Topics in Talmudic Logic, Lecture 20

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. I’m bringing this in order to sharpen the difference between the second level and the third level. On the second level, the claim is that whether it will rain tomorrow—none of the people know, but the Holy One, blessed be He, does know, because if you do the calculation, if you have enough computational power, you can know today whether it will rain tomorrow. So that means the information exists; it’s just that nobody knows it. The case of betrothal that is not given over to intercourse is basically a situation in which there is no information—not that we don’t know it, but in reality itself one particular woman is not defined as my wife. That’s the situation regarding future information about an act of choice. In an act of choice, as long as the person has not yet chosen, there is no way, based on the data now, to know what he will choose tomorrow. You can try to guess, but there is no way to know for certain. And therefore the information today simply does not exist. If you ask the Holy One, blessed be He, He also does not know. He also does not know. Okay? Why? Because the information does not exist, so there is nothing there to know. Tomorrow, the Holy One, blessed be He, can give you a perfect estimate of what will happen tomorrow in light of today’s data—He has optimal computational power, as much as you want. Everything that can be calculated. But free choice means that even if you do the best calculation possible, you may still miss. Because a person can choose otherwise. And therefore, in such a situation, even the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot know what will happen. That is the difference between the second level and the third level. On the second level, the information exists but nobody knows it. On the third level, the information itself does not exist at all; even the Holy One, blessed be He, does not know it. Okay?

The fourth level is when that future information comes back and determines a present state. Not defines a present state, but determines it. And here I’m reminding you of what I said about the difference between existing information and the truth-value of a proposition. I can say today that the truth-value of the proposition “tomorrow there will be a naval battle” is true. Already today it is true. There’s no problem with that, even though it exists today, tomorrow it can still be decided whether there will or won’t be a naval battle. I explained that the truth-value of a proposition is a definition; it is not information. But if the information exists—there’s a book in which it is written “tomorrow there will be a naval battle,” and this book is all-knowing like Othmo’s book, this book is all-knowing, it has true information—then if it says there will be a naval battle, it cannot be that there won’t be one. The information exists. Right, the information already exists; information that exists dictates the future. And therefore, once the future depends on choice, it cannot exist today. The information, I mean, because if the information exists today, then it dictates, so tomorrow cannot be something else. Okay? So those are the four levels.

Now up to here, we’ve finished the introduction. Now I want to enter into two topics—I hope we’ll manage at least to touch them—I think we have something like four meetings left until the end of the year. I want the topic of conditions and the topic of retroactive selection. Okay? So today I’ll try to give some kind of introduction to conditions, and then in the next class talk about what that means in terms of action in time, and after that we’ll move to the topic of retroactive selection. We’ll see how much we manage.

So I’ll start with conditions. There is a basic intuition in every legal system, including Jewish law, that if a person applies some legal effect or performs some legal act, he can make it contingent on a condition. Okay? He can say, “I give you this land on condition that such-and-such happens,” or “that such-and-such does not happen.” Okay? You can stipulate conditions. There are all kinds of conditions. There are several basic distinctions that will accompany us, so I’ll stand on them.

The most basic type is the difference between a condition “from now” and a future condition. A future condition means, say, I transfer this land to you if tomorrow it rains. Now what is an ordinary condition? A future condition means that if tomorrow it rains, the land is yours from tomorrow on. Not from now. From the moment the rain falls, the land is yours. If it doesn’t rain, then it is not yours; it continues not to be yours. Here nothing is operating backward. Right? This is basically all—it’s called a prospective condition, it works forward. Okay?

There is a retroactive condition. What does that mean? Retrospective and retroactive—there are two, okay, we won’t get into that. What happens if I make a condition “from now”? I give you the land from now if tomorrow it rains. That is a condition that works backward. If tomorrow it rains, then today the land already became yours. We don’t know that yet, because until tomorrow comes we don’t know whether it will rain. But in principle, once it becomes known to us that tomorrow it did indeed rain, it turns out that the land had already been yours since today. And that begins to raise questions of going backward in time, reverse causation, how can tomorrow’s rain produce a present legal state—but we’ll talk about that later. But that is the concept of a “from now” condition as opposed to an “if” condition. Okay?

There is another distinction, and I’ll get into this less, but I’ll just mention it: there is a suspensive condition and a defeasing condition. A suspensive condition is a condition such that, when fulfilled, the legal effect takes hold. If it is not fulfilled, then the legal effect does not take hold. A defeasing condition is a condition in which the legal effect takes hold in any event; if the condition is not fulfilled, I will uproot the legal effect. The defeasing condition conditions the uprooting of the legal effect; first of all it takes hold. Now the question whether I uproot it or not depends on the condition. A suspensive condition—first of all I say it does not take hold. If the condition is fulfilled, then it takes hold. All right? That is a logical distinction. But these are also two things—in the legal world too there are differences between a suspensive condition and a defeasing condition, there is a confirming condition, there are all kinds of things. And the classification is confusing and complicated and everyone defines it differently; it’s a terrible business. Both in Jewish law and in the legal world, but let’s just know that this definition exists too.

Now, to what kinds of things can conditions be applied? So here, the Talmud says in Ketubot regarding halitzah, the Talmud says as follows: “Bar Rav said to him: What you said is fine. After all, from where do we derive all conditions? From the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. A condition that can be fulfilled through an agent, as there, is a valid condition; one that cannot be fulfilled through an agent, as there, is not a valid condition.” The Talmud says that we learned the concept of conditions from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben—we’ll see that in a moment. Since that is so, we can learn from the condition of Gad and Reuben to what things one can attach a condition. Not everything can be made conditional. What can? You can make conditional only something that I can carry out through an agent. If it is something that I can send an agent to perform, I can also make it contingent on a condition. If it is something that I cannot send through an agent, then it cannot be carried out by means of a condition. For example halitzah: halitzah cannot be done through an agent; it has to be done personally. Since that is so, one also cannot perform halitzah conditionally. Okay? Betrothal—or divorce—you can do through an agent, and therefore you can also attach conditions to them. That is what the Talmud says.

What is the idea behind this? So Tosafot there say: “One can say that this is the reason: since the act is so fully in his control that he can carry it out through an agent, it stands to reason that it is likewise in his control to impose a condition on it. But halitzah, which is not in his control to carry out through an agent, is likewise not in his control to impose a condition on. And even if the condition is not fulfilled, the act remains valid.” What is Tosafot saying—what is this dependence between something I can do through an agent and something I can make conditional? He says, what is the idea? What is this thing that I can do through an agent? That the full authority over it is in my hands; therefore I can also delegate it to an agent, right? It is essentially an act that depends on me, completely depends on me. If I betroth a woman, I can decide to betroth, I can decide not to betroth, everything depends on me. So I can also do it through an agent. Since that is so, I can also make it conditional. Because if something is entirely in my hands, then I can also qualify it, say I do it only on such-and-such condition or only on such-and-such condition. Because my control over the matter is complete; it is entirely entrusted to me.

