Tractate Sotah – Chapter 5 – Lesson 11 – Rabbi Michael Avraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, let’s just open with one comment. Today I uploaded a column on my website. It deals with the meaning of warning and seclusion in the case of a sotah. This is exactly what we spoke about in the first lessons, and it came up from time to time in later lessons too. My claim was that usually we understand warning and seclusion as serving the purpose of creating circumstantial grounds. Meaning, if he warned her and then she secluded herself, that arouses suspicion that maybe she committed adultery. And so the need for warning and seclusion is to establish the suspicion, to create a meaningful doubt. Even in order to have doubt, you need a reason; we don’t just randomly suspect a woman of adultery, right? You need something to arouse that suspicion, that doubt. But we saw there from several places that this is apparently not all it does. For example, I spoke about the issue of an open entrance in the Talmud in Ketubot, where the husband complains about his wife that he found an open entrance, and the question is whether she loses her ketubah, whether she becomes prohibited to him. That depends on various doubts: doubt whether it was while she was under him or before him, doubt whether it was under coercion or willingly, and that becomes a double doubt. Therefore it’s okay; he can’t make her lose her ketubah. But if it is clear that it happened while she was under him and the only question is whether it was under coercion or willingly—let’s say that’s one doubt—so for example if he betrothed her before the age of three, or whatever, or if he is a kohen and then I don’t care whether it was under coercion or willingly, then in such a case it is one doubt. And then he can indeed make the claim of an open entrance. So I asked there: if that’s really so, then the doubt by which she becomes prohibited to him because she committed adultery is a doubt of impurity, not a doubt of prohibition. Like in sotah, right? A woman who committed adultery—the doubt regarding her is a doubt of impurity, not a doubt of prohibition. But in doubtful impurity there is no difference between one doubt and a double doubt. If it is in a private domain, both are impure; in a public domain, both are pure. So why does the Talmud there distinguish between one doubt and a double doubt? It’s like Tosafot’s question in Bava Kamma 11—I spoke about it in the first or second lesson—about the placenta, about the rule that there is no placenta without a fetus. In any case, that was the question. Then we saw that Rashba actually asks this; it’s brought there in the Shittah in Ketubot. His answer is a strange one, but it seems to me that the more reasonable answer, what I said there, is that in the case of a woman after warning and seclusion—why in sotah is this considered a doubt of impurity and not a doubt of prohibition? So I said: because a sotah is “she has betrayed her husband.” And betrothal has some dimension or aspect of holiness. And when she harms that holiness, that is called impurity. By contrast, the impurity of a woman after childbirth or a menstruant has nothing to do with injury to maritality; it’s simply a normal state. The reason she becomes prohibited to her husband is not because she harmed the bond of betrothal between them; she is prohibited to everyone, not only to her husband. In such a state it is forbidden to have sexual relations with her. So that’s the Avnei Nezer that I cited. The claim, then, is that specifically in sotah it is a doubt of impurity and not a doubt of prohibition. In a woman after childbirth or a menstruant it would be a doubt of prohibition like any other prohibition.

[Speaker B] But with a menstruant it’s a doubt of impurity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so with respect to impurity, it will indeed be treated like doubtful impurity. But with respect to the prohibition of a menstruant to her husband, it will be treated like a doubt of prohibition. That’s what Tosafot says in Bava Kamma 11. They come together, but not always. That’s what Tosafot says. If there is a double doubt in a private domain, then from the standpoint of the prohibition to her husband she would be permitted, because it’s a doubt of prohibition. From the standpoint of impurity she would be impure, because it’s a double doubt of impurity in a private domain. Or in a single doubt in a public domain, the opposite: from the standpoint of impurity she would not be impure, but from the standpoint of the prohibition to her husband, since it’s a doubt of prohibition, she would indeed be prohibited. That’s exactly what Tosafot says there in Bava Kamma 11. Now, that brings back the question of the open entrance once again. She in fact committed adultery while under him; she “betrayed her husband.” That ought to be treated as a doubt of impurity and not a doubt of prohibition, right? So I explained that no. Why? Because in order to define it as impurity, as an injury to marital relations, there has to be warning and seclusion. The warning and seclusion are not intended only to create circumstantial grounds for concern that maybe she was defiled; rather, the very fact that he warned her and she violated that warning, his admonition, and secluded herself—that itself is the injury to the marital bond between them. That is the “she has betrayed her husband.” And therefore only when there is warning and seclusion is it a doubt of impurity. But in the case of an open entrance, although it’s also adultery, if there was no warning and seclusion, then there is the prohibition of adultery, but there is no injury to maritality. The injury to maritality is only when she goes against her husband’s warning, and therefore it is judged as a doubt of prohibition. There he elaborates on this at length, and that is his principle. He brings various proofs for it, and one proof—this completes something I said once before, but it’s interesting because I saw it yesterday—is that Maimonides writes in one place that a woman awaiting levirate marriage—yes, a woman whose husband died without children, so she is obligated to levirate marriage with her husband’s brother, and he has not yet performed levirate marriage with her, and now she committed adultery. The question is whether she becomes prohibited to the surviving brother, because there is some kind of marital bond between her and the surviving brother. So if she committed adultery, maybe that prohibits her to the surviving brother, like a married woman. In practice Maimonides rules that it does not. She does not become prohibited to the surviving brother, all right? Meaning, he can still perform levirate marriage with her afterward. On what basis? What do you mean?

[Speaker C] On the basis of her bond to the surviving brother, or on the basis that she’s not considered married, basically? What’s the difference? No—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As though she’s not considered married, and therefore there is no bond.

[Speaker C] On the basis that her prohibition in general isn’t all that severe, and that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The severity of the prohibition is a different discussion. I’m asking whether it prohibits her to the surviving brother.

[Speaker C] No, but maybe because the fact that she committed adultery isn’t all that severe, so that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —it doesn’t prohibit her even to the surviving brother. Not because it isn’t severe, but because a bond with a surviving brother is not maritality.

[Speaker C] That’s one option. I’m saying it could also be because—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —because it’s not such a severe act… Why isn’t it such a severe act? Because this is not maritality. That’s the same… On the one hand, that’s how Maimonides rules. On the other hand, Maimonides rules that if a woman awaiting levirate marriage—the potential surviving brother warns her, tells her don’t seclude yourself, and she did seclude herself—then she becomes prohibited to him. Now that’s amazing, because if there was definite intercourse, then she does not become prohibited, right? Now if there is warning and seclusion, what is that? At most it creates a doubt that maybe there was intercourse. But in the case of actual certain intercourse she does not become prohibited. So why should I care that there is doubt whether she had intercourse? Even if I know she had intercourse, she does not become prohibited. How can you say that in such a case she does become prohibited? Beit HaLevi says: this is excellent, a wonderful proof. She becomes prohibited because of the warning and seclusion. Meaning, why does she not become prohibited there? She doesn’t become prohibited there because there was no “she has betrayed her husband,” right? But if there was warning and seclusion, then she acted against the warning—that’s betrayal. Exactly. And then, in effect, she will be prohibited, and this will also be a doubt of impurity and not a doubt of prohibition, everything we’ve been saying. Meaning, a state of certain intercourse will not be treated at all as impurity, but as prohibition. But if there was warning and seclusion, then although it is a doubt, it is a doubt of impurity, not a doubt of prohibition, okay? Since there is here an act of betrayal of her husband. By the way, if it later turns out that she did not have intercourse? Then she would be permitted—it doesn’t matter that she violated the warning and secluded herself. It’s not that warning and seclusion by themselves prohibit her. But a doubt created as a result of warning and seclusion is more severe than certainty. True, if in the end it turns out that she did not have intercourse, then no. How do I know that? Because even in an actual sotah case, if it turns out that she was not defiled, then she becomes permitted again to her husband, right? So it can’t be worse than the sotah of a married woman, even with warning and seclusion. Okay? Therefore it’s clear that in the end there has to be some concern about intercourse, because ultimately violating her husband’s will, the warning, matters only if she either had intercourse or there is concern that she had intercourse. If that concern is removed, then the seclusion itself is not considered betrayal of her husband. Okay? But if there was betrayal, or at least concern about intercourse, then the fact that she secluded herself against the warning turns this into impurity and not prohibition.

[Speaker C] But that’s no longer fundamentally because—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —she’s a married woman—

[Speaker C] —that there is some bond between her and her husband? What? It has to be some bond, yes, obviously—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Otherwise what—

[Speaker C] For example, just saying, suppose she accepted upon herself all those things that… for example there’s such a law of a woman designated to him. Is that what’s being discussed here? Or just that they’re together and so on? Ah, you mean just some sort of concubine? Yes. At that level, if he warned her and she then committed adultery, would there be impurity here? I don’t think so. How solid does the basis have to be?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think there’s any significance here. No law of sotah would apply here, this is not… they don’t have… it’s not… I don’t think there is halakhic significance in the sense of Noahide marriage, not in the halakhic sense. There is no betrothal here; it’s not betrothal.

[Speaker C] But the significance is that… if he warns her, that will cause the fact that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the prohibition to the husband stems from betrothal and not from marriage. Among Noahides there is no prohibition on the husband and on the adulterer if she committed adultery.

