden to burn it.

[Speaker F] And the question on Maimonides is: if leaven is among the buriables, then maybe it’s permitted to burn it, only the ashes would still be forbidden for benefit?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no—it is forbidden to burn it! It is forbidden to burn because of the rabbinic concern, because of the concern that if you burn it—

[Speaker F] That’s an additional prohibition, but it’s not inherent to the matter itself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but it’s still forbidden to burn, since there is such a concern.

[Speaker J] In short, it doesn’t work with Temurah. What? The sugya in Temurah doesn’t work. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is Maimonides himself who brings the position of the Sages. And true, it fits their wording in the Mishnah as well—that he may burn, or crumble and scatter to the wind, that he may do whatever he wants—it fits the words of the Sages. But if that’s really so, then excuse me, if that’s really so, then the required conclusion is that the ashes should be permitted for benefit. Why? Because if one may burn the leaven, then the ashes also ought to be permitted for benefit. The whole problem with the ashes is the very reason why burning should be forbidden. So one way or the other: you can’t rule that it is permitted to burn and that the ashes are forbidden. If the ashes are forbidden, then burning should have been forbidden. If burning is permitted, then the ashes should be permitted. That question is now specifically on Maimonides, not on the Mishnah. On the Mishnah itself, the difficulty is on the view of the Sages in the Mishnah—why they allow burning at all. On Maimonides, the question is how the statement that one may burn fits together with the statement that the ashes are forbidden. Okay? Now I return—

[Speaker J] No, so in explaining it, if you go like the Sages, who really are concerned about those things that must be buried, that if you burned them their ashes are forbidden, then here maybe they aren’t concerned about burning, but the ashes still ought to be forbidden.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—then why should the ashes be forbidden? If the ashes are forbidden, then burning should be forbidden. One way or the other.

[Speaker J] Maybe not in a total way. In this case perhaps they didn’t forbid it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What do you mean, why? It explicitly says that you may not burn it. That is the rule, and it is said about leaven too in the Mishnah in Temurah. So now I move to the Tur. The Tur says: “Rabbi Yehuda says: the destruction of leaven is only by burning. And Rashi rules like him, and so too in Sefer HaMitzvot, while the Geonim ruled like the Sages, who say: he crumbles it and scatters it to the wind or casts it into the sea.” Notice the difference? How does he present the view of the Sages? “Like the Sages, who say…”

[Speaker D] Something’s missing here… missing—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here the word “even” is missing. Because the Sages say “even: he crumbles it and scatters it to the wind or casts it into the sea.” There is no “even.” Why is there no “even”?

[Speaker F] Because according to the Tur’s understanding, the Sages are not adding more options to Rabbi Yehuda; they are really disagreeing, and they think there is a huge difference between—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, and that makes a lot of sense. Why? Precisely because of what we asked earlier. Since if the Sages say it is among the buriables, then burning is forbidden. So the Sages can’t say to Rabbi Yehuda, “even crumble it and scatter it to the wind,” because burning is not an option for them; it’s only crumble it and scatter it to the wind.

[Speaker F] An academic question: do we know that the version of the Mishnah that has “even” and the version before the Tur are the same version? Maybe there really are textual variants and the word “even” was added or omitted. Maybe according to this understanding it was mistakenly added, I don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not maybe. That’s obvious.

[Speaker F] The Tur has a different version of the Mishnah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not maybe. No, I mean maybe as a textual accident. The Tur has a version without “even.” Okay.