Things that I cannot do through an agent means that I do not have full control over the matter. For example halitzah—what do you mean? I have to do it, but the Torah dictates; I am obligated to do halitzah, or either levirate marriage or halitzah, it is not in my hands, it’s not that I choose whether to do it or not. In that situation the Torah says: you do it yourself, not through an agent. You do not have control; it’s not you deciding what to do with it. Therefore you also cannot make it conditional. For the same reason. Because the Torah says to you: I want the woman to be a woman who underwent halitzah. You do it on condition? What does “on condition that it rains” mean? There’s no such thing. You have to do halitzah to her. So therefore the claim that something cannot be done through an agent is an indication that it is not completely under my control, and since that is so I also cannot make it conditional. So we have learned from here that only something under my control can be made conditional; something not under my control I cannot make conditional.

Where do we learn this from? From the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. The whole source of conditions is the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. So let’s see another place where we see this. The Mishnah in Kiddushin 61 says: Rabbi Meir says: “Any condition that is not like the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben is not a valid condition, as it is said: ‘And he said to them: If the tribes of Gad and Reuben cross over…,’ and it is written, ‘But if they do not cross over armed…,’ etc.” Therefore, for example, you need a doubled condition like the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, and all the laws of conditions—I’ll detail them in a moment. Rabbi Hanina ben Gamliel says: “The matter needed to be stated, because otherwise it would imply that even in the land of Canaan they would not inherit.” Meaning, there it was necessary to double the condition, but it is not true that everywhere the condition must be doubled. He disagrees with Rabbi Meir.

Let’s look for a moment at the rules of conditions. Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Hanina ben Gamliel speak about a condition that should be like the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. What does “like the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben” mean? So there are the rules of conditions; that is, there are rules for how you stipulate a condition. Maimonides, in chapter 6 of the Laws of Marriage, summarizes these laws and says as follows: “If one betroths on condition—if the condition is fulfilled she is betrothed, and if the condition is not fulfilled she is not betrothed. Whether the condition was from the man or from the woman. And in every condition in the world, whether in betrothal, divorce, buying and selling, or other monetary law, four things are required in the condition. And these are the four things of every condition.” This is what later authorities call the rules of conditions: that it must be a doubled condition; that the positive part precede the negative part—meaning, if you cross over armed, then you will receive the inheritance. If you do not cross over armed, you will not receive the inheritance. You don’t begin with “if you do not cross over armed, you will not receive,” and then “if you do cross over, you will receive”; you begin with the yes and end with the no. So the positive precedes the negative.

The third thing: the condition must precede the act. What does that mean? You say to them, “If you cross over armed, you will receive the inheritance”; you do not say to them, “You will receive the inheritance if you cross over armed.” You have to place the stipulation first and only then say what will happen if the stipulation is fulfilled. That is the third rule. And the fourth rule: the condition must be something that can be fulfilled. “On condition that you ascend to heaven”—since it is impossible to ascend to heaven, that is not a condition. Maimonides says: “And if the condition lacks one of these, the condition is void, as though there were no condition there at all. Rather, she will be betrothed or divorced, and the sale or gift takes effect immediately, as though he had made no condition at all, since the condition lacked one of the four.” One of the requirements is missing. That means she is betrothed or divorced without the condition, as though the condition is void, as though it was never made. That’s what Maimonides says.

What is the idea behind the rules of conditions? In some of them you can understand the idea. Maybe I’ll formulate first—maybe I’ll formulate first why there needs to be an idea. After all, we learn it from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben—why does there need to be an idea? This is what Tosafot commented above, if you remember: “One can say that this is the reason, since the act is so fully in his control that he can carry it out through an agent, it stands to reason that it should also be in his control to impose a condition on it.” Why? There is a source from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, so what is the problem? Just as in the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben it can be done through an agent, here too it can be done through an agent. Why do you need there to be some logical idea that the act is in his control or not in his control?

Look here, there was some source here—just a second, I’m looking for it—here. Look. In that same Tosafot, but actually a bit earlier: regarding a condition that can be fulfilled through an agent, Tosafot say: “And if you ask, what logic is there here? Why is it that only something that can be done through an agent can be made conditional? We derive from there only with regard to what is logical.” Even though there is a source from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, there still has to be some logic. You can’t just say we do this exactly as it was in the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. Why? “For we do not derive from there that a condition is effective only regarding a grant of land.” Maybe you should learn from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben that conditions can be attached only to the granting of land? Not to selling land, not to selling anything else, not to giving anything else, not to betrothal, not to divorce—only to granting land. Because that was the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben; why not? Because logic says otherwise. If you can make legal effects conditional, then you can do that for all kinds of legal effects. Tosafot say: so what do you see? That even when I learn something from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, I learn only things that have a logical basis. You have to tell me there is a rationale—that therefore the tribes of Gad and Reuben made a condition here, because there is a logic to it, it is in their control. Ah, if so, then everything that is only in his control. Okay? So I need to learn it from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, but only something involving control.

Now there are two more rules of conditions before that, so let’s return for a moment to the rules of conditions we learned in Maimonides. Yes, these are the four things of every condition. A doubled condition—what’s the logic? We said that in every such thing there needs to be logic, right? Like being able to do it through an agent and so on. Let’s see the logic in all of these.

So a doubled condition—we can understand the logic. Why? Because the logical rule—it even appears in Hugo Bergmann’s introduction to logic—he brings it there, that one of his students pointed out to him this Talmudic passage in Kiddushin, and he says there that the rule is: if you say, say, if A then B, does that mean that if not-A then not-B? No, absolutely not. Right? If there is rain, then clearly there were clouds, right? Does that mean that if there is no rain, then there were no clouds? It could be that there is no rain and there were clouds, right? Therefore the direct condition “if A then B” does not say “if not-A then not-B.” It does say, by the way, that if not-B then not-A; that it does say. It does not say that if not-A then not-B. Therefore, says Hugo Bergmann, that is why you need a doubled condition. Because “from the positive, you do not infer the negative,” in the language of the Sages. Meaning, when you said that if you cross the Jordan you will receive the inheritance, you did not thereby say that if they do not cross the Jordan they will not receive the inheritance. If they cross, for sure they receive it. If they don’t cross, I don’t know—maybe yes, maybe no. If you want to make sure it is an unambiguous condition, state both sides of it.

I’ll note in parentheses—this is a comment of Rabbi Chaim in Kovetz Shiurim—that Maimonides rules like Rabbi Meir, that you need a doubled condition, against Rabbi Hanina ben Gamliel that we saw. But he also rules that from the positive you do infer the negative. That is a dispute in the Talmud, and on the face of it it is a contradiction. Because if from the positive you infer the negative, then why do you need to double the condition? You stated the positive; from that I also learn the negative. So Rabbi Chaim claims—and Kovetz Shiurim cites him—that you see from here that doubling the condition does not stem from that logical reason. Because that logical reason, according to Maimonides at least, does not exist. In the Talmud itself they tie it to the question whether from the positive you infer the negative, but Maimonides apparently says this is a dispute between passages; he does not rule that way. Okay? And then it means that even the rule of a doubled condition, which is the most logical of all these rules, even that is not so clearly logical.