[Speaker C] But the bond of a yevamah also comes from the family of marriage—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, never. But it comes from the section dealing with betrothal. The bond is like betrothal, perhaps weaker. And the whole topic of this bond is a complicated sugya in itself, the whole topic there. The question there is what the relationship is between this and betrothal: is it weak betrothal, or how exactly to define the state of the bond before he performs levirate marriage with her? But the claim is that this is some kind of betrothal. There is a bond between him and her. After all, before betrothal, just two single people, there is no bond between them, nothing, no connection at all between them. Fine? Now if someone marries a woman without betrothal, I don’t think there’s room to talk about the laws of sotah here. Or to say that maybe adultery is still not okay even in such a situation, because after all even a Noahide’s wife is forbidden to commit adultery with someone else. Even though there there is only marriage, not betrothal. So for a Jew it won’t be more lenient than for Noahides. But the law of sotah was not said regarding a Noahide.

[Speaker C] It’s obvious that it’s not okay to commit adultery, because the Torah prohibits one who is designated to him; they are designated to one another according to the Torah. Meaning, there is some kind of bond connecting them—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore that’s called some sort of betrothal.

[Speaker C] Yes, just as she is prohibited to others and that’s the name—no, it’s obvious that she is prohibited to others.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not the question. The question is whether she becomes prohibited to him. She is forbidden to have relations with others. That’s also true for an ordinary married Jewish woman: she is forbidden to have relations with others. But if she did have relations, she does not become prohibited to him. Yes?

[Speaker E] But the bond with the surviving brother is not like the bond with a husband. Because all the marriage here exists only in potential; it could be that in the end he won’t perform levirate marriage.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s a kind of weak betrothal.

[Speaker E] But it’s not exactly like husband and wife.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, and that’s why the discussion arises. But for this matter it is like that. That’s what he says. That’s the claim.

[Speaker E] Like a husband and wife who are married.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For warning and seclusion, yes.

[Speaker D] What about Noahide marriages? What’s the Jewish claim there really?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s a whole topic I’m not going to get into here. The claim is what Maimonides says at the beginning of the laws of marriage: before the giving of the Torah, when two people decide to live together, then they are a couple, that’s it, they start living together. You don’t need to precede that with betrothal by money, document, intercourse, and all the halakhic details. My claim—and I wrote this, and maybe also spoke about it at some point, I don’t remember—is that this exists in Israel too. Meaning, if two people decide to live together, then it’s not according to the law of Moses and Israel, she is not betrothed, but there is between them a bond like a Noahide marriage.

[Speaker F] Yes, according to the Rema it’s permitted—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the question whether it’s permitted or not is a different question. At minimum it’s a neglect of the positive commandment of betrothal. I don’t think it’s easy to accept complete permission here. The question how to relate to a concubine or something like that is a question… And intercourse? What if there is concern that there was betrothal through intercourse if they live together and there were witnesses to the intercourse? Then that’s a question, yes. In simple terms you need witnesses. You can say no; you can say that the witnesses to seclusion are the witnesses to intercourse—after all, we’re all witnesses that they secluded themselves. So there are arguments that maybe there was betrothal here. The question is whether they did it for the sake of betrothal—that is, whether they intended to effect betrothal. Even if there was intercourse, not certain; they didn’t want betrothal, the proof being that they didn’t do it that way. What are we talking about with Noahides?

[Speaker D] Civil marriage?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, civil marriage?

[Speaker D] Yes, so what’s the argument? Rabbi Feinstein says that this is not considered marriage from the standpoint of the law, while the other view is Rabbi Kotler or Rabbi Henkin, that it is considered marriage.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, there you can say this is marriage according to the religion because there may actually be real betrothal there—betrothal through intercourse. Meaning, he had intercourse with her, and the witnesses to seclusion are the witnesses to intercourse. We know that they are together and they live together, so there is such a presumption that they also had intercourse. And if there was intent for betrothal, there is room to see this as betrothal. But in simple terms, in such a case there is no intent for betrothal, and therefore I… it’s a strange thing. But to say that there is Noahide marriage here—that you can say.

[Speaker C] That could apply today to every secular couple that has lived together for many years. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even if they secluded themselves together after they separated—they went to an inn and met there together—there the question arises, because there maybe he really does intend to effect betrothal.

[Speaker F] But I heard that a bill of divorce is required according to… two single people, a man and woman, who lived together?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but I’m saying there is no place for a bill of divorce at all in such a case. Rabbi Dichovsky wanted to argue that a bill of divorce is required because of Noahide marriage. There’s a whole organized construction around this, but it simply has no logic at all. No logic at all. Meaning, it’s Noahide marriage; Noahide marriage doesn’t require a bill of divorce. You dissolve it the same way you create it: they just go home, that’s it. Okay, this is just a completion to that earlier lesson. So what we actually see is again that warning and seclusion play some role beyond creating the doubt. Meaning, beyond the fact that they create circumstantial grounds that there really was intercourse. Rather, the very fact that he warned her and she secluded herself constitutes betrayal of a married woman. And therefore warning and seclusion have some status that turns this into a status of impurity or betrayal of holiness, of… this is the status of sotah. Meaning, without warning and seclusion there is no status of sotah. Sotah is not just ordinary doubt of adultery. Usually people understand sotah as doubt of adultery, meaning simply that we don’t know whether she committed adultery or not, and everything is just laws of doubt, with the Torah’s novelty being that despite this being a case of doubt she still becomes prohibited, and all we discussed was whether the novelty is that this doubt is treated like certainty or whatever exactly the novelty is. I say no—this is the section of sotah. Now, returning to our topic: in the previous lesson we saw that there are two limitations on the comparison between sotah and impurity. Not limitations exactly, but conditions that emerge from the comparison between sotah and impurity. We know that just as in the case of doubt concerning sotah we rule stringently in a private domain, so too with impurity. But with two conditions. One condition is that it must be in a private domain and not a public domain; doubt in a public domain is pure. The second condition is that it be “subject to inquiry.” Just as a sotah is a human being and there is intelligence to be asked, so too we require that impurity be a situation in which there is intelligence to be asked. Meaning, there is someone to ask whether impurity occurred here or not. The one who became impure himself, or someone who was there, can be asked. So only if it is subject to inquiry do we say that doubtful impurity is ruled stringently. And the summary that our Talmud gives is that in a public domain, in every case, a doubt is ruled leniently, whether or not it is subject to inquiry. In a private domain, if it is subject to inquiry, its doubt is impure; if it is not subject to inquiry, its doubt is pure. Or in other words, the laws of doubtful impurity were said only when both requirements are met: it is both in a private domain and subject to inquiry. If one of them is missing, then we return to the ordinary laws of doubt. Okay, that’s what we saw in the previous lesson. I also said that on the face of it this is presented as if it were a kind of scriptural decree: just as in sotah we know there is “subject to inquiry” because it’s a woman, and it’s in a private domain, so too with impurity—what you derive from, as the phrase goes. Meaning, just as there it’s only under these two conditions, so too here. So I asked: then why, if someone is in doubt whether he became impure, don’t we make him drink the waters of the sotah? Suppose someone is in doubt whether he touched a creeping thing. We don’t know. So let’s have him drink the sotah waters and see whether he touched the creeping thing or not. We’re making an analogy to sotah, aren’t we? So just as in sotah we deal with the doubtful situation, so too in doubtful impurity from a creeping thing we should do the same. Why not? Or why shouldn’t we say that impurity from a creeping thing applies only to women, just as sotah applies only to a woman?

[Speaker B] If the goal is like Rabbi Shimon, that they want her to confess, then that doesn’t apply to impurity. I understand. According to Rabbi Shimon the goal of making her drink is so that the woman will confess. Okay. Meaning, there’s some purpose to the drinking, whereas in ordinary impurity there is no purpose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even better—you’re only strengthening the question. Meaning, in the end what I basically want to argue is that this cannot be only a formal analogy. If it were only a formal analogy, I have a whole pile of laws to transfer from sotah to impurity: that it applies only to women, that you have to solve the doubtful case by drinking water, a million things; that you need warning and seclusion before impurity from a creeping thing. I could have copied all kinds of requirements from there. We compare it only with respect to “subject to inquiry” and private domain. Why? Why specifically those two? Fine, that’s really the claim. There must be some logic behind these requirements. Contrary to the common view that if I have a derivation from a verse then apparently there is no logic in it—the exact opposite is true. There must be logic in it. Not only is there logic in it, or maybe there is logic in it—there must be logic in it. Because if there weren’t logic in it, they wouldn’t derive this. They could have derived a thousand other things. “You shall fear the Lord your God”—to include Torah scholars. Why not include doves? Because it’s not logical. Meaning, I’m including from the word “et”; it’s not pure reasoning, I’m including. It’s an inclusion from the word “et.” But I still need reasoning to tell me what to include and what not to include. So too with the kal va-chomer we make from sotah to a creeping thing. Fine, I have a derivation; kal va-chomer is one of the interpretive principles by which the Torah is expounded. I have a kal va-chomer. But still, I learn from there specifically these limitations. Why these and not others? Apparently there is some kind of logic behind it. An interesting question is what that logic is. Why? Why is it really important that it be subject to inquiry? Why is it really important that it be in a private domain? Okay. And why are these things transferred to impurity? Why do we also require these two conditions there? Let’s look at Maimonides on the Mishnah in Taharot. Yes, yes, wow. So the Mishnah in Taharot says as follows: a deaf-mute, an incompetent person, and a minor—wait a second, okay, all right—a deaf-mute, an incompetent person, and a minor who were found in an alley in which there is impurity—Mishnah in Taharot chapter 3—these are presumed pure. And any competent person is presumed impure. And anything that is not subject to inquiry, its doubt is pure. “Not subject to inquiry” basically means the deaf-mute, the incompetent person, and the minor; the question why that formulation is repeated is not important right now, but that’s what the Mishnah says. Meaning, if we are in an alley, which is a private domain, yes, and we are in doubt, then a deaf-mute, incompetent person, and minor, who are not subject to inquiry, we do not rule stringently in the case of doubt—they are presumed pure. But a competent person found there is presumed impure. And in general, anything not subject to inquiry, its doubt is pure. So again, these are basically the laws I mentioned before: in order to rule stringently in doubtful impurity, it must be both in a private domain and subject to inquiry. Okay. Maimonides says: “We have already explained many times that doubtful impurity in a private domain is impure, and in a public domain it is pure. And we know this from sotah, for if she secluded herself with a man in a private domain she becomes prohibited to her husband. And the matter is one of doubt, since at times she had intercourse and at times not, therefore there is doubt there. And this is as He, may He be blessed, said: ‘and she was hidden away, and she was defiled’—behold this teaches that every doubtful impurity in a private domain is impure. And on condition that the one to whom this doubt arose be subject to inquiry and be able to answer verbally.”