[Speaker J] Whether that means he had another version, or that he thought a mistake had occurred—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Either he had another version or he corrected the version, but practically speaking, that is his version of the Mishnah. As opposed to Maimonides’ version, which speaks of “even,” right? Maimonides brought “he burns it, or crumbles it and scatters it to the wind.” Okay? This is a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim). Some medieval authorities (Rishonim) read it with “even,” and some read it without “even.” There are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who read it without “even.” Okay? After that there is the distinction between during the time of elimination and after the time of elimination; let’s leave that aside for now. I move to the last paragraph in the Tur. “But whether one may derive benefit from its ashes after he burned it—that depends on the dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and the Rabbis. According to Rabbi Yehuda, since it is by burning, it is permitted, for we maintain that with all things that are to be burned, their ashes are permitted. And according to the Rabbis it is forbidden, for all things that are buried, their ashes are forbidden.” What is happening here? “And if he cooked a dish with it or baked bread with it, according to Rabbi Yehuda, since its ashes are permitted, the dish or the bread are not forbidden,” and so on. “But if they were extinguished, they are permitted; and according to the Rabbis, since its ashes are forbidden, they are forbidden in every case.” Okay? So what is he saying? He continues consistently with his own view, right? The Rabbis say this is among the buriables, therefore burning is forbidden. He doesn’t read the word “even.” And what is the law of the ashes according to the Rabbis? Forbidden, right? According to Rabbi Yehuda, the ashes are permitted because it is among the burnables; according to the Rabbis, the ashes are forbidden because it is among the buriables. So he is completely consistent. The Tur fits perfectly with the sugya in Temurah. The price is that he emends the text and deletes the word “even.” And now everything is fine, right?

[Speaker B] Does the Tur think that according to Rabbi Yehuda, if he burned it already during the time of prohibition, it is permitted to use the ashes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] Does the Tur think that if he burned it when the time of the prohibition of leaven had already arrived, then it is permitted to use the ashes? Yes. But when Passover began it was still leaven.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—and now it is ashes, not leaven. Since according to Rabbi Yehuda there is a commandment to burn it, I fulfilled the commandment. There is nothing whose commandment has been performed that remains subject to misuse. I did the commandment, I burned it, finished. Now it is permitted to derive benefit from the ashes. According to the Rabbis, where it is among the buriables, then first of all burning is forbidden, and certainly its commandment was not thereby fulfilled, and therefore the ashes should be forbidden. So the Tur is completely orderly, right? As long as we delete the word “even,” everything is fine. The Talmud in Temurah with the Mishnah in Pesachim, the law of the ashes—everything is arranged. Now the Tur says: “And Maimonides, of blessed memory, wrote simply: ‘If he baked bread with it or cooked a dish with it, they are forbidden.’” And he goes according to his method, ruling like the Sages—because earlier the Tur brought that some rule like Rabbi Yehuda and some rule like the Sages. Right? That’s the first paragraph we read in the Tur. So the Tur says: Maimonides, who is among those who rule like the Sages, of course says that the ashes are forbidden, and therefore that is fine. Whoever rules like Rabbi Yehuda will rule that the ashes are permitted. Only one thing the Tur does not explain in Maimonides’ position: why does Maimonides say that it is permitted to burn? After all, Maimonides includes the word “even,” while the Tur does not. So the Tur explains Maimonides’ ruling that the ashes are forbidden, which is perfectly fine and consistent with his ruling like the Sages. But there still remains the question why one may burn, while Maimonides explicitly writes that one may burn. Let’s move to the Magen Avraham. Look at the Magen Avraham. “In our Talmud the reading is: ‘And the Sages say: even one may crumble it.’ Certainly burning is preferable, but even crumbling is sufficient. So says the Bach,” okay? So say several later authorities (Acharonim). That is, they read the word “even,” like whom? Like Maimonides, right? “But the reading of the Rif and the Rosh is: ‘And the Sages say: he crumbles it’—without ‘even,’ not ‘even he crumbles it,’ but ‘the Sages say: he crumbles it,’ and so on. This implies specifically crumbling. And this is also implied in the Tur, as I said earlier, who wrote that according to the Rabbis it falls under the category of things buried, whose ashes are forbidden; and we learned at the end of Temurah that all things buried may not be burned, for we decree lest one come to derive benefit from their ashes.” Therefore in the Tur he indeed does not read the word “even.” By the way, you don’t need proofs from the Tur; when you read the Tur itself it says there that this is without the reading “even.” True, the law also fits, but he doesn’t need indirect proofs; the Tur himself, when he brings it, brings it without the word “even.” Now he asks a question: “And one wonders about Maimonides.” The Tur is completely tidy; for the Tur everything is excellent. My problem is with Maimonides. “And one wonders about Maimonides, who ruled that its ashes are forbidden, and nevertheless ruled that it is permitted to burn it.” The very question I asked earlier. He merited to align by holy spirit with the question I asked earlier. Okay? “And at the end of the laws of blemished consecrated animals he ruled that all things buried may not be burned, because although he is stringent by burning them, he has been lenient with respect to their ashes”—everything we discussed earlier. Okay? So he asks that question, and afterward he gives some answer of his own—we won’t get into it; it’s a strained answer. So indeed, that is the difficulty. The Tur is seemingly completely orderly. Completely orderly. Right? The Tur is entirely consistent. He doesn’t read the word “even,” and he rules like the Sages. According to the Sages, one may not burn, only crumble or bury—it doesn’t matter—and the ashes are forbidden. Everything is consistent. According to Rabbi Yehuda—whoever rules like Rabbi Yehuda—then of course one must specifically burn, and therefore of course the ashes are also permitted, and everything is fine, everything lines up. The only problem we have is with Maimonides’ position. Because Maimonides’ position is that on the one hand he rules like the Sages, and he reads the word “even,” unlike the Tur who does not; he does read the word “even,” and that means that according to the Sages it is permitted to burn. How can it be permitted to burn, if leaven is among the buriables? And if it is already permitted to burn, then Maimonides, explain to me why you say that the ashes are forbidden.