What is the next stage? That the condition must precede the act. Here too there is some kind of logic, though it is far from necessary. What are they saying to me, basically? Say to the people first: “If you cross over armed, you will receive the inheritance.” Don’t say: “You will receive the inheritance if you cross over armed.” Why? This is “the condition before the act,” yes, not “the positive before the negative.” What is the idea? Because then you are saying to them: you will receive the inheritance if you cross over armed. Once you said “you will receive the inheritance,” you have already promised it to them. And what does “if you cross over armed” mean suddenly—are you retracting? Speech does not come and cancel an act; after all, you gave them the inheritance, right? Afterward suddenly, wait, wait—if you cross over armed. You already gave it; that’s it. Therefore they tell you: no, put the qualification first, and then when you tell them you are giving them the inheritance it is already clear that this comes only on the condition that they cross over armed. There is no stage in which you gave them the inheritance in any event and then want to uproot or qualify it; rather, you are telling them from the outset that when you give them the land, it is already clear that you are giving it only conditionally, only if they cross over armed. So okay, maybe that is the explanation—some medieval authorities explain it that way—so there is some logic.

What about the positive before the negative? If you cross over armed, you will receive the land; if you do not cross over armed, you will not receive the land. If I were to say first “If you do not cross over armed, you will not receive,” and then “If you do cross over, you will receive”—what’s wrong with that? Why does the positive have to come before the negative? Also, what happens if I say: “If you remain here beyond the Jordan you will not receive the land; if you do not remain here beyond the Jordan then you will receive it”? So is the positive remaining, or is the positive crossing? You can define the positive and the negative in several ways. The positive and the negative are apparently defined according to the act, not the condition. “You will receive the land” is the positive, and “you will not receive the land” is the negative—not “you crossed” and “you did not cross.” Okay? But still I don’t understand the logic of putting the positive before the negative. That is how it is learned from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, but it is not entirely clear why that has to be so.

And something that is in one’s power to fulfill—here one can understand that there is serious intent. If you make a condition “that you ascend to the moon,” you obviously don’t seriously mean to make a condition, because it’s not serious. Okay? So some explain this in terms of serious intent.

Two additional rules of conditions are missing from Maimonides’ list—there is a question why he did not bring them. One is stipulating against what is written in the Torah. That is the fifth rule in the laws of conditions: you cannot say, for example, “I betroth a woman on condition that she has no claim against me for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights.” There is no such thing; the Torah said, “He shall not diminish her sustenance, her clothing, or her marital rights.” That is stipulating against what is written in the Torah, and if one stipulates against what is written in the Torah, his condition is void. So that too is one of the rules of conditions. And that it be possible through an agent—we saw that earlier in Tosafot. Maimonides does not bring it, but that too is one of the rules of conditions. And another one is that the condition must contradict the act. All right? Or that the condition and the act not be about one and the same thing. If I say, “If I give you this thing, I will not give it to you,” or something like that—you cannot have the condition and the act concerning one and the same matter. Therefore that too is a rule of conditions; not important right now. These are the rules of conditions, and we learn them from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben.

I said that some rationale is needed, because without that we do not learn from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. Where do you see this from the condition of the tribes of Gad? So look. How did it go in the passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuben? The tribes of Gad and Reuben approached Moses our teacher: “They came near to him and said: We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock and cities for our children. And we ourselves will go armed ahead of the children of Israel until we have brought them to their place. And our children will dwell in fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our homes until each of the children of Israel has inherited his inheritance. For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this eastern side of the Jordan.” They wanted the area beyond the eastern Jordan, more suitable for grazing, and they said: don’t worry, we won’t stay there; we will take part in the war to conquer the land, only our wives and children will stay there, and afterward we’ll return to them, so there is no need to worry.

“Moses said to them”—so he answers them—“If you do this thing, if you go armed before the Lord to war, and every armed man among you crosses the Jordan before the Lord until He has driven out His enemies before Him, and the land is subdued before the Lord, and afterward you return, then you shall be clear before the Lord and before Israel, and this land shall be yours for a possession before the Lord.” And that is the positive side of the condition. “But if you do not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and know that your sin will find you out. Build yourselves cities for your children and folds for your sheep, and what proceeds from your mouth, do.” All right? So you are committing a serious sin if you don’t do it. And he does not say, “but you won’t receive it.” Interesting, right? He states the other side, but he states only the condition and not the act. He says: you will sin if you do not do this. More than that—he tells them: build now the cities for your children. So if we understand this as a condition: if you cross over armed you will receive the land, and if not then not—then apparently this is a “from now” condition, right? He says: build. You receive it now, but remember that when you cross the Jordan, when the people of Israel cross the Jordan, you will have to cross with them. I am giving it to you already now. So this is a “from now” condition.

Look further on: then the tribes of Gad and Reuben answer Moses our teacher after he says this to them: “The tribes of Gad and Reuben said to Moses, saying: Your servants will do as my lord commands. Our children, our wives, our livestock, and all our animals shall be there in the cities of Gilead. And your servants will cross over, every armed man of the army, before the Lord to war, as my lord has spoken.” There is no doubled condition here. Right? They do not repeat the doubled condition; they simply agree to the principle. Why? Because the process of stipulation has not yet been completed here. All right? What does it say? “Moses commanded concerning them Eleazar the priest…” Up to this point it wasn’t really a doubled condition at all. Both in what Moses our teacher said and in the answer given by the tribes of Gad and Reuben, as we saw—the tribes of Gad and Reuben did not double it at all, and Moses, what he doubled was only the condition, not the act. “If you do not cross over… and you have sinned against the Lord.” He did not say “and if you do not cross over, you will not receive.” Why? Because this was the negotiation between them about the agreement—what would in fact happen. The legal act that establishes the condition appears in the highlighted section now.

“Moses commanded them—” and here it is already complete. Not audible! We can’t hear. David, we can’t hear you. Okay. “Moses commanded them, Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the children of Israel. And Moses said to them: If the tribes of Gad and Reuben cross the Jordan with you, every armed man for war before the Lord, and the land is subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession. But if they do not cross over armed with you, then they shall receive holdings among you in the land of Canaan.” They won’t receive Gilead. Exactly. Here this is already a complete, perfected condition. Okay? Because he says the positive before the negative, the condition before the act, a doubled condition, something possible to fulfill, possible through an agent, condition and act in two separate matters, and he is not stipulating against what is written in the Torah. All seven rules of conditions are fulfilled here. All right?