[Speaker H] Very good, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “However, one who is not subject to inquiry—even if it be in a private domain—his doubt is pure. For we know that doubtful impurity in a private domain is impure from sotah, who has intelligence and it is possible to ask her directly, and she would tell us whether she had intercourse, and she would answer about this, and then we would judge her doubt as impure. And anyone who has intelligence and can be asked whether he became impure or not—his doubt in a private domain is impure. And therefore, according to this principle, he said that if a deaf-mute, an incompetent person, or a minor are found in an alley in which there is impurity, they are pure, even though the alley is a private domain.” The alley is a private domain, so why, when the doubt concerns a deaf-mute, incompetent person, or minor, are they pure? “And we will not know whether they touched impurity or not, because they have no intelligence. However, a competent person—his doubt in a private domain is impure.” Fine. He’s explaining the Talmud, but there’s something a little odd in what he says here. He comes to explain why this is so, but there is no explanation here. What is he saying? Because we learned it from sotah, and in sotah after all it’s… what’s the explanation? So what if we learned it from sotah? Why not womanhood? Why shouldn’t we say that impurity applies only to a woman too? Or that we make someone drink water in a case of doubtful impurity? Everything I said before. It seems that he’s trying to explain something here, right? “For we know doubtful impurity in a private domain from sotah, who has intelligence and can be asked directly.” So what if she has intelligence? Why does that matter? Where’s the explanation here? Meaning, why does that matter at all? Okay. So Maimonides doesn’t actually give us that explanation.

[Speaker C] So this reminds me a bit of something that becomes permitted later, or also a doubt that can be clarified, okay, where I say it’s prohibited because I can clarify it, I can—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then if I ask the woman and the woman tells me that she was not defiled, is that really okay?

[Speaker C] We don’t believe her.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So why should I care that she can be asked? That’s exactly the problem. But that’s not it; that’s exactly the point. It’s not because it can be clarified. Meaning, if the woman says it, you don’t believe her. No—even theoretically you can’t clarify it. Because if you ask the woman, you won’t believe her. So why should I care that she can be asked? By the way, in Maimonides here it sounds like we’re talking about the very person who became impure being subject to inquiry. In other places it seems not necessarily so; rather, the question is whether there is anyone to ask whether an event of impurity happened here or not, not necessarily the person who became impure. That’s another novelty in Maimonides, and I’m not going to get into it here. Maybe it’s connected to what I’m going to say later. In any case, the claim is… meaning, my question is: what’s the explanation? You wanted to explain something—what’s the explanation? I would say the opposite. Meaning, if you tell me that the fact that one can ask the sotah is relevant, that should be a reason to be lenient. Ask her and see what to do. Why would the fact that one can ask her make the law stricter? You can ask her; you ask her and she says she wasn’t defiled, and that becomes a reason to be stricter with her. Meaning, if I couldn’t ask anyone, then I’m lenient. Now I can ask, and she answered, so you could say to me at most: fine, I don’t believe her. Okay, I don’t believe her, so it remains a doubt. But no—I don’t believe her, and that makes the situation stricter than a case where I have no one to ask at all. That’s very strange. What’s the logic behind it?

[Speaker D] Warning and seclusion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? No, warning and seclusion create circumstantial grounds. So you’re telling me the stringency is because of circumstantial grounds—but why do I need “subject to inquiry”? Why does it matter that there is intelligence to be asked here? And why private domain? And she won’t persuade us—that’s what I’m saying, she isn’t believed. Even if she says she didn’t have intercourse, we still carry out the sotah process; she isn’t believed. We don’t ask. We don’t ask.

[Speaker G] And if—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If she can be asked, then these rules of doubtful impurity apply. No, no, we don’t ask her.

[Speaker G] On the other side of the kal va-chomer, maybe you can ask there—meaning in the case of impurity from a creeping thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the question is: in a case where the person can be asked, that’s similar to a sotah. Say, for example, if the creeping creature touched a person, then that’s someone you can ask, so it’s like a sotah, and in the private domain its doubt is impure. Okay, yes, right. And there indeed, if we ask him and he says he did not become impure, then there’s no problem—then he didn’t become impure. We won’t say he’s still suspect; there we really would ask him. So everything is fine, okay. In any case, the claim is—and maybe one preliminary remark before the claim. A first remark: you remember I spoke about this a fortiori inference from creeping-creature impurity to sotah, and I said this is not a kal va-homer in the usual sense. It’s not that the creeping creature is more severe than sotah. Sotah is a prohibition, and creeping-creature impurity isn’t even a prohibition. I said it’s simply easier to apply the law of impurity from a creeping creature than to apply the law of sotah. It’s a comparison between how easy it is to apply the law, not a comparison of leniency and stringency. So if that’s so, then “able to be asked” could also be something that isn’t a problem because it makes it more severe. That’s not the point. It’s just categorical. Meaning, the law applies when there is someone able to be asked. I haven’t explained it yet; I’m just saying: the law applies when there is someone able to be asked, but not that if there is someone able to be asked then it’s more severe. It’s not a matter of more severe. Rather, the category of sotah, or of impurity, applies only in a situation where there is someone able to be asked. But you don’t need to look here for a question of why it’s more severe or more lenient, okay? That’s just an introduction. In any case, the claim is—I want to argue that if in fact there is someone able to be asked, then there is basically a person here who knows the truth, right? There is a person who knows the truth. No—we know that he knows the truth. The woman knows whether she had relations or not, or the person knows whether he touched the creeping creature or did not touch it, okay? He knows the truth. We won’t ask him; I said earlier he won’t be believed, doesn’t matter—but he knows the truth, right? Okay. Why? Because every offender will say he didn’t commit the offense, so what’s the point of asking him? Does that help? More than that—even if she says that yes, she did have relations, we still won’t believe her, because a person cannot render himself wicked. There’s no reason for her even to open her mouth at all; it’s not interesting. But what I’m saying is: the fact that she is able to be asked only means that she is mentally competent. That’s what Maimonides says—that she has intelligence. What does it mean that she has intelligence? It means she knows the truth. It may be that there is such a rule saying: if there is someone in the world who knows the truth, then this is not a real doubt. The doubt is only a doubt from our perspective. We are in doubt because we do not know.

[Speaker J] Subjective and not objective?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Meaning, on the objective level, this information exists with someone. I don’t know it, and I also have no way to extract it—it doesn’t matter—so I’m in doubt. It’s doubt in the person, not doubt in the object. Meaning, the woman herself knows the truth. In such a case, we do not allow leniency. In such a case, we do not allow leniency, so that we won’t be in a situation where there is someone who knows, yes, that there was impurity here, and we will declare that she is not impure, or that the creeping creature is not impure. I think that’s a possible rationale.