[Speaker J] As an aside, I’ll just say—is the Shulchan Arukh ruling like the Tur? What? Does the Shulchan Arukh rule like the Tur?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like Maimonides, I think. Ah.

[Speaker F] Isn’t this whole business in Maimonides about the sixth hour actually this distinction he makes, basically trying to straighten out this seeming contradiction?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that doesn’t resolve this contradiction. I’m talking now about after the sixth hour, when the leaven is already forbidden.

[Speaker F] Before the sixth hour—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s not get into the period before the sixth hour. Before the sixth hour, to simply say that you have to burn it is very strange, because I can also eat it. As long as I’m still at a stage where it’s permitted to me, do whatever you want with the leavened food. You need to worry about what will happen from the sixth hour onward. So the straightforward discussion is after the sixth hour. Leave aside for the moment the complication of before the sixth hour. But parenthetically I’ll say: if you look for a moment at Maimonides above, Maimonides above doesn’t talk about ashes at all, I remind you. What does he talk about? Charcoal. Exactly. But if one burned it from the sixth hour onward, since it is prohibited for benefit, one may not fire an oven or a stove with it, nor bake with it, nor cook with it, and if he baked or cooked, that bread and that dish are prohibited for benefit, and likewise its coals are prohibited for benefit, since he burned it after it had become prohibited for benefit. There are several later authorities (Acharonim) who want to argue that Maimonides’ view is that the ashes are permitted for benefit, and that fits very well with what he says, that it is permitted to burn it. And what Maimonides writes here is about the coals, not the ashes. Coals are an earlier stage, when the form of the leaven is still there; it hasn’t yet turned into dust, into ash, and then it is still prohibited. That’s a novel point in itself, but when it reaches the point of becoming ash, then it is already completely permitted. Of course, according to this view, our first question comes back up. If according to the Sages it belongs to the category of things that must be buried, then why is it permitted to burn it? Okay? But in any case there is such a view—Avnei Milu’im and Mekor Chayim and various other later authorities want to make that claim. Now I want to understand, to explain one more thing. In fact let’s go back to the introduction I gave, and here we reach the punch line. The introduction I gave said that there is a positive commandment of “remove” regarding leaven. That does not exist with any other prohibition of benefit. That’s what someone here asked earlier—I think it was Sarit, or Nechama, I don’t remember—who asked earlier why Tosafot said what they said. I answered: because with ordinary prohibitions of benefit, the reason we burn them is not because the Torah commands us to burn. The Sages derived that one has to burn them, one has to destroy them. But with leaven on Passover, this is an explicitly counted positive commandment: “remove leaven from your homes.” Okay? What does that mean? It means that essentially Maimonides says the following: according to Avnei Milu’im and Mekor Chayim, you can explain Maimonides perfectly. What does that mean? Maimonides is basically saying that leaven on Passover is a prohibition of benefit that is exceptional compared to all other prohibitions of benefit. And why? Because with leaven on Passover there is a positive commandment to destroy it. And if there is a positive commandment to destroy it, you can’t just bury it casually; after all, you need to eliminate it. “Remove leaven from your homes.” So how do you do that? Either burn it or crumble it and scatter it to the wind. But when you burn it or crumble it and scatter it to the wind, by doing that you fulfill the positive commandment of “remove.” So there is no question why it is permitted to burn it; of course it is permitted to burn it. Why? Because the Torah commands me to eliminate the leaven. That is not like other prohibitions of benefit that belong to the category of things to be buried, where I have no interest at all in eliminating them; I just need to make sure they don’t reach a state where I could derive benefit from them, that’s all. But with leaven there is a positive commandment to destroy. So a positive commandment to destroy it in any way you want—burning, crumbling and scattering to the wind, as we said before according to the opinion of the Sages. And if so, then what should the law regarding the ashes be? What do you say?