Now, from the very comparison between the formulations one can see why the Sages really learned it from here, because the Torah clearly repeats it three times. Meaning, you can see that the Torah is trying to be precise, to teach us how this is done. Otherwise why? “And they did so”—that’s all, and what was agreed is what they did. Why is there a need here to repeat and specify? Why is there a difference between the earlier formulations and this formulation? In order to show us that this is what a complete formulation looks like. Therefore we now have to focus on the highlighted section here and understand from it what a complete formulation is, and from this the Sages derived the seven rules of conditions. Okay?

Now, let’s see the significance of this. Look what happens after they make the condition. Let’s first look here: “The tribes of Gad and Reuben answered, saying”—again, the previous answer was the conclusion of the earlier negotiation with Moses our teacher, and then Moses our teacher made the condition with them in front of all Israel—that’s the previous section we read—and now the tribes of Gad and Reuben need to answer; they are the other party to the contract. Moses speaks on behalf of the people of Israel. Now the tribes of Gad and Reuben are the other party to the contract. “The tribes of Gad and Reuben answered, saying: Whatever the Lord has spoken to your servants, so we shall do. We shall cross over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, and our hereditary possession shall remain with us beyond the Jordan.” Again, they do not say a doubled condition because they do not need to. Moses has already doubled the condition. They are only saying: we accept upon ourselves the final wording that Moses our teacher fixed here.

What happens now? “Moses gave to them—to the tribes of Gad and Reuben and to half the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph—the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, the land with its cities in their territories, the cities of the surrounding land. And the tribe of Gad built Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer, Atroth-shophan, Jazer, and Jogbehah…” In short, they built the whole universe before the whole story of entering the land had even begun. These fellows took the land as though it were already theirs. One second—you haven’t crossed the Jordan yet, you haven’t fulfilled the condition yet, what’s going on with you? They are already taking it as if the land is theirs. Clearly, apparently, this is a “from now” condition, right? Right? He makes it contingent on a future event, but what he is giving them—the land—is from now. “Moses gave Gilead to Machir son of Manasseh, and he settled in it; Jair son of Manasseh went and captured their villages…” everything is done now. Okay, now. Wait, and if they don’t meet the condition, will he—won’t he uproot it retroactively? He probably will uproot it, and then the question is what will happen to all the houses they built—will they have to do a disengagement, return it to the people of Israel? Because it is a condition; the Talmud explicitly cites it as a condition.

Now look at Maimonides, chapter 6 of the Laws of Marriage, but this time a bit further on. “One who betroths on condition—when the condition is fulfilled, she becomes betrothed from the time the condition is fulfilled, not from the time she was betrothed.” All right? Rather, from the time the condition is fulfilled—this is a future condition. How so? “If one says to a woman: If I give you two hundred zuz this year, behold, you are betrothed to me with this dinar.” Meaning, he gives her a dinar and says: listen, you are betrothed to me with this dinar if I give you two hundred zuz during the year. Okay? So the betrothal money is not the two hundred zuz; it is the dinar. Okay? And therefore the act is the act of betrothal, and the condition is the future giving of the two hundred zuz, and therefore he must now give the dinar in addition to the future two hundred zuz. And then when she becomes betrothed, she will be betrothed from the moment—sorry—from the moment of the two hundred zuz, not from the moment of the dinar, okay? So if he placed the dinar in her hand in Nisan and gave her the two hundred zuz that he stipulated with her in Elul, she is betrothed from Elul. Not retroactively. No, on the contrary, not retroactively—from the moment the condition is fulfilled, right? From the moment he gave her the two hundred zuz, the condition is fulfilled. He performed the betrothal earlier, half a year earlier. He performed the betrothal in Nisan, half a year before.

“Therefore, if a second man betrothed her before the condition of the first was fulfilled, she is betrothed to the second.” If someone else came and betrothed her in Tammuz, okay? Sad to die in the middle of Tammuz, as they say. Then she is betrothed to the second, because she is not yet betrothed to the first. “And likewise in bills of divorce and in monetary matters: at the moment the condition is fulfilled, the divorce or the sale or gift takes effect.”

“In what case is this said?” Maimonides says. “When there was a condition and he did not say ‘from now.’ But if he said to her: Behold, you are betrothed to me from now with this dinar if I give you two hundred zuz at a later time—if he gives her the two hundred zuz, then she is betrothed retroactively from the time of the betrothal, even though the condition was not fulfilled until much later. Therefore, if another betrothed her before the condition was fulfilled, she is not betrothed. And likewise in divorce and monetary matters.” All right? This is a “from now” condition even though the event is future.

By the way, just as a note, in law 17, which is the next law, Maimonides says that all expressions in the Talmud written as “on condition that”—“Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that I give you two hundred zuz”—anyone who says “on condition that” is as though he said “from now.” Meaning, when we say “condition,” that is “if such-and-such happens,” that is an “if” condition, a future condition. When I say “the condition is such-and-such on condition that you do such-and-such,” or that I do such-and-such, that is a “from now” condition. And the difference is whether it is an “if” condition or an “on condition that” condition. By the way, not everyone agrees with this. Tosafot, for example, in many places ask regarding an “on condition that” condition: why do we say “on condition that I give you two hundred zuz,” and what about a doubled condition? All right? What about a doubled condition? Tosafot say the intention is that they said a doubled condition, but they just didn’t state it. Maimonides says no. Maimonides draws a conclusion from it. He says: in an “on condition that” case you do not need a doubled condition, because it is from now. Every condition that is from now does not require a doubled condition.

But the source of condition is from there—a doubled condition? We’ll see, we’ll see everything. Look at Maimonides in law 14 there. “There are some later geonim who said that a person needs to double his condition only in divorce and betrothal, but in monetary law he does not need to double it. And it is not proper to rely on this, because the doubling of the condition together with the other four things”—that is, the rules of conditions—“the Sages learned them from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben.” And what was that—betrothal? Was that money? It was about money, about granting land. Right? Not betrothal and not money—it is every matter, every condition. So I say, if you say that this is just an example, I understand. But if you say this applies only to betrothal and not to anything else, that is absurd, because the Torah was speaking specifically about something else.

I say in passing, it may be that the geonim understand the division of the land not as a monetary matter, like inheritance. After all, to stipulate concerning inheritance, according to most views, is impossible, even though in monetary matters, one who stipulates against what is written in the Torah in a monetary matter, his condition stands. Why? Because inheritance is not a monetary matter; inheritance is law. Okay? Even though the law is law about money, it is law—it is not contract, it is not something that depends on the people. The Torah dictates that monetary arrangement, and therefore one cannot make conditions about it and cannot do anything of that sort. Fine, maybe the question is how one understands this. It could be that “divorce and betrothal” here means laws, not money. That is the intention. And in that sense, the granting of land in the Land is like divorce and betrothal, not like money. Okay? Fine, but that is just another point.

