Conceptual Analysis – Lesson 16 (attached file below)
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Conceptual construction versus common denominator
- Sabbath example: spitting as a fusion of throwing and sowing
- The fusion of oaths: ten laden vines and