[Speaker H] According to Tosafot, permitted.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Forbidden. Permitted. Permitted—because the commandment has been fulfilled. If I burned the leaven, I fulfilled the commandment, the commandment of “remove,” obviously. After all, all these methods are ways by which I fulfill the commandment of “remove,” right? So I fulfilled the commandment; automatically the ashes are permitted, because there is no case where something whose commandment has been fulfilled is still subject to misuse, right? What’s the difference? Understand, I want to sharpen the distinction for you, because this is the point. The difference is that the burning of ordinary prohibitions of benefit is burning so that they won’t remain in my possession and so that I won’t derive benefit from them. The burning of leaven is the fulfillment of the positive commandment of “remove”; it is not part of the prohibition of benefit. There is a special explicit commandment to remove the leaven. Okay? That is different from all other prohibitions of benefit. In such a situation this is neither from the category of things to be buried nor from the category of things to be burned, and it is not connected at all to the whole passage about things burned and things buried. Here there is a special positive commandment to eliminate the leaven. How to eliminate it? According to Rabbi Yehuda, only by burning—he derives it from leftover sacrificial meat, it doesn’t matter—and according to the Sages, by any way you see fit, but you eliminate the leaven in whatever way. What has now been introduced—understand—is that contrary to what I said until now, namely that according to the Sages what they disagree with Rabbi Yehuda about is that the commandment of “remove” is a result-commandment, meaning just make sure you don’t have leaven, the novelty now is: no, even the Sages agree with what Sivan said earlier, that even the Sages agree there is an active commandment to perform an act of destruction on the leaven. They just argue that the way to do it is not only by burning but by any way you see fit. What’s the practical implication of that? That obviously it is permitted to burn it, because burning is one of the methods—perhaps even the most preferred one—for carrying out the act of destruction. Consequently, if it is permitted to burn it—not only permitted to burn it but one must burn it—then what about the ashes? Permitted, right? Because its commandment has been fulfilled. So why does Maimonides write that it is forbidden? Because he is talking about coals, not ashes. That is what these later authorities say, and indeed the ashes would be permitted. And then it comes out like this: according to Maimonides, unlike the Tur—and I’m saying both are speaking according to the Sages—the Tur, according to the opinion of the Sages, how does he classify the prohibition of leaven? As something in the category of things to be buried. Therefore according to his view, according to the Sages it is forbidden to burn the leaven, right? And the ashes should be forbidden, right? So with leaven—then what is the commandment of “remove” according to the Tur? Make sure you don’t have leaven, right? He understood the Sages the way we learned them at the beginning: that they disagree with Rabbi Yehuda and hold that there is no commandment to perform an active act of destruction; you just need to make sure you don’t have leaven, right? So if that’s the case, leaven is really in the category of things to be buried; there is no commandment to destroy it, you just need to make sure you don’t have it. So the duplication with the prohibition is duplication of the first kind: a prohibition and a positive commandment with the same content. That is how the Tur understood it. Maimonides did not understand it that way. Maimonides claims that the positive commandment of “remove” is a commandment to perform an active act of destruction. If so, then it has nothing at all to do with the whole issue of things buried and things burned. The Tur is mistaken when he ties Maimonides to that issue; the Tur is not right, it is incorrect. When Maimonides rules in accordance with the Sages, it is not that he is saying this belongs to the category of things to be buried—that’s a mistake. He is saying it has no connection to the issue of things buried and things burned at all, because here the action I perform is not treatment of prohibitions of benefit; the action I perform is fulfilling the positive commandment of “remove,” and that does not exist in any other prohibition of benefit—a commandment to eliminate it. Okay? And since that is so, here obviously it is permitted—our versions even read “also,” which is what Maimonides reads—so you can both burn and crumble and scatter to the wind and throw into the sea, in whatever way you want, as long as you are performing an act of destruction. And therefore when you burned it, you fulfilled the commandment of “remove”; its commandment has been fulfilled, so not only is it permitted to burn it, but the ashes too are permitted. So what does Maimonides say is forbidden? Only the coals, not the ashes. Contrary to what the Tur understood in Maimonides—the Tur understood in Maimonides that the ashes are forbidden. Not true. The ashes are permitted; the coals are forbidden. What’s the logic?