A second reservation Maimonides makes: “Anyone who says ‘from now’ does not need to double his condition, nor to place the condition before the act.” All the rules of conditions exist only in a future condition, an “if” condition. In an “on condition that” case, a retroactive condition, you do not need the rules of conditions. And indeed, by this, many passages in the Talmud are explained, where the Talmud says: “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you give me two hundred zuz,” and it does not say, “and if you do not give me two hundred zuz, you are not betrothed.” Why didn’t they double the condition? Maimonides says: because “on condition that” is a “from now” condition, a retroactive condition; the rules of conditions are not needed in that kind of condition. Tosafot, as I mentioned earlier, disagree with Maimonides. Tosafot ask why they did not mention a doubled condition in an “on condition that” case, meaning that in their view even in an “on condition that” case you need to state a doubled condition. And they claim that yes, that is the intention—it is shorthand—but really there was a doubled condition. That is what Tosafot claim. Fine, so this is Maimonides’ view.

Maimonides says: “How so? In a matter that can be fulfilled, of course, that applies also in a ‘from now’ condition because that is a simple logical matter. But the things learned from the rules of conditions apply only to an ‘if’ condition, not to an ‘on condition that’ condition. How so? If one says to a woman: Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you give me two hundred zuz; or: This is your bill of divorce on condition that you give me two hundred zuz; or: This courtyard is given to you as a gift on condition that you give me two hundred zuz—his condition stands, and the woman is betrothed or divorced and the other acquires the courtyard, and they will give the two hundred zuz. And if they do not give, then she is not betrothed, she is not divorced, and the other does not acquire the courtyard. Even though he did not double the condition, and even though he placed the act before the condition and gave the betrothal money or the bill of divorce into her hand, and this one took possession, and only afterward completed his condition. For when the condition is fulfilled, this one acquires the courtyard and this one is betrothed and this one is divorced from the first moment in which the act was done, as though there had been no condition at all.” All right? So therefore Maimonides says that in an “on condition that” case, in a retroactive condition, you do not need the rules of conditions. That is Maimonides’ claim.

Now this is a strange thing, because in the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben we saw that he gave them the land immediately. That was a “from now” condition, and from there we learn the whole idea of the rules of conditions. And Maimonides says that precisely in a “from now” condition you do not need the rules of conditions. But let’s look for a moment at the wording. Is it written there in the form of “on condition that”? Let’s read the formulation. This is the formulation that Moses our teacher said: “Moses said to them: If the tribes of Gad and Reuben cross the Jordan with you, every armed man for war, and the land is subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession. But if they do not cross over armed with you, then they shall receive holdings among you in the land of Canaan.” Is this a “from now” condition or an “on condition that” condition? A future condition or a “from now” condition? Clearly this is a future condition. How do I know? Because he says “then you shall give them”—if, if, if… The language of “if” in a condition is a future condition. A present condition is the language of “on condition that.” And he says, “If the tribes of Gad and Reuben cross with you,” and “if they do not cross.” An “if” condition—this is how Maimonides defined it, and so does the Talmud. An “if” condition is a future condition.

So Maimonides is right that the rules of conditions were said about a future condition. The question is, on the plain sense, then why did Moses give them the land immediately, and they built houses and cities on it and so on? The claim is that they simply relied on the fact that in the end it would happen, that’s all. The Talmud indeed says that if the condition depends on me, on what I will do, then after all I know whether I will do it or not. I am allowed to assume that the condition will be fulfilled even in an “if” condition. Even if the condition is an “if” condition, I can now take the land and build houses on it, because I—it is in my power, I can—I know that in the end I will do it and everything will be fine, so I am allowed to rely on that. Okay? Apparently that is how Maimonides will learn the passage of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. In any case, for our purposes this was certainly—that is certainly the law. However we learn the passage, that is another issue.

Now what happens if one does not observe the rules of conditions? He does not stipulate according to the rules of conditions. Someone did not place the condition before the act, or did not place the positive before the negative—what is the law? According to Maimonides, it’s all right, meaning: the condition is void, in a case that requires the rules of conditions. The condition is invalid but the act stands. For example, if I say to a woman, “You are betrothed to me if you give me two hundred zuz,” without saying “and if not.” Then Maimonides says—we read it—“if one of them is missing, the condition is void, as though there were no condition there at all; rather, she will be betrothed or divorced and the sale or gift will take effect immediately, as though he made no condition at all, since one of the four is missing.” That is outrageous. You can tell me that if you did not stipulate according to the rules of conditions, the whole thing is void—no betrothal, no condition, nothing. You cannot tell me that there is betrothal and the condition is void. Why? Let’s think, for example: I stipulated, I am betrothing the woman on condition that she give me two hundred zuz, okay? But I did not double the condition. Now I betrothed her, and she did not give me the two hundred zuz. Since I did not double the condition, then she is betrothed to me even though she did not fulfill the condition, right? The condition is void and the act stands. So that means that the woman is betrothed to me even though I did not intend to betroth her. After all, on the side where she does not give me the two hundred zuz, I had no intention to betroth her at all. How can it be that the woman is betrothed to me if I did not intend to betroth her? At most you can tell me: forget it, erase this entire act of betrothal—no betrothal, no condition, nothing, you made a mess. Redefine what you’re doing, okay? But how can you say that the condition is void but the act stands? The act stands whether the condition is fulfilled or not—that is the meaning of “the condition is void and the act stands.” But on the side where the condition is not fulfilled, I did not intend to betroth the woman. How are you forcing on me that she be my wife when I did not intend to betroth her? That is what Tosafot asks in Ketubot.

Let’s look at it, and here our story begins. Up to now these were introductions; now we begin to talk. The Talmud says as follows in Ketubot 56: “And we have heard Rabbi Yehuda say that in a monetary matter his condition stands. As it was taught: If one says to a woman, ‘Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you have no claim on me for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights,’ she is betrothed and his condition is void—these are the words of Rabbi Meir.” Why? Because he stipulates against what is written in the Torah. This is stipulating against what is written in the Torah, so one of the rules of conditions was not fulfilled, and what is the law? She is betrothed and the condition is void, the act stands. The betrothal stands and the condition is void, right? Rabbi Yehuda says: “In a monetary matter, his condition stands.” Since this is a stipulation about a monetary matter—they discuss there why this is considered a monetary matter; I won’t get into that here—but it is considered a monetary matter. And since that is so, in a monetary matter I am allowed to stipulate against what is written in the Torah, and therefore I have not violated the rules of conditions; the condition is valid. Then she is betrothed if there will not be sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, and if there will be sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, she is not betrothed. That is what Rabbi Yehuda says. But Rabbi Meir argues otherwise.

On this, Tosafot there on the spot ask: “She is betrothed and his condition is void.” It must be that we are speaking of a case where he doubled his condition. After all, clearly the case is where he said to her: “If you have no claim on me for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, you are betrothed, and if not, do not be betrothed.” Why? Because later it says that Rabbi Meir’s reason why his condition is void is because he stipulates against what is written in the Torah, and if he had not doubled his condition, then according to Rabbi Meir we could have said the condition is void simply because Rabbi Meir requires a doubled condition. After all, you are telling me why the condition is void according to Rabbi Meir: because it is stipulating against what is written in the Torah. Just because it’s not doubled, therefore the condition is void? He didn’t double the condition, therefore the condition is void—Rabbi Meir is the father of the view that conditions need to be doubled. So clearly we are talking here about a condition that was in fact doubled; they just abbreviated the wording. Which is what I said Tosafot say in many places.