[Speaker H] Why—if he says, “I don’t know”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether we believe him that he doesn’t know. He can always say he doesn’t know in order to be lenient, since it works in his favor. We won’t believe him that he doesn’t know. Everything goes by our assessment. Our assessment is that in such a situation you ought to know. If that is the assessment, then it means this information exists with someone; he is mentally competent, as Maimonides says. Therefore I argue: this is Maimonides’ explanation. Maimonides did explain. He explained briefly, and that’s what he explained: since you are mentally competent, that means the information is available to someone. There is some agent here, yes, some human consciousness that knows what the truth is. A deaf-mute, an incompetent person, and a minor are not punished; they are considered not mentally competent. But an adult who is mentally competent knows the truth. We are not willing to permit a doubtful impurity when it is possible that there is impurity here and someone also knows that there is impurity here. We cannot permit such a thing. But if there is no one able to be asked, then the doubt is an objective doubt. No one knows. That minor who “knows” is not regarded as knowing; he lacks mental competence. So no mentally competent person in the world knows the truth here, okay? In such a situation, this is doubt in the completely objective sense. Meaning, there is doubt here; this information does not exist anywhere at all with anyone, except perhaps the Holy One, blessed be He, but the information does not exist in the world. In such a case I allow myself to be lenient with doubt. It’s perhaps a little similar—not exactly, but a little similar—to the difference between an established prohibition and no established prohibition, between one piece out of two pieces and one single piece. Meaning, if I have a piece of meat here and I don’t know whether it is forbidden fat or permitted fat, okay? Then that’s a doubt, a Torah-level doubt requiring stringency; the prohibition against eating forbidden fat is a Torah prohibition. What happens if there are two pieces, one is forbidden fat and one is permitted fat, but I don’t know which is which? Is it permitted to take one and eat it? The answer is no. That too is a doubt, right? Seemingly, in both cases I have a fifty-percent chance it’s forbidden fat and a fifty-percent chance it’s permitted fat. But it turns out that the second doubt, called one piece out of two pieces, is a more severe doubt; one brings a provisional guilt-offering for it. For the doubt of one single piece one does not bring a provisional guilt-offering. Why? What’s the difference? In both cases it’s fifty-fifty. What difference does it make if there is only one piece here? You can still argue, by the way, whether in both cases it’s really fifty-fifty—I spoke about that in other classes—but for present purposes, simply speaking it seems that in both cases it’s fifty percent. So what’s the difference? The difference is that here there is forbidden fat in the mixture. Meaning, there is one piece of forbidden fat and one piece of permitted fat, and the doubt is standing before my eyes. Now I take one piece when clearly the possibility that this is forbidden fat is present here; one of the two possibilities is that I took forbidden fat. In such a case I cannot be lenient, because this doubt has a very strong footing. It’s still fifty-fifty—not that this increases the likelihood that it is forbidden fat; it doesn’t increase the probability. But it makes the probability more significant. It’s not a probability absorbed out of thin air; it is a probability that has a real basis in reality. Yes, like a concrete monetary claim—exactly the same distinction as concrete monetary claim at the beginning of tractate Bava Metzia, okay? Meaning, this is not just some fifty-fifty floating in the air. It’s something where I know there is a fifty-percent chance that I am committing a transgression. And that is not the same as saying: I estimate that there is a fifty-percent chance, but there is no present possibility of a transgression standing before my eyes. So I think one can understand rationally why the first doubt is more severe, certainly in the experiential sense. In the experiential sense, I took a piece that might be forbidden fat and ate it. Here, I took a piece—who knows? Maybe who says it could even be forbidden fat? Maybe yes, maybe no; I know nothing about it. True, theoretically I know nothing, so it could be forbidden fat and it could be permitted fat. But there is no real positive reason to think that maybe I am eating forbidden fat; I only should have worried that maybe yes. Yes, think about this—and maybe I’ll just add this point—think, for example, of a situation where I toss a coin, okay? And I say: you have to bet whether it lands on heads or tails, okay? Now if I know it’s fair, then I’ll bet fifty-fifty, right? Fifty percent on heads. I once saw an article recently saying that no coin in the world is really fifty-fifty. Every coin in the world is always biased toward one side; it doesn’t matter, because of the design on the two sides. But it doesn’t matter—let’s assume it’s fifty-fifty. What? No, not fifty-fifty—it doesn’t depend on the number of tosses. The number of tosses only determines what happens in practice over large numbers. A die or a coin, it doesn’t matter. No, even with a die the number of dots is different. Fine, there is always some slight difference. In any case, there is no object that is completely symmetrical, so not a die either and not—one cannot make it exact, meaning that’s not… So in any case, no—with coins we also know which side it tends toward. Do the experiment and you’ll see: it leans toward heads by fifty-and-epsilon percent. Yes, you see that it’s fifty-something percent, fifty and a little bit. In any case, it doesn’t matter for our purposes. Let’s say I know it is a fair coin, so I bet fifty-fifty. Now suppose I know nothing about the coin. It might be fair and it might not be. It might lean toward heads and it might lean toward tails. I have no idea how much it leans. And now they tell me: you have to bet, gun to your head, you must bet. What would I bet? I would bet fifty-fifty, right? I have no information—what else can I do? Now notice: here the fifty-fifty is not the result of knowledge; it is the result of ignorance. But because the ignorance is complete, all possibilities have equal weight, so I still assign fifty percent to each possibility. In the first case I say it’s fifty-fifty on the basis of positive knowledge: I know the coin is fair. I don’t know what it will land on, but I know the circumstances completely, and the circumstance is that the coin is fair. That is like an established prohibition versus no established prohibition. In the case of an established prohibition, it’s fifty-fifty like a fair coin; the fifty-percent chance is the result of knowledge I have about the situation. I know there is a piece of forbidden fat and a piece of permitted fat; I simply don’t know which one is which. As opposed to the one-piece case, where I have no information at all. I don’t know whether it is forbidden fat or permitted fat. But precisely because I do not know, I assign fifty percent to each possibility—because what else can I do? I have no information. This is complete ignorance. Okay, a veil of ignorance. Fine, so fifty-fifty. But you understand that this fifty-fifty has a different status than the fifty-fifty of one piece out of two pieces. Okay? Or—

[Speaker D] That’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different discussion, the question of the laws of doubt in general. Shimon Shkop talks about this at the beginning of Sha’arei HaYosher, in the section on doubts. What is this prohibition of a Torah-level doubt requiring stringency? Is the prohibition against entering a zone of doubt? Or is it only a warning that if you do violate the prohibition, you won’t be able to say that you were coerced, because you were warned that you may not take risks? Okay? Or—not that it is forbidden, but rather that you are taking a risk and you will be held responsible if it materializes. A practical difference: what happens if you ate, and then it turned out that you ate permitted fat? So if the prohibition is entering a zone of doubt, then you violated a prohibition in any case, because you weren’t allowed to take the risk. But if it is only a warning, then he says: if you ate forbidden fat, you can’t say, “I was coerced”—they warned you that in a doubtful case you need to be careful. But if in the end it turns out you ate permitted fat, then everything is fine. You took a risk and got away with it. Okay? So he talks about that there; he connects it to the dispute between Maimonides and Rashba over whether Torah-level doubt requires stringency by Torah law or only by rabbinic law. But that doesn’t affect this—you can say it both in a case of established doubt and in a case of non-established doubt.

[Speaker C] It’s not connected to an established prohibition. My question is about King Solomon’s ruling. When people say fifty-fifty, that doesn’t really apply in reality as fifty-fifty, because one didn’t give birth to half and the other give birth to half. Rather, I don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not correct. There it is an established prohibition. I always don’t know whether she gave birth to half; the whole doubt is whether she gave birth to all of it or whether she gave birth to all of it. Also with the coin, the doubt is whether it will land only heads or only tails. I ask beforehand, before I toss the coin, what the chance is that this will happen and what the chance is that that will happen. But the events that I am weighing are always complete events. You’re talking about a division that could be true. In the terms of the beginning of Bava Metzia there, yes? That we don’t say “they divide it” unless the division could be true. Meaning, it could really be that the truth is half-half. But that’s not what we’re talking about. I’m talking about a situation where the division cannot be true. And still, I have a fifty-percent chance it’s this, and a fifty-percent chance it’s that. How do I know it’s fifty-fifty? Do I know it from positive information, or do I arrive at fifty-fifty out of ignorance? Okay? That’s the distinction I’m making. Yes. So I think this is a possible explanation, and even in Maimonides it seems to me reasonable to hear this explanation. He says there is intelligence, she has intelligence. So what does it mean that she has intelligence? It means she knows things. There is some agent in the situation, yes? So if he knows, then I am not willing to be lenient in doubts when at least one person knows that in fact I have permitted him to become impure. Okay? That—we don’t do such a thing. That’s the point. Now again, this is not because the doubt becomes more severe. It’s like an established prohibition versus no established prohibition. It’s not that now it’s no longer fifty-fifty but sixty-forty. No—it’s fifty-fifty. But there is a halakhic rule saying that in this kind of fifty-fifty we are more stringent. Okay? That’s the claim. I think that is the reasonable explanation, at least what I found, for this requirement that there be someone able to be asked. But maybe one could say even more than that. You remember that in one of the previous classes I spoke about some article by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, concerning doubtful impurity in the private domain and doubtful impurity in the public domain. There is an article by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman—again, I only heard about it in a lecture; I have never seen it and I haven’t managed to locate it. It’s supposed to be in Marbeh Torah, the journal that came out in Baranovitch, and he edited it.

[Speaker J] I tried to look for it and didn’t find it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You didn’t find it? Yes, I didn’t find it either. I saw Marbeh Torah in Otzar HaChokhmah; I tried looking through the issues there, and I didn’t find it.

[Speaker J] Maybe some AI inside Otzar HaChokhmah will find it for you. I don’t know, maybe.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, Rabbi Schachter said—and I rely on him, meaning he knows what he is talking about, from Yeshiva University—he said that he once saw an article by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman saying that there is a whole list of laws—I mentioned this—there is a whole list of laws that, although they are Torah-level, the rule is that in cases of doubt we go leniently. For example: doubtful mamzer status, doubtful firstborn status, doubtful mourning, doubtful impurity in the public domain, doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel. There are all sorts of cases, a whole list of doubts where the rule is that even though it is Torah-level, the doubt is treated leniently. Leave Maimonides aside for the moment—it comes out rabbinic according to Maimonides—but I’m now talking about the position of most of the medieval authorities, okay? Why is that so? Ah—before asking why is that so. Ran at the end of the first chapter of tractate Kiddushin writes that doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel is permitted. That’s one of the examples. He says I may certainly feed it to someone else. I can take definite orlah—not doubtful orlah—outside the Land of Israel and give it to someone else to eat it. To cause him to stumble in the prohibition of definite orlah. Why? Because he does not know. So for him it is a doubt, and doubtful orlah is permitted. So I have not caused him to stumble in a prohibition, because for him it is permitted. Okay? Now we have to understand: that’s very strange. Because when I cause someone to stumble in eating pig, for example, he won’t say such a thing. Even though with pig too he doesn’t know it’s pig. But I caused him to stumble—I know. Right?