[Speaker B] As long as there are still coals, that’s still not called destruction?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, apparently. That’s a different novelty; we won’t get into it here, but yes, that’s what Maimonides says.

[Speaker F] But why is that? Because coals are a stage before ash, meaning it still hasn’t become ash?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ash is dust. Coals mean the bread is charred, but it still has the form of bread; it hasn’t yet been destroyed. So you can’t say it’s already no longer the leaven, that it’s already some other substance, okay? It’s still the leaven; it’s just very burned. Ash is already not bread; it’s just dust, something else.

[Speaker F] Does that mean, according to this, that according to Maimonides, let’s say that we—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In principle, if you were doing the destruction by burning, you are absolutely right. It has to reach the point where it is ash. And therefore Maimonides says that even when you crumble it to the wind or throw it into the sea, first crumble it. It is not enough just to throw it into the sea. Why? Because you need to consume the leaven entirely. Okay? But what can I say? We nullify the leaven, and that way in any case we already perform the act of destruction, and all the burning is only some kind of rabbinic enhancement, and therefore that is fine. Even if coals remain, that is okay, because you nullified it; so the destruction you already performed, and as for making sure you won’t come to eat it—if it’s coals, you won’t come to eat it, so there is no problem.

[Speaker F] And for Maimonides, doesn’t he only say that it is forbidden to derive benefit from the… to use the coals afterward? Does he say it is forbidden that coals remain? I didn’t see that he emphasized that it is forbidden that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it is forbidden to use them. Why? Because I ask: why is it forbidden to use the coals? It is forbidden to use the coals because that is not called destruction. So if that is not called destruction, then obviously it is also forbidden to leave coals. Okay? It simply follows from his words. It’s not that he explicitly writes it.

[Speaker H] Can I ask a halakhic question? If Maimonides says that the commandment of “remove” is to destroy or crumble or scatter into the sea and so on, then where did the idea of verbal nullification come from? How do I fulfill “remove” by nullifying verbally?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The assumption is that if you nullify the leaven, that too is an act of destruction. That is another one of the actions you can take.