Although remember—I’ll remind you once again—how is the condition formulated? “If one says to a woman: behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you have no claim on me for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights.” What will Maimonides say here? This is a “from now” condition; it does not need to be doubled. Tosafot, as we saw, disagree with Maimonides. According to Tosafot, even in a “from now” condition you have to double the condition. All right? Therefore Tosafot ask: then why is the whole problem here that he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah? Simply speaking, he didn’t double the condition. Tosafot answer: he did double it, they just did not quote the full wording. But essentially the intention is that he doubled the condition, he said both sides.

And now the question—what? It’s a bit absurd, because what happens if, say, all the conditions of all conditions are fulfilled, but it is against what the Torah said—then will the condition stand or not stand? No, it is void. But it is void even though all four conditions of the condition are fulfilled? No, but one of the rules of conditions is not to stipulate against what is written in the Torah. That is one of the rules of conditions; if that too is not fulfilled, the condition is void. That’s not what we said before. We said four conditions, we said other things. No, I brought seven. I brought the four that Maimonides lists and I added three more: stipulating against what is written in the Torah, possible through an agent, and condition and act about the same thing. And if one of the seven is not fulfilled, the condition is void. Right. Okay.

Now Tosafot say: in this case, when Rabbi Meir says why the condition is void, it is because he stipulates against what is written in the Torah. Meaning, the case is that he really said to her like this: “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that you have no claim on me for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, and if you do have a claim on me for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, you are not betrothed.” He doubled the condition. Right? And if he doubled the condition, then he has made his intention very clear that he does not intend for her to be betrothed if there are sustenance, clothing, and marital rights.

Tosafot say, after this introduction: “And this is difficult: if so, why is she betrothed? For he explicitly stipulated that if she should have a claim on him for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, she is not betrothed.” You are telling me that the case here is one where he doubled the condition. He told her explicitly: I do not want to betroth you if you have a claim on me for sustenance, clothing, and marital rights. I’m not interested, I don’t want you as my wife. What do we say? Since he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah, the condition is void and the act stands. She is your wife whether you like it or not—and your mother-in-law too, as the saying goes. How can that be? After all, he explicitly said that on that basis he does not intend to betroth her. What, we force a person to betroth a woman even though he doesn’t want her at all? How can such a thing be? An enormous question.

And therefore the introduction Tosafot give there at the beginning, that it must be that he doubled the condition, is very important. Because otherwise you could say that if he did not double the condition, then maybe he does not seriously mean the other side. He is trying to get from her a waiver of sustenance, clothing, and marital rights. But if he doesn’t succeed, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t intend to betroth her—because the fact is, he didn’t double the condition. All right? But therefore Tosafot preface and say: but here we are talking about a case where he did double the condition. So he means it seriously. He says: if you have sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, I don’t want you. What do we say to him? No, she will be yours whether you like it or not, and there will be sustenance, clothing, and marital rights. How can that be? A person did not intend to betroth her, so how did she become his wife? After all, on that side he did not perform the act of betrothal. How is she his wife? That is Tosafot’s question.

In Tosafot Yeshanim there on the side of the page it says as follows: “Rabbeinu Tam says that he is just talking extravagantly, and this is not a condition at all that the condition should be fulfilled, according to the one who says that one who stipulates against what is written in the Torah—his condition is void. And it is like ‘on condition that you ascend to the sky.’” It is like a condition that is not in her power, one that cannot be fulfilled. Rabbeinu Tam argues: if he is stipulating against what is written in the Torah, after all you know that one cannot do something against the Torah. Apparently you didn’t mean it seriously. You did not seriously intend to make it contingent on sustenance, clothing, and marital rights. And therefore, in fact, what you intended was to betroth her in any case. You were trying to gain something—even if you doubled the condition, even if you doubled the condition—and still you did not seriously intend it. This answer of Rabbeinu Tam is very forced. I doubled the condition—unexpressed intentions are legally irrelevant. What do you mean? I doubled the condition, I said explicitly what I mean—why are you probing the recesses of my heart? How can such a thing be?

But why are you limiting this to this connection? This is one of the seven conditions, one of the seven rules. If it isn’t fulfilled, then there is no condition. Fine, but the act? So why specifically this one? Every condition that you mentioned—once again, right, I’m bringing this, but it’s true of all of them. Every one of the seven rules of conditions—if it is not fulfilled, the act stands and the condition is void. And I would ask the same question about all of them, and I am asking Tosafot’s question about all of them. Tosafot asked it concerning stipulating against what is written in the Torah, which is one of the seven, but you could ask it about all of them. Okay. The same question. After all, he intended it; he told you what he intended and what he did not intend. How are you forcing him to do something he didn’t want? So you can tell me the condition is invalid because the Torah defines how conditions are made. But the act cannot be valid either—so cancel everything. You cannot tell me the act remains valid but the condition is as though it was never made. All right?

According to Rabbeinu Tam, in my opinion, it is really forced—very hard, very hard to accept. According to Rabbeinu Tam, would she need a bill of divorce? What? Would she need a bill of divorce? Of course! She is betrothed—what do you mean? She is fully betrothed. She is his wife. Not just that she needs a bill of divorce. First of all she is his wife, completely. All right?

Now Rabbeinu Tam apparently understands the rules of conditions as matters whose purpose is to clarify the intent of the one making the condition. If the rules of conditions are not fulfilled, apparently he did not fully, seriously intend to make the act conditional. He intended to do it in any case. He was maybe trying to gain something, but he did not really seriously mean to make it conditional. That is what one has to say, and it’s forced. For some of these things, you can understand it. For example, someone who does not double the condition—someone who does not double the condition perhaps really did not seriously intend not to do it if the condition was not fulfilled. That really is on the table. Another case: something impossible to fulfill—that really means he is just talking nonsense. Okay, but the positive before the negative, and the condition before the act—what, what, why there? Why should that testify to his intentions? Especially if he is not a Torah scholar. Right?

So there is another answer here from Ri. Ri says as follows: “Ri says that one must distinguish and say that there are things that do not need a doubled condition, but only a revelation of the matter, where we are witnesses that he acted with that intention. And there are also things where even a revelation of the matter is not needed, such as one who writes all his property to others because he heard he had a son, where the gift is void…” Wait, no, sorry. Wait, sorry, no—that passage is from Tosafot in Kiddushin 50, not the Tosafot I’m discussing here. I brought that passage from Tosafot in Kiddushin to show that indeed, in places where the person’s intent is clear, you do not need to double the condition or any of the rules of conditions. That strengthens Rabbeinu Tam’s view—that the whole need for the rules of conditions is only to make sure that he really means to make the act conditional.