[Speaker D] What are you saying? “Do not place a stumbling block”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Do not place a stumbling block,” yes. And here too he is talking also about “do not place a stumbling block.” When I give someone doubtful orlah to eat, I do not violate “do not place a stumbling block.” Now why not? I know that this is orlah. So what? With pig too he doesn’t know. It is prohibited from his point of view; he does not know. But what? I violated “do not place a stumbling block”—why? Because I do know. I caused him to stumble in the prohibition of pig, not in some “prohibition of doubts” that applies to someone who eats pig. The one who eats pig and doesn’t know—you could say I caused him to stumble in the prohibition of doubtful cases. No, I caused him to stumble in the prohibition of pig. Why the prohibition of pig? It’s a prohibition of doubt; he doesn’t know. No—with pig it’s the prohibition of pig, not a prohibition of doubt. Right?

[Speaker F] But with orlah it’s not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? So Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman says as follows.

[Speaker F] Is it rabbinic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—it is a law given to Moses at Sinai. Doubtful orlah outside the Land of Israel is permitted, but definite orlah outside the Land of Israel is prohibited by Torah law. It is a law given to Moses at Sinai. In any case, the point is that one has to be careful, yes, when going outside the Land of Israel—not to eat orlah. And this is not one of the land-dependent commandments in quite the same sense as other things, tithes, terumah, and so forth. So Rabbi Elchanan says that in all these laws, they are basically awareness-based prohibitions. They are not essential prohibitions. When you eat orlah, the prohibition is not “do not eat orlah.” The prohibition is to eat something that you know is orlah. It is an awareness-based prohibition on the state in which, in your consciousness, you understand that you are eating orlah. That is the prohibition. And therefore, if I now cause someone to stumble who does not know this is orlah, then he did not violate a doubtful prohibition—he violated no prohibition at all. Because in his consciousness he did not know it was orlah. Consequently, I also did not violate “do not place a stumbling block,” because I did not cause him to stumble in a prohibition. It’s not like pig. With pig, the prohibition is an object-based prohibition, meaning I am forbidden to eat pig. If I do not know, that is a reason to mitigate my punishment; but as far as the prohibition is concerned, the prohibition on eating pig is not awareness-based. If I do not know, that is a consideration to reduce punishment. But with orlah, the knowledge is part of the definition of the prohibition. It is not only part of the considerations of punishment; it is part of the definition of the prohibition—whether there was an offense here at all. The claim is that if there is no awareness that one is eating orlah, there is no offense. Not merely that one doesn’t deserve punishment. The offense is eating something while aware that it is orlah. Different—

[Speaker F] Because eventually the orlah fruit will become just ordinary fruit after such-and-such time?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know why. That’s what the verse implies. But that’s how it is; that’s the law. Okay? The same thing with a mamzer, too. According to him, I may take a girl who is definitely a mamzer and match her with someone and dance at the wedding, marry them off and dance at the wedding—when for him it is doubtful, and a doubtful mamzer is permitted by Torah law. Rabbinically, they imposed an added stringency in matters of lineage. But by Torah law a doubtful mamzer is permitted. See Kiddushin. Okay? In principle, I am allowed to set someone up with a girl who is definitely a mamzer. Definitely—I know for certain that she is a mamzer. As long as he does not know. Why? What kind of category is that? What is inside the category? What is the rule here?

[Speaker C] Mamzer and orlah? I don’t know—what the Talmud said, that its doubtful cases are lenient.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How did the Talmud know? Good question.

[Speaker C] That its doubtful cases are lenient—that’s their reasoning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Instead of asking what the source is, ask why they say its doubtful cases are lenient. What does that source really teach us? It teaches us that the prohibition is an awareness-based prohibition and not an essential prohibition, not an object-based prohibition. Okay? It’s a very interesting claim, very novel. Meaning, I would not rely on it practically as Jewish law, but it is a fascinating claim. It is at least a very beautiful explanation for the Ran. And he also expands the Ran, because the Ran said this only about orlah. I don’t know whether the Ran would also say this about a mamzer, for example. That is his own conclusion: that all prohibitions whose doubtful cases are lenient fall under this category of the Ran. And it’s a beautiful explanation. In any case, for our purposes, what I want to say is—

[Speaker C] Can I apply the Ran’s reasoning also to rabbinic prohibitions?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because there it is not a problem of awareness, it is a problem of command. Rabbinic prohibitions are prohibitions against defying the command of the Sages. And if I do not know, then I did not defy the command, because I did not know there was a prohibition.

[Speaker C] No, so I—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Cause to stumble—what?

[Speaker C] That you don’t know.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I am giving you a prohibition, it doesn’t matter—but I have not violated a prohibition.

[Speaker C] No, so I’m saying, then I can give you a rabbinic prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, to the same extent. Yes, of course. You did not cause me to stumble in a prohibition. Yes, that is exactly the point. The claim of the Netivot is exactly this: it is not an argument for leniency in the sense that “I didn’t know,” a claim to reduce punishment; these are not arguments in the discussion of punishment. This is the verdict, not the sentence. These are discussions in the verdict itself: was there any offense here at all? Sentencing—what punishment do we give?—doesn’t even arise, because at the verdict stage you are acquitted.

[Speaker K] What will happen to the one who was married off to a mamzeret once he finds out? Will he have to divorce her?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Possibly, yes.

[Speaker K] So that means I’m causing him to stumble through the fact that I informed him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly. I didn’t propose doing it. I also said that even without that I don’t think I would permit it initially. But yes, indeed. In short. In any event, what I basically want to say is that if he is right, then we see there are prohibitions that are awareness-based prohibitions. There are such prohibitions in Jewish law. And I want to claim that here too, regarding doubtful impurity, what we are dealing with is an awareness-based prohibition. So if someone knows there is impurity here, I cannot be lenient in a case of doubtful impurity. But if nobody knows, then why should I care that I was lenient even on the possibility that there really was impurity? It does not matter, because nobody knows. And if nobody knows, then it is not impure. But regarding impurity specifically, by the way, there is even a certain kind of logic to this. Why? What are the things that can become impure and what are the things that cannot become impure?

[Speaker C] With impurity of the Temple there is also a case where one does not know—like in the acknowledgment at the beginning of tractate Shevuot there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. He didn’t know that he entered, but not that he didn’t know he was impure. He didn’t know that he entered. So that’s it—it may be that we really do need to distinguish here between a case where someone did not know he was impure and a case where someone did not know he entered. By the way, with impurity too they make this distinction; we’ll see it later. So where was I? Ah, yes, I said that specifically regarding impurity one can perhaps understand this a little more. The things that become impure are only things connected to human beings. Have you ever noticed? It’s vessels, foods, and people. Only things connected to human action. And even foods need preparation to become susceptible to impurity. If the thing is still entirely natural, without human touch, then even if it is food, it does not become impure. It needs preparation in order to receive impurity. Why? Because you need to turn it from something natural into something belonging to the artificial world of human action. Only then does it belong to the realms of impurity. This is connected to the principle we discussed at the beginning, that impurity belongs only where there is holiness. In nature, nature is neither holy nor impure. Nature is just nature—it is a neutral fact. So just as it cannot be holy, it also cannot be impure. Human acts can be holy, and therefore they can also be impure. They belong to this whole realm of holiness and impurity. Only human acts. Therefore something attached to the ground, for example, does not contract impurity. Something attached is part of the world, it is the earth, it does not contract impurity. Something detached and then reattached is a different issue, and there it really will depend on the question whether detached and then reattached means returning it to nature, or on the contrary, the fact that I attached it means it is even more a human act—look, I’m the one who attached it, not nature. That’s even worse. Okay, that is the dispute of Rav and Shmuel about detached and then reattached. But I am saying, for our purposes: if that is really so, then perhaps it gives even more flavor to why doubtful impurity is an awareness issue. Because in truth everything depends on the human being. All these concepts of impurity are concepts that belong to the human world. So if a person knows, that is a different status than when there is some reality of impurity in the world and no human being knows. In nature it doesn’t matter whether something is impure or not impure. What matters is when it touches the human world. And of course one can connect this to the famous meta-halakhic question: is impurity something objective, or is impurity only our way of relating? Is there such a metaphysical reality as impurity or not? Okay, I’m not sure that it’s connected. I don’t know. There is room to discuss it. So what I basically want to say is that perhaps, in light of this principle of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, here too in doubtful impurity it depends on knowledge. And if there is someone who knows, and that person is someone able to be asked—if there is someone who knows whom one could ask, again, even if we ask him we won’t believe him, doesn’t matter, but one could ask him—meaning, there is someone who knows—then we are not lenient in doubtful impurity, and probably not even in a double doubt, it goes that far, because it is so much an awareness issue that on the level of awareness, if there is a possibility that this is impure, then we already won’t allow you in any way to touch something you know is impure. There is no such thing—we won’t allow such a thing, even remotely. Okay? So that is one possible explanation for this “there is someone able to be asked”—we do not allow it. Except that of course this raises the question: if so, then why not in the public domain? If there is someone able to be asked in the public domain, then on the awareness level there is someone here who knows that there was impurity. Why do I allow leniency in a doubtful case? Apparently, the permission to be lenient in doubtful impurity in the public domain is another independent principle. True, from the standpoint of “there is someone able to be asked,” I should have been stringent. But public domain is another parameter that is lenient. Why? We’ll see in a moment. But that too needs explanation: why should there be a difference between— I said that both requirements need explanation. If someone knows there is impurity here, we are not lenient in such a situation. But there is another parameter at work here: private domain or public domain. So if it is in the public domain, the doubt will be pure even though there is someone able to be asked. There is someone here who knows there was impurity, but still, since it is in the public domain, we will be lenient. So again, this needs explanation. Why? Why is public domain an independent parameter?