[Speaker H] And does that appear in Maimonides? I saw there that he says three things.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only in Maimonides, it appears in the Talmudic text. It is ruled by all… “Let him nullify it in his heart and that is sufficient.” Everyone agrees on that.

[Speaker H] So how does he not mention it in the same context? Nullification doesn’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the point is that before the time of its destruction arrives, you can nullify it. After it is already prohibited, you cannot nullify it. You nullify it beforehand. Once the time of prohibition has arrived, then it’s either crumble and scatter to the wind or burn; there is no other way. You cannot nullify leaven after it is no longer yours. You can nullify leaven that is yours. You cannot nullify leaven that is not yours.

[Speaker F] And according to this, the question still remains: if you nullified the leaven, let’s say before the time, how can I burn it? What is the meaning of burning it at all? What for? What is that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said: only so that you won’t come to eat it.

[Speaker F] So basically with “it shall not be seen and it shall not be found,” I’m already not there anymore, meaning with respect to that possibility I won’t violate it, but it could still be that I eat someone else’s leaven, so to speak.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A rabbinic concern. No—even your own.

[Speaker F] Why? But I nullified it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You nullified it, but it is still with you. You nullified it, but it is nullified while still in your possession, and you could come to eat it. Therefore they tell you to burn it.

[Speaker F] Right, so that means I could violate eating it, but not “it shall not be seen and it shall not be found,” once I nullified it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. Not only that—you also fulfilled “remove.” It’s not only that with respect to “it shall not be seen and it shall not be found”; you also fulfilled “remove.” But here we are speaking about a situation where I did not nullify before Passover. No—I didn’t nullify, I just cleaned the house, there is no leaven in the house. Suddenly in the sixth hour I discover leaven. So I didn’t nullify. Nowadays everyone nullifies just to be safe, and all these issues become theoretical problems. But let’s say someone did not nullify, so the obligation of “remove” still rests on him, right? He discovered leaven. He needs to destroy the leaven. How do you do that? According to Maimonides, either burning or crumbling to the wind or scattering into the sea. Okay? And then of course you really would need to burn it until even coals are not left, only ash. Because if there was no nullification at the outset, then that is the way to destroy it.

[Speaker J] Now, another totally theoretical question. If I crumbled it completely, or even chemically somehow the leaven dissolved, then could it be that according to Maimonides it would be permitted for benefit?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, because then it simply is not in the normal manner of benefiting from it. Obviously if you pour bleach on it, that is complete nullification. That is complete destruction. Now I just want to finish, because this has really taken me longer than I thought it would. There’s a passage from Rabbi Chaim. I marked it. “And it appears in this that Rabbi Akiva Eiger raised a difficulty on the Tur.” Rabbi Akiva Eiger actually has difficulty with the Tur’s opinion, not with Maimonides’ opinion. Why? Because he wrote—the Tur wrote—that according to Rabbi Yehuda, for leaven whose commandment is by burning, its ashes are permitted, like all things that must be burned, whose ashes are permitted. And according to the Sages, whose destruction is by any method, its ashes are forbidden, like things that must be buried. We saw that, right? That is the Tur. And Rabbi Akiva Eiger raised a difficulty on this: according to what Tosafot wrote, that the reason the ashes of things that are burned are permitted while the ashes of things that are buried are forbidden is because with things that are burned there is a commandment in their burning, and therefore their commandment has been fulfilled, and therefore it is permitted to derive benefit from the ashes. Whereas with things that are buried there is no commandment at all in their burial. Rabbi Akiva Eiger asks: if so, with leaven, where even if its destruction is by any method there is still the commandment of “remove,” then its ashes should have to be permitted according to everyone. What is this? He takes the answer we gave regarding Maimonides and says that it is not an answer. You can’t say otherwise. How can the Tur even dare to disagree with this conception? This is a conception… We said that Maimonides was difficult, and the Tur was obviously simple. We resolved Maimonides. What was the resolution? That there is a commandment of “remove” regarding leaven. Leaven does not belong to the issue of things buried and things burned because there is an explicit commandment to destroy the leaven. So if I burn it, I have fulfilled the commandment of destruction and the ashes should be permitted. Right? That is how I resolved Maimonides. Rabbi Akiva Eiger says: these are not resolutions. The Torah says “remove.” What kind of resolutions are these for Maimonides? There is a positive commandment to destroy the leaven. How can the Tur ignore such a thing? How can the Tur say that leaven belongs to the category of things to be buried, and therefore if I burned it, it was forbidden to burn it, and if I burned it, its ashes are forbidden? After all, there is a positive commandment of “remove.” How is that positive commandment fulfilled? What do you answer?

[Speaker F] I don’t understand why he finds it hard to say that the positive commandment is also fulfilled when you throw it into the sea. What’s the problem? Like, in terms of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously it is fulfilled also when you throw it into the sea, but it is also fulfilled by burning.

[Speaker J] So the ashes should be permitted.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because according to the Tur—

[Speaker J] They understand the commandment in a different way. In what way? That there is only a commandment that you not have leaven, and not an action-commandment that you need to perform.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly right. We have come back to the whole game. Rabbi Akiva Eiger assumes that the commandment is a commandment about the act of destroying, and he argues that given that assumption, no one can disagree with that; it cannot be that the Tur says otherwise, after all there is the commandment of “remove.” But in light of what I said at the beginning of the class, we don’t need to get to that. The Tur remains with the view that the commandment of “remove” means make sure there is no leaven, or perhaps it is even just a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment—there is no commandment to destroy at all. Only if you have leaven have you nullified the positive commandment of “remove.” And then of course the laws of leaven are connected to the issue of things buried and things burned, and Rabbi Yehuda holds that it belongs to the category of things burned, while the rabbis hold that it belongs to the category of things buried, and everything the Tur says is correct. The foundation of the dispute, as I said before, is this: according to the Tur, the commandment of “remove” is only a commandment that you not have leaven, while according to Maimonides it is a commandment to perform an active act of destruction. And then all the difficulties are resolved, both according to the Tur and according to Maimonides. Rabbi Chaim brings in further complications here, and there are more and more complications piled on top of each other. It’s a wonderful topic in terms of its complexity, but it seems to me that we’ll stop here; these are the main points. Now if there are questions, I’m stopping the sharing. If there are questions, then you’re welcome.

[Speaker J] The Shulchan Arukh, in fact, rules like Maimonides.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, yes yes, I said that. Is that it?

[Speaker E] Rabbi, will you send the summary?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll send the summary, and I’ll also send a recording and a link to the recording in the cloud. There’s both an audio recording and a link to the Zoom recording in the cloud.

[Speaker K] Just—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sometimes it takes days until it arrives. But…

[Speaker K] Just one small thing: it’s Elisa’s birthday today. So happy birthday and mazal tov to Elisa.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Mazal tov, Elisa. Mazal tov, Elisa. Mazal tov, Elisa.

[Speaker K] Mazal tov, Elisa.

[Speaker L] Mazal tov. I didn’t know. Mazal tov, Elisa. Mazal tov. Mazal tov. Mazal tov, Elisa. Still, still.

[Speaker D] You see, Elisa, luckily it’s only according to the secular calendar.

[Speaker L] We’re going to eat refreshments, come on.

[Speaker I] Today is a birthday, today is a birthday, today is Elisa’s birthday.

[Speaker D] A happy holiday for her and a blooming bouquet for her, today is Elisa’s birthday.

[Speaker H] Where’s the cake? Where’s the—

[Speaker I] cake?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re meeting on Friday, we’re waiting for the cake.

[Speaker I] Mazal tov, mazal tov! Thank you very much, mazal tov.

[Speaker M] I’m going into the chat now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m going into the chat now. Whoever wants can stay. I’ll answer the chat verbally.

[Speaker M] Will we get a summary? There is a summary, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything will be sent, God willing.

[Speaker M] Thank you very much, bye, Sabbath peace.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you very much, Sabbath peace. I’ll answer Iris verbally in the chat. First question: in Grace after Meals one is not obligated… okay, so I explained. I explained that fringes and Grace after Meals are conditional positive commandments. That is not a merely existential commandment. If the circumstances occur—I ate to satiety, or I wore a four-cornered garment—then the positive commandment applies to me, and it applies in a positive way. If I did not do it, then I have neglected the commandment. Therefore it is not an existential commandment, because it can be neglected.

[Speaker B] Rabbi, I have a question regarding leaven.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t the difference between a positive commandment and a prohibition also show itself in punishment and reward? Of course it does. A prohibition carries punishment in a religious court. Not in the heavenly court—that’s not our issue. But in an earthly religious court there is punishment for a prohibition and no punishment for a positive commandment, certainly. Is a conditional positive commandment an existential one? The answer is no; that’s what I explained earlier. An existential commandment cannot be neglected; a conditional positive commandment can. If the circumstances occurred and I did not do it, I neglected it. Thank you, dear. Rabbi?

[Speaker B] Yes. I have a question—it’s not related to the class, but it is related to leaven.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So one second, I’m just going through the questions here, and okay, stay a moment for… you know what, if you want to ask, ask now if you want me to free you up. Yes.

[Speaker B] I make natural soap in which I use oat flakes, but it is certainly not fit for eating because it’s with acid, with a very strong base, but you can still see the oat flakes. Is it permitted to use this on Passover? Their form is visible? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can see their form? They are not fit for eating? You can’t take out a flake like that and eat it?

[Speaker B] No, no, impossible. And no one would want to eat it either, because everything there is spoiled due to the strong chemicals.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There? Meaning those chemicals also get into the flakes themselves? Yes. Then strictly speaking there is no prohibition in it; I think there is no prohibition in it.

[Speaker B] Okay, thank you. Okay, Sabbath peace.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Four, the difference between a situation where I have no leaven versus where I actively remove the leaven—object and person—I answered that; that’s what Idit asked in your name during the class. If a woman wears a garment with three corners, does she not neglect a positive commandment? A three-cornered garment—nobody neglects a positive commandment, because it is not obligated in fringes. A four-cornered garment—if a woman wears it, she is not obligated in fringes because it is a positive commandment dependent on time, so she does not neglect the positive commandment. Six, is there any connection between the commandment of destruction whose purpose is to remove, and the verb from the same root meaning to clear away? Obviously. To clear away means to eliminate the thing, “as one clears dung away completely,” in the Talmudic text in Bava Kamma. Anything forbidden to eat… therefore Rabbi Yehuda spoke about burning—that is a different matter, because “destruction” is not the language of the Torah. So that is not an explanation of why Rabbi Yehuda spoke about burning. If the Torah had written the term “destruction,” I could say that Rabbi Yehuda learned from here that one needs to burn, because the Torah said to clear away. But the Torah does not speak about clearing away; the Torah speaks about removing, and therefore that is not related to Rabbi Yehuda. Seven, does anything that is prohibited for benefit become permitted for benefit after its commandment has been fulfilled? Are there other examples of that rule? So I gave, for example, sacred offerings: after the blood has been sprinkled and its commandment has been fulfilled, the prohibition of benefit falls away. Perhaps according to Maimonides, his whole view according to the Sages is that this includes burning and therefore also allows burning? Okay, question eight—that is what I said at the end of the class. That is correct. That is Maimonides’ conception, and that is how I ultimately explained him. Okay, so I think that’s it. Anything else?

[Speaker F] Thank you very much, Sabbath peace.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, goodbye, Sabbath peace.

[Speaker N] Thank you, goodbye, bye.