Okay? So how do I see this? Because in Kiddushin 49 the Talmud says: what happens if someone sells all his property with the intention of going up to the Land of Israel. He lives in Babylonia and wants to move to the Land of Israel, so he sells all his property in order to have money to take with him to the Land of Israel. There was a mishap—he didn’t manage to go up to the Land of Israel, the ship sank, I don’t know what happened, he didn’t manage to go up, and he came back. All the property reverts to him. His house, his field, everything he sold comes back to him. Okay? Because it is perfectly clear that he intended it that way. After all, he did not make a doubled condition that if I go up to the Land of Israel it is sold and if not then not. He made no condition at all, not only did he fail to make a doubled condition. The Talmud says, Tosafot say, yes, but these are things in his heart and in every person’s heart. There are things where it is absolutely clear that this is what the person intended. In such a case you do not need to double the condition. All right? You do not even need to formulate a condition. Okay? This strengthens Rabbeinu Tam’s view, because here we really see that the whole question is what you actually intend. If it is clear that this is what you intended, then the condition is a condition even without the rules of conditions. Okay? So that is Rabbeinu Tam’s view.

According to this there are many difficulties. First, as I said, the positive before the negative, the condition before the act—that does not look like something that clarifies the intent of the person making the condition. Beyond that, why do you need fixed rules of conditions? Let the Sages simply examine how far what the person says really indicates his intent—that’s all. Why do you need to fix in advance a pattern that tells me how it must be said? What for?

So here is the Ri I wanted to read to you. Ri there in Tosafot in Ketubot answers the difficulty differently. Let me remind you again what the difficulty was. A person betrothed a woman conditionally and formulated the condition not in accordance with the rules of conditions. In that case it was stipulating against what is written in the Torah, but it doesn’t matter; he did not put the positive before the negative, all right? What is the law? The condition is void and the act stands. Tosafot ask: I understand why the condition is void, but how can it be that the act stands? The act stands, and she will have sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, but on the side where she has sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, I did not intend to betroth her. How can you tell me she is my wife when I did not at all intend to betroth her?

“Ri says: for if not that we learned from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, I would have said that no condition can cancel an act, and even if it is not fulfilled in the end, the act stands. But now that we learn from there that a condition is effective to cancel an act, we say that this is specifically when one does not stipulate against what is written in the Torah, analogous to the tribes of Gad and Reuben, who did not stipulate against what is written in the Torah.” What is he saying? He has several innovations here, and we need to go through them carefully because this itself is the point. This is where I want to begin.

Ri basically says the following: suppose there were no condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben at all, no source in the Torah teaching us the rules of conditions. Would it have been possible to stipulate conditions? Ri says no. You could not have stipulated conditions. Why? Because there is a rule that speech does not come and nullify an act. What is a condition? Ri says—and this is his assumption: a condition is a situation in which I utter some statement, and that statement nullifies the act that I am performing. Right? After all, I say to a woman “Behold, you are betrothed to me” and I give her a perutah. I performed an act. I performed an action. And now I say “only if it rains tomorrow.” If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, then no. Okay? Suppose it didn’t rain, then my act is uprooted, right? How? What uprooted the act? The statement that I uttered, that if it doesn’t rain the act should be uprooted. A statement cannot uproot an act. Therefore, had the Torah not innovated—But he put the condition before the act and said to him, not that I’m cancelling; first of all, if it doesn’t rain then such-and-such. Therefore I said that Ri is assuming something here about the nature of the condition. And Ri assumes that this is a defeasing condition and not a suspensive condition. It is a defeasing condition. I am basically betrothing you, only if it does not rain I want the condition to uproot the betrothal. But a condition is speech, so how can it uproot an act of betrothal? Speech does not come and nullify an act. Therefore, if not for the Torah’s innovation, what would we say? That no condition would help. If I performed betrothal conditionally, the betrothal would take effect and the condition would help nothing, because the condition cannot uproot the act.

Now the Torah innovated that there is a concept of condition, from the condition of the tribes of Gad and Reuben. But it says: the speech of condition is special speech. It has the power to uproot an act. When? If you did it according to the law, according to the seven rules of conditions. Only then does the statement enter this special category that suddenly has the power to uproot an act. If you did not do it according to the rules of conditions—say one of them is missing, you did not put the positive before the negative, you stipulated against what is written in the Torah, something like that—then the condition has no power to uproot the act. And then what happens? The act remains in force. And if the condition is not fulfilled, it will not succeed in uprooting the act; the act remains in force.

I don’t understand why. If I come and say, “If tomorrow it rains, you will be betrothed to me,” not… “if it doesn’t rain, there is no betrothal.” You are returning to the previous question. I’ll repeat the answer I gave you to the previous question. This is a defeasing condition, not a suspensive condition. A defeasing condition means: I betroth you, period. Only if it doesn’t rain do I want this to be uprooted. You are presenting it as a suspensive condition, a condition that says: if it rains, I want you to be betrothed, and if not then of course not. So—Ri assumes, and this is an assumption—Ri assumes that the condition, at least this condition, is a defeasing condition and not a suspensive condition.

And in a defeasing condition all seven foundations of the condition do not exist? What? I didn’t understand. You mean that if it is a defeasing condition, then all seven foundations of the condition don’t exist. Maybe that is Maimonides’ difference between a “from now” condition and an “if” condition—we’ll get to that. But let me return to Ri for a moment, because it is very important to me that we understand the point. Even after he said what he said, what did he answer? In the end, you explained to me a nice mechanism—that the statement does not uproot the act. But bottom line, I did not intend to betroth her on the side where—not… What did you answer? After all, that was the difficulty—what did you answer to that difficulty?

I am making the following claim, look: a person wants to betroth conditionally. That really is his intention. He does not want her to be his wife if there are no sustenance, clothing, and marital rights; he wants her only if there are no sustenance, clothing, and marital rights—if there are, then he doesn’t want her. That really is his intention; he doubled the condition, he showed that that is his intention. But, the Torah says to him: look, sir, there is no way to implement your will except through a very specific mechanism that I am telling you about, because otherwise you are trying to do something impossible. You are trying to create a statement that uproots an act. In order to allow this, I innovated the mechanism of condition, says the Torah. But know that the mechanism of condition works like this: you must apply the betrothal in any case. Whether the condition is fulfilled or not fulfilled, it has to be there. Then afterward you must stipulate the condition according to the rules of conditions, and then what happens? A statement is created that has the power, such that if the condition is not fulfilled—again, there is some noise here—if the condition is not fulfilled, then the act will be uprooted. But that, of course, is only if you made the statement in a form that gives it power. Okay?

So now what does the person want? He wants to betroth the woman conditionally—that is his true will. If there are no sustenance, clothing, and marital rights, she should be his wife; if there are, she should not be his wife. He understands that to carry this out, he has to betroth her in any case and make the condition in such a way that if the condition is not fulfilled the act will be uprooted. Only thus can it be done. There is no other way to do it. So the person says okay, if that’s the only way to do it, and this is what I want to do—conditional betrothal—then I’ll do it that way.