[Speaker L] The probability that in the public domain he became impure is not that much greater.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—if the probability isn’t—if the doubt is not evenly balanced, if it’s not fifty-fifty, then that’s a majority, not a doubt. When we talk about a doubt, it is always an evenly balanced doubt. Again, evenly balanced because of lack of knowledge or evenly balanced because of knowledge—it doesn’t matter—but the doubt has to be evenly balanced. Okay? Otherwise it isn’t a doubt; otherwise it is a matter of majority and minority. In any case, here I want to move to the Tosefta in tractate Taharot. Maimonides himself brings it later in his discussion. A very interesting Tosefta. The Tosefta says as follows: They asked Ben Zoma, “Why is doubt in the private domain impure?” He said to them: “A sotah—for her husband, is she certain or doubtful?” They said to him, “Doubtful.” He said to them: “We find that she is forbidden to her husband. From here you infer to the creeping creature. Just as here it is the private domain, so too there it is the private domain. Just as here it is a matter involving one able to be asked, so too there it is a matter involving one able to be asked.” From here they said— all this appears in our Talmud; this Tosefta appears in our Talmud. “From here they said: a matter involving one able to be asked—in the private domain its doubt is impure; in the public domain its doubt is pure.” But the continuation does not appear in our Talmud. Look at the continuation of the Tosefta: “And why is doubt in the public domain pure?” He said to them: “We find that the community offers the Passover sacrifice in impurity at a time when most of the community is impure. If definite impurity was permitted for the community, then all the more so doubtful impurity.” We know that impurity is permitted for the community. What does that mean? Someone who is impure cannot offer the Passover sacrifice, right? So he is deferred to the second Passover. Okay? But if the whole community is impure, then impurity is permitted for the community and they offer the Passover sacrifice in impurity. Even if most of the community, because the majority is considered as the whole. Okay? But in principle, if the community became impure, then impurity is permitted for the community and one may offer the Passover sacrifice even in impurity. So what do we see? That definite impurity was permitted for the community; then doubtful impurity certainly is permitted for the community. An a fortiori argument. He learns it from the Passover sacrifice. What do you say about this line of reasoning? Does it sound reasonable to you? Why?

[Speaker C] There the community permits the impurity—meaning, there is impurity, but despite that I am allowed to transgress it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, here too there is impurity and despite that I am lenient.

[Speaker C] No—the community is lenient there; here the individual is lenient.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in the public domain.

[Speaker C] Yes, but here it is the individual who is being lenient.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You mean that there the issue is the community, and here it is a public domain. It’s not the same thing. Okay. So indeed, in the simple understanding—and actually I was very happy to see this Tosefta, because I had long suspected there was a connection between these two laws, and on the website they actually rejected me on this a few days ago, and I still hadn’t seen the Tosefta. So I referred to what I had said in the past, and someone found it—I didn’t even remember where I had written it—and it came out in the book on the roots. I think there is a connection between these two things: impurity permitted for the community and doubtful impurity in the public domain. And basically what Ben Zoma is saying is that doubtful impurity in the public domain is simply an offshoot of the rule that impurity is permitted for the community. These are not two different laws; it is the same law. On the face of it, these are two laws that have nothing to do with one another. Impurity permitted for the community is when the entire community is impure; they can bring the Passover sacrifice in impurity because their impurity is as if it does not exist—impurity is permitted for the community, okay? Doubtful impurity in the public domain is a doubt about a private individual; it has nothing to do with the community at all. Rather, the doubt arose in a domain that is public, but we are talking about a person. A very specific person.

[Speaker I] There are other people here—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who know, doubt—

[Speaker I] It’s a concern that it didn’t happen, that it’s not only him by himself, there’s also maybe information that we’re not…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but this too concerns one person, right? It concerns one person who comes before me; the doubt is about him. It’s not a doubt about the community. More than that: why not in a definite case? What about definite impurity in the public domain? After all, impurity is permitted for the community—so what’s the problem? Definite impurity should also be permitted in the public domain, for the community, right? Ben Zoma himself says this—that for Passover even definite impurity is permitted. So why is it that with impurity in the public domain only doubtful impurity is permitted, and not definite impurity?

[Speaker C] They say indeed that the definite case—those who offer the sacrifice, they aren’t impure; rather there is some overall communal situation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—they are impure. No, no—we are talking about the case where they are impure.

[Speaker C] Can’t one explain it by saying that there is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here a halakhic ruling permits the person in the community? Certainly, certainly, yes—that is the law. Everyone is impure; we know they are impure. Everyone touches a corpse in full view of all Israel.

[Speaker F] Can’t one explain it on the basis of a positive commandment carrying karet? Eh? Maybe they permitted it because this is a positive commandment carrying karet; the Passover sacrifice is very severe. So what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A positive commandment carrying karet—maybe they permitted the impurity because of that. What, in favor of the positive commandment? So what? And with regard to Passover, didn’t they just permit it now? Here I am, I want to bring the Passover sacrifice. I became doubtfully impure in the public domain; in the public domain it’s Passover, so I understand now. I became doubtfully impure in the private domain, and now I want to bring the Passover sacrifice. Well, it’s a positive commandment carrying karet, right? Then permit it for me? Obviously not.

[Speaker C] So definitely not in the Passover sacrifice when they’re impure—meaning, maybe “most of them” is the point—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Most of them is as the whole of them. It doesn’t matter whether it’s most or all. What difference does it make? The law is stated about all. Most is just there to say: even if only most of them, because the majority is considered as the whole. But the law is about all. If all are definitely impure—yes, certainly. Ah, on the contrary, this is the clearest example of majority considered as the whole. The example always brought for majority considered as the whole is this one: although in principle it says that if the whole congregation is impure, it brings the first Passover, the law is that even if most of the congregation is so, the same applies. Because the majority is considered as the whole. And that is not nullification by majority, and not following the majority; it is the purest example of majority considered as the whole. Fine. In any case, therefore the connection is strange. Strange for many reasons, yes? Strange also because it really is not the same law. And second, if you are already saying that it is the same thing, then why are we not lenient with definite impurity in the public domain, as we see in the Passover sacrifice? What is the difference? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: “Why is doubt in the private domain impure and doubt in the public domain pure? Because one can ask an individual and one cannot ask the public.” So for him, the difference between the domains does not depend on impurity permitted for the community. From his perspective, these are two different laws—why are you linking them at all? That is the usual view, the view of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. So why yes? He says that doubtful impurity in the public domain is basically one branch of “one cannot ask.” Because you cannot ask the public. The public counts as something that cannot be asked. Okay? Now notice: what is the difference between these two views? First of all, of course, they disagree on whether there is a connection between impurity permitted for the community and doubtful impurity in the public domain. Ben Zoma says yes; Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says no. Second, they have another disagreement: are these two requirements—private domain and someone able to be asked—even two distinct requirements? According to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, it is one requirement. There is only the requirement of someone able to be asked. Except that in the public domain there is no such thing; one cannot ask. Okay? And according to Ben Zoma, these are two independent requirements. Meaning, doubtful impurity in the public domain is basically impurity permitted for the community, and besides that there is someone able to be asked—with perhaps the explanation I suggested above, yes, that if there is someone who knows, then we do not permit it. Now here one really needs to understand Ben Zoma as well—both questions: what is the connection between these two laws, and why not definite impurity in the public domain? Okay? And also Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel—what does “one cannot ask the public” mean? But we are not talking about the public; we are talking about the public domain. Not impurity permitted for the community—we are talking about doubtful impurity in the public domain. And he says it is not the same law, so why are you talking to me about the public? We are talking about one individual, except that he became impure in the public domain. So why is there no one able to be asked? Ask him—what is the problem, according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel?

[Speaker C] Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So in some sense Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel too brings us back to what Ben Zoma says. He also understands that the public domain is in some sense really something that touches the many, right? Therefore he says that “the many” is considered something that cannot be asked. But he does not accept Ben Zoma’s equation that doubtful impurity in the public domain is the same thing as impurity permitted for the community. That he does not accept. But he does understand that there is some public dimension to the issue. Okay? The many, the many. Yes, but that is just a word—what stands behind it? So I wanted to make the following claim.

[Speaker C] It’s a bit less clear when there are many people. If we go back to the source of sotah, then when it says she secluded herself and so on, it’s very clear what happened there. It’s clear to her. But—okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in public? If she had done it in the public domain, then it wouldn’t have been clear to her?

[Speaker C] Then it’s not clear—it’s less—it’s something less clear; it’s him and her, as it were.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? The discussion is about her. She secluded herself with him, and now she knows what happened there. What difference does it make for this issue whether it happened in the public domain? I don’t see a difference. Look, in principle—and we are getting a little into the conceptual side in these topics—in principle, impurity is tied at the navel to death. Yes? That is why a mikveh, for example, is considered living waters; it returns you from death to life, it purifies you. Therefore the ultimate source of impurity is a corpse. Okay? Meaning, impurity in its essence is connected to death. There are various explanations for this. For example, even the impurity of a woman after childbirth—the claim is that life came out of her, so the absence of life is what produces death. Or a leper, who is considered like the dead, is therefore impure, and so on. Yes? Impurity is understood as something connected to death. If that is really so, then one can understand why impurity is permitted for the community. Because a community does not die. That is what the Or HaChayim writes, yes? That a community does not die. There are many proofs of this. Rabbi Soloveitchik writes this at the beginning of On Repentance. He brings Tosafot in tractate Me’ilah 9b, at the end of 9b, where the Talmud discusses the status of a sacrifice whose owners died. Yes? So then it grazes until it develops a blemish, or whatever it is—it depends whether it is a sin-offering or a guilt-offering, depending on what type of sacrifice it is. Okay? But there is a sugya there about a sacrifice whose owners died—what do you do with it? Tosafot says: but with a communal sacrifice there is no question of what its law is if its owners died. Say that the whole community that set it aside died. Okay?

[Speaker C] Is that the paradox of the Ship of Theseus?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, unrelated. The entire public died, we replaced the whole ship, there’s nothing left. The ship sank. Okay? There is no public. No others came in their place. In principle. They say, well, maybe there is again—we’ll soon see whether others came in their place—but at first glance it seems he’s saying that the public does not die. What does that mean? In the end it actually is connected to Theseus, meaning only in the initial assumption it wasn’t. Tosafot’s claim is that with regard to the public, this law of a sacrifice whose owners died does not apply. Why? Because one generation goes and another generation comes—he brings some verse from Ecclesiastes. That’s the ship of Theseus. Meaning, the claim is that when other people arrive and populate that same public, it’s not that the public changed. It’s the very same public; only the individuals that make it up are constantly changing. Like the ship of Theseus. And that’s always true of any public. Okay? So basically the claim is that death does not apply to the public. The public does not die. Therefore, things connected to the public cannot be impure. Death does not apply to the public. Okay? Now if that is really so, then you can understand why impurity is permitted for the public, and by the way that’s connected to the question whether the Passover offering is a communal sacrifice or an individual sacrifice, since it has an intermediate status. But simply speaking, in this law we view it as a communal sacrifice. I argued—I even have an article about this, I wrote about it once—I argued that the Passover offering really stands between the individual and the public, because the whole role of the Passover offering is to melt all the individuals together and turn them into a public. That’s what happened at the Passover in Egypt. When they brought the sacrifice, they essentially became a public. It’s a sacrifice that turns individuals into a public. Therefore it has definitions of a communal sacrifice, but also each person brings it individually. There’s no other communal sacrifice that each person brings individually. Because each person brings it as an individual, and when you bring it, you join the public. That’s what actually created the public here out of the individuals. Okay? Fine, that’s a whole separate issue. In any case, for our purposes, what I want to say is that since the public does not die, therefore impurity is permitted for the public. And I claim that doubtful impurity in the public domain is the same law. That’s what I argued then, and now I see that this is also Ben Zoma’s reasoning. He happened to align with my view. So why is doubtful impurity in the public domain pure? And why not certain impurity? I asked that, right? So also certain… No, no—when there is doubtful impurity in the public domain, then the question is not really a question about an individual person. It’s a question about everyone who passed there. In principle, that’s a public. It could be that by chance that public contains only one person. But in principle it is a public question. Anyone who… whoever passed there, what is his status? Therefore, basically—or I could even say more than that—the question is whether it is permitted to pass there. Now if it is forbidden to pass there, that is a statement about the whole public: it is forbidden to pass there. These are public statements. True, if someone became impure and comes before me, then I discuss his case—whether he is impure or not impure—that is a discussion about an individual person. But the basic question is really a public question. A question about what the status is of those who passed there, and even if by chance that group contains only one person, that doesn’t matter. On the principled level, this is a question about a group—the group of people who passed in that place. Therefore, basically, this is a public question. And now you can understand why this is only in a case of doubtful impurity and not certain impurity. Because if there is certain impurity in the public domain, then there is no public question. Whoever touches becomes impure—that’s clear—but each one separately. Whoever touches becomes impure. The question is about each one separately: you passed, you touched, you became impure, that’s it. There’s no question here. The question becomes public only when you are in doubt. Because when you are in doubt, you don’t actually know what happened. You need to determine the status of the domain, not the status of the person. What?

[Speaker C] When there’s no doubt, then there’s no question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. Exactly. The point is that each person who touched became impure. Once a question arises because there is doubt, obviously the question has public implications. It’s a question about the nature of this domain—whether this is an impure domain or not an impure domain. Now this is a domain of the many. So if you’re discussing whether the domain is impure, not whether the person is impure, that is a discussion of impurity among the public. That’s Ben Zoma’s position. And therefore that is what links doubtful impurity in the public domain to the law that impurity is permitted for the public, and it also explains the second question—why it is only in doubt and not in certainty. Because if it were certain, it would not be a public question. In contrast, with the Passover offering, even if it is certain, impurity is permitted for the public. So that’s Ben Zoma. According to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, then, he basically wants to claim that everything starts from the fact that it is something that has awareness to be asked about. Meaning, according to Ben Zoma we explained why doubtful impurity in the public domain is like impurity permitted for the public, and we also saw, according to Ben Zoma, that this is also just one of the constraints. Another constraint is that it has awareness to be asked about, and according to Ben Zoma they are independent. These are two different requirements. So we understood the explanation of why doubtful impurity in the public domain is pure, why it requires private domain and not public domain. The explanation of why it must be something that has awareness to be asked about we understood above. “Has awareness to be asked about” means there is someone who knows the truth, and we are not willing to let him rule leniently so long as, in a person’s consciousness, the truth exists. Okay? So these are two different independent principles, and each has its own explanation—that’s Ben Zoma.

[Speaker C] I understand. What would be the difference—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Between a public domain and a domain of the public—why would there be a difference between them? Because if it’s doubtful, then it’s a public question. If it’s certain, then it’s not a public question. Whoever touched—then he asks, he became impure.

[Speaker C] And where impurity is permitted for the public, here in any case it’s a public question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, obviously, because you want to bring a communal sacrifice. It’s true that the whole public all became impure, but the question is a public question: whether to bring the sacrifice. Okay? Here the question is whether I am impure—a question about me. Why should I care that a few other people are also going to come ask this question? It doesn’t matter. So according to Ben Zoma, everything is fine. What about Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel claims that everything is based on whether it has awareness to be asked about. There is no special dispensation of the public domain, so in any event it is not connected to impurity permitted for the public. That’s what he does not accept in Ben Zoma. But on the other hand, we saw why in fact with the public there is no awareness to be asked about. Because you say the public is something undefined. You don’t know whom to ask, or you don’t know exactly—if it’s a question about the public, then whom are you asking? The question is about the public as a whole; you can’t ask the public. We don’t know. The public does not know. So in such a case this is called a case that essentially does not have awareness to be asked about. That’s what Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says, and it is not similar to impurity permitted for the public. He does not accept the analogy to impurity permitted for the public, but he does accept this distinction, that only in a case of doubt is this a question for the public, and in a question for the public there is no awareness to be asked about. In that sense he is similar to Ben Zoma, that only in doubt is this a public question. The question is: so what if it is a public question? According to Ben Zoma it is like impurity permitted for the public, and according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel it is a case that does not have awareness to be asked about. Now why does not having awareness to be asked about permit doubtful impurity?

[Speaker D] What would it be—maybe he became impure?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, for the same reason as the explanation we gave earlier. Because if someone knows, then I am not willing to allow him to be lenient. But if I want to be lenient regarding the public, it’s not that the public knows. There is no collective knowledge. Knowledge is a person’s knowledge. And if one person knows, that is not called that the public knows. One person knows. The object under discussion does not know. So if I permit it, I permit it. Therefore I can say that… according to Maimonides, no—on the contrary. I said that in Maimonides you can see that this specifically refers to him. I noted that in Maimonides this is a novelty, because elsewhere I saw that they do not necessarily require this. But Maimonides certainly goes this way. He is the one who brings the Tosefta. Meaning, I took this from him. Now, this thing took me a very long time. According to this, there is room here to distinguish between a case where there is doubt whether I entered the public domain at all, and a case where I was in the public domain and the question is whether I touched or did not touch. Because if there is doubt whether I entered the public domain, then the question is about the individual; it is not a question about the many. But if I was in the public domain, and what happened is that there was impurity there—whether I touched there—then the question is public. So look here in the Mishnah in Taharot, chapter 6: “Any case where you can multiply doubts and double doubts—in the private domain it is impure, in the public domain it is pure. How so? He entered an alleyway and the impurity was in the courtyard: doubt whether he entered, doubt whether he did not enter. Impurity was in the house: doubt whether he entered, doubt whether he did not enter. And even if he entered, doubt whether it was there, doubt whether it was not there.” You see? Whether the doubt is whether he entered, or the doubt is that he entered but he does not know whether he touched—even if it was there, doubt whether it had the requisite measure, doubt whether it did not have the requisite measure; even if it had the status of doubtful impurity or doubtful purity; and even if there was impurity, doubt whether he touched, doubt whether he did not touch—cases of doubt are impure. You can multiply doubts as much as you like, it makes no difference. Rabbi Elazar says: doubt of entry is pure; doubt of contact with impurity is impure. Doubt whether he touched is impure; doubt whether it was entry is pure. He distinguishes between doubt about entry and doubt about touching. So it could be that this is connected to what I said earlier, that there is a difference between a public question and a private question. In Bartenura there, for example, he ties it to the analogy to the suspected adulteress: there too, in the case of the suspected adulteress, the doubt is only whether he touched or did not touch; there is no question whether they secluded themselves—I know they went in there. The only whole question is whether he touched or did not touch, right? So he says that formally it is like the suspected adulteress, from which we derive the law for impurity. But it may be that there is also substantive logic here, and I said that this whole analogy from the suspected adulteress to impurity also has to have substantive logic. Fine, I really can’t continue much longer, so I’ll just do the rest briefly. You’ll see afterward in the summary; I won’t come back to it again. There is a big question regarding the definition of domains in impurity. We saw in Maimonides that Maimonides says—the Mishnah says that in an alleyway, if a deaf-mute, an imbecile, and a minor are in an alleyway, even though it is a private domain, doubtful impurity is ruled pure. Why? Because they do not have awareness to be asked about. So you see that an alleyway is considered a private domain. Why is an alleyway a private domain?

[Speaker C] What? By Torah law, right? Minchat Chaim, right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So why is it a private domain? Because for Sabbath purposes it is a private domain by Torah law, all by Torah law, because for Sabbath purposes it is a private domain. Rabbinically you have to make an eruv and so on, shared arrangements, but by Torah law it is a private domain. So what—the definition of domains for impurity and for Sabbath is the same definition? So it depends, it depends on how we understand the role of the domains in impurity, right? We know that basically there is a Mishnah that says this, and Maimonides brings it. Here, Maimonides opens in the laws of the other primary sources of impurity at the beginning of chapter 20: “Any place that is a public domain for Sabbath purposes is likewise a public domain for impurity. And likewise regarding a private domain. All other places, aside from those we explained, their law is just as they are a private domain for Sabbath, so too they are a private domain for impurity.” And of course between law 1 and law 7 there are five more laws in between, right? And Maimonides says “aside from those we explained,” and all the laws in the middle are places that are a private domain for impurity but not a private domain for Sabbath, or vice versa. So there are differences. The basic rule is that it is similar, but there are differences. What? Except for those places where there is a difference. But the basic rule is that it is the same. What characterizes those places where there is a difference? Again, I can’t go into all of them, so I’ll just give you one example, for instance regarding Nazirites. “Two Nazirites, to whom one person said: I saw one of you become impure, but I do not know which of you—they both shave and bring a sacrifice for impurity and a sacrifice for purity.” One person says to two Nazirites: I saw one of you become impure, I don’t know which of you. Both of them shave. Meaning, in a doubt whether they became impure—each one is in doubt, we don’t know who became impure—in a doubt whether they became impure, we are stringent. It was taught: “Two Nazirites to whom he said, I saw one of you become impure and I do not know which of you”—this is the Talmud there. But why? From where do we derive that any doubtful impurity in the private domain is impure? We learn it from the suspected adulteress. Just as with the suspected adulteress there is a man and a woman, so too every doubtful impurity in the private domain is in a case where there are two. But here, the two Nazirites and the one standing over them—there are three. That makes it doubtful impurity in the public domain, and any doubtful impurity in the public domain, its doubt is pure. What is the Talmud saying? The Talmud says there were three, not two. So that is a public domain. Where did this take place, in terms of domains? No—leave aside the number of people. In terms of the domain itself? In a private domain, right? That’s obvious. Because otherwise the whole discussion wouldn’t arise. Doubtful impurity in the public domain is pure. Here the whole discussion arises because it happened in a private domain. And still the Talmud says: if there were three there, it has the status of a public domain. Why? So if I understand that in impurity the difference between private domain and public domain is because impurity is permitted for the public—if the difference is because impurity is permitted for the public—then apparently the question ought to depend on how many people are in the situation, and not on what type of domain it is. For instance, unlike the domains of Sabbath. The domains of Sabbath are defined by geography, by the physical reality—its size, whether it is covered, whether it has partitions, meaning its height and so on. That is what defines a domain. Six hundred thousand is relevant for the public domain. But there are definitions—say I’m talking about private domain—definitions that define whether it has partitions, what its size is, and what its height is, right? That’s what defines private domain. In impurity, this factor of the number of people present there also enters. Okay? And the question is why that makes a difference. And the answer is probably—let’s see according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and according to Ben Zoma. According to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, you need it to be something that has awareness to be asked about. Obviously that is determined by the number of people. If there is a public, then that is called not having awareness to be asked about. It is not determined by the nature of the domain; it is determined by how many people there are. If it is one person, you can ask him; it has awareness to be asked about.

[Speaker J] Earlier—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said that one could argue about that, because the question is a public question even if there were only one person here, but one can understand that what the Talmud says here follows from that. But according to Ben Zoma, I think it works even better. Because according to Ben Zoma we are dealing here with two independent requirements. There is the requirement that it has awareness to be asked about, and there is the requirement that it is a public domain, which is like impurity permitted for the public. Now, impurity permitted for the public means when it is a public, meaning you need many people, right? And “has awareness to be asked about”—that is unrelated. It has awareness to be asked about; there is awareness to be asked about here. But you need people, so I don’t care what kind of private domain this is. After all, if you say it is because it has awareness to be asked about, then what matters here is not the nature of the domain but whether there are people here. If there is a public here, then it is a public domain for impurity, even though for Sabbath purposes it is a private domain. Okay? According to Ben Zoma there is room to hesitate. It could be that the definition of the domains would be the same; I don’t care so much about the number of people, because the question is public from the standpoint of the domain, and that is what matters. Okay? But according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel it’s a matter of whom you are asking, so you are talking about a public, not about the character of the domain. So you need there to be people here. And even if it is in a private domain and there are three people—in a private domain and there are three people—does it have awareness to be asked about? For the same reason that in the public domain there is no awareness to be asked about, also in the private domain when there are three people there is no awareness—

[Speaker C] To be asked about, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After all, if Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says that the problem with the public is that there is no one to ask, then I don’t care whether the public is in a private domain—

[Speaker C] In the private domain, there’s also no one to ask.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even if we say that in the public domain, even if there is only one person there, it is called not having awareness to be asked about, because the question is a public question. But in the private domain, when several people are present, then certainly there is no awareness to be asked about. That is according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. But according to Ben Zoma, where “the many” is an independent criterion and “has awareness…” and “has awareness to be asked about” is an independent criterion, then it is not a public domain when there are three in a private domain, right? And no awareness to be asked about—who says he accepts that the many do not have awareness to be asked about? If he accepted that, he would explain the public domain the way Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel does. He does not accept that among the many there is no awareness to be asked about. Okay? Therefore, this could depend on Ben Zoma and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel.

[Speaker F] But why, for prayer, what defines a public is ten people, and for this… why does it matter?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leave it. It depends on how “public” is defined. Why does it matter? Every… why do you think it has to be the same?

[Speaker B] Whatever you say, I’ll say too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does it matter?

[Speaker F] Fine. A definition that changes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it depends on the context. There is the commentary of Rabbi Shimshon of Shantz, for example, there on this Mishnah, in tractate Nazir, chapter “Two Nazirites.” He says: “It implies that wherever there are three, it is considered a public domain for impurity, because we derive it from the suspected adulteress, which is a private domain since there are only two—the man and the woman. And now all these cases taught here that are public domain, such as paths and a valley in the summer days and shelves and the like, which are considered in the Mishnah”—the Mishnah already brings these exceptional cases—“even though there are not three in that valley where the doubt arose, since the many are found there, it is like a public domain.”

[Speaker J] Since the many are commonly found there, it is like a public domain.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the public domain, even if there is no one there at all except one person, it is considered a public domain. “But if there are three, even in the innermost rooms, it is pure, as implied there in Nazir.” He claims there are two laws. In the public domain, even if there are not many, it is considered a public question; it is a public domain. But in the private domain, if there are many, that too will be permitted. Why? Because there are two leniencies. In the private domain the leniency is that it does not have awareness to be asked about, because there are many here and it does not have awareness to be asked about. Okay? In the public domain, if there are many, then it will also be because there is no awareness to be asked about; and if there is one individual, it will be because it is a public question. That is like Ben Zoma. Basically these are two questions. Consequently, since there are two questions here, there are two leniencies here. There is the leniency of doubtful impurity in the public domain, and there is the leniency of not having awareness to be asked about. The leniency of doubtful impurity in the public domain is independent of whether it has awareness to be asked about, according to Ben Zoma. Right? So what does that mean? That in the public domain, even if there is one person, then it does have awareness to be asked about. It’s not that it doesn’t have awareness to be asked about—there is one person here. But you are in the public domain, so you will have the leniency of doubtful impurity in the public domain. In the private domain, if there are three people, there is no leniency of public domain because it is a private domain, but there is the leniency that it does not have awareness to be asked about, and therefore it will be permitted. So Rabbi Shimshon, who understands that there really are two different laws here, is saying exactly what I said earlier. Okay? In contrast, in Maimonides one can infer that this is only one law. It is not two laws; everything depends on the number of people. There is no difference between public domain and private domain; everything depends on the number of people. Even public domain only means that there are people there, not when there is one person there. And when there are several people in a private domain, that turns it into the equivalent of a public domain. Meaning, the definition of public domain and private domain is according to the number of people. And this very much resembles Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. Meaning, if that one is Ben Zoma—Rabbi Shimshon, right?—then Maimonides is like Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. Because basically everything depends on awareness to be asked about. Even public domain is not essential in itself; it is just that among the many there is no awareness to be asked about. Okay. So if that is so, then it is the same law: if there are many, then there is no awareness to be asked about, whether in the private domain or in the public domain. There is no difference between private domain and public domain; there is a difference between an individual and the many. It does not matter where they are located. Because everything begins from not having awareness to be asked about. Okay? So this dispute between Rabbi Shimshon and Maimonides, simply speaking, is the tannaitic dispute between Ben Zoma and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. Okay? And this also gives us the overall picture of what I said earlier—why there really are these two requirements. “No awareness to be asked about” we understood, and the public domain we also understood. Meaning, there is logic behind these requirements; it is not just a formal derivation from the suspected adulteress to a creeping creature. Okay, I’ll stop here.