So what comes out? That he intended to betroth the woman in any case, whether yes or no. He only wanted, alongside that, to create a condition that would produce a situation such that if the condition is not fulfilled, the act would be uprooted—even though he applied it in both cases. Only if the condition is not fulfilled would it uproot the act. All right, but he messed up. Because he made the condition in a way that does not conform to the rules of conditions. So what happened? He went with the mechanism defined by the Torah and said: I betroth the woman in any case, whether she has sustenance, clothing, and marital rights or not. Alongside that I create a statement called a “conditional statement.” And to create that, I do it according to the rules of conditions. And that statement has the power that, although I betrothed the woman on both sides, if the condition is not fulfilled, the act will be uprooted. But that is all only if you stipulated according to the rules of conditions. Here, however, you did not stipulate according to the rules of conditions. In short, you did not create that statement alongside the act, and therefore the statement does not manage to uproot the act even if the condition is not fulfilled. Then you end up with that woman as your wife, even though basically you did not want that. Why? Because in the mechanism you used when you betrothed her, you betrothed her also on the side where there are sustenance, clothing, and marital rights. Because only that way could the condition be made. So you chose to go with the Torah and use the mechanism of condition. But you did not make the condition properly. The act you did in both cases; the condition you did not construct in a form that has the power to uproot the act. So the act remains in force and the condition is void. That is what Ri says.

Wait, does that apply—sorry—only in a “from now” condition or in a future one? Meaning, if you did not do the act, then this whole story doesn’t flow? That’s an excellent question, and we’ll see it later. If I apply what Ri says here to Maimonides, then apparently this is only in a future condition. Because only in a future condition are there all the rules of conditions and all that. And that is the opposite of the logic, just as you said. Because from a logical standpoint, the logic I just described is very compelling precisely for a “from now” condition. Because in a “from now” condition I am basically betrothing the woman now. Only if some future thing happens do I want it uprooted. So you need to create the statement in a way that can uproot. But if the condition is a future condition, then what is the problem? That is a suspensive condition. In a suspensive condition I did not betroth her at all, so I do not need anything to be uprooted. I have nothing to uproot. Right. So what is the problem? You don’t need the rules of conditions and everything is fine.

If that is the explanation for the rules of conditions, then I would have expected the rules of conditions to apply precisely to a “from now” condition and not to a future condition. Now that fits none of the early authorities. Because according to Maimonides it is only in a future condition and not in a “from now” condition, and according to Tosafot it is both in a future condition and in a “from now” condition. I do not know of any medieval authority whose position is that it applies only in a “from now” condition. Which is very strange. So we will still need to understand that. Okay?

But first of all, notice what is happening here. What Ri is basically innovating for us here is an extremely far-reaching idea. Ri is basically claiming that when I impose a legal effect conditionally, the mechanism is a defeasing mechanism and not a suspensive one. Even in an “if” condition. Let’s say with Maimonides this is an “if” condition. The mechanism is defeasing and not suspensive. Meaning that I am actually applying the legal effect in any case, acquiring the land, saying the condition according to the rules of conditions, and then if tomorrow it does not rain, the legal effect is uprooted retroactively. Because I already applied it yesterday, right? The legal effect is uprooted retroactively. This belongs to the fourth level of the four levels I mentioned at the beginning. Why? Because there is a future event here. Right? It’s not a future event that defines—it’s a future event that produces the present state. Something that happens in the future causes the uprooting of something done now. How can that be?

He can uproot it from the time the condition is not fulfilled, that I could understand. There is some noise here, I’ll mute. I could understand the mechanism of condition—let me perhaps stop the sharing, we don’t need the sharing anymore. I could understand the mechanism of condition as follows, and I’ll already formulate what Rabbi Shimon Shkop says about this Tosafot. Look: we usually understand the mechanism of condition as a mechanism of “it becomes revealed retroactively.” What does that mean? If tomorrow it rains, then it will turn out retroactively that already today she was betrothed. And if it does not rain, then it will turn out that already today she was not betrothed. Basically this is a mechanism that fits one of the first two levels out of the four levels. Meaning, the information already exists now; I do not know it, but the Holy One, blessed be He, knows it. Nothing causal is happening backward here; there is no influence of the future on the past. There is simply information that I do not know, and in the future it becomes known to me, that’s all. Okay? And that is how the concept of condition is usually understood. Usually the concept of condition is understood as something that does not causally produce something backward, but rather reveals to me retroactively information that I did not know. That’s all, it’s only information.

Rabbi Shimon Shkop wants to claim that this is an incorrect understanding of the concept of condition, and one of the examples he brings is this Ri that I just brought you. Because he argues that Ri is really saying: this is not a retroactive revelation that there was no betrothal; it is an uprooting. There was betrothal. This is a causal action. Retroactive revelation is not a causal action. If I arrive in the country and discover that what was born to me was a boy and not a girl, did my arrival in the country cause something in the past? It caused nothing. There was simply information I did not know, and now it became known to me. Nothing happened retroactively. That is how the concept of condition is usually understood.

Rabbi Shimon Shkop says: what Ri says here is not that. Condition is the fourth mechanism. It is not the first mechanism, not the second, and not the third. By the way, the third mechanism is the mechanism of retroactive selection. We’ll still see that. The first and second mechanisms are the understanding of condition according to the conventional view. The fourth mechanism is the mechanism according to Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s understanding of the concept of condition. And he brings this Ri we just read as an example. Because what is Ri basically saying? If it were merely a retroactive revelation, suppose condition were just a plain retroactive revelation, then there would be no place for what Ri says. Nothing here is uprooted. On the side where tomorrow it does not rain, I never betrothed her in the first place. What needs to be uprooted? It will simply turn out that I never betrothed her. Right? And if it does rain, then it will turn out that I did betroth her. Nothing here needs to be uprooted. It is just an indication. Whether the rain falls tomorrow or does not fall tomorrow is an indication of what happened today. I do not know it until I wait for tomorrow, but in truth the information exists—it is only an indication. Okay?

But Ri says yes. Ri says that it comes to uproot. What does that mean, “it comes to uproot”? Right now I applied the betrothal in any case, whether there will be rain or there will not be rain. And if tomorrow there is no rain, I want my statement to uproot the betrothal retroactively. So the condition really becomes a cause, exactly. The condition becomes a cause, but that cause works from the future backward to the past. And that is already the fourth level. It is no longer the first, nor the second, nor the third; it is already the fourth level. How can such a thing be? That is what Rabbi Shimon Shkop asks: how can such a thing be? Okay? That is basically the point.

And this is the puzzle for which I gave all the introductions about going backward in time, because when we reached the fourth level I said: on the fourth level we have to understand how it can be that causality works backward in time. So true, this is not physical, it is legal, but even on the legal plane there has to be some model. Okay, we’ll stop here with your permission. I apologize, but I simply need to finish a few minutes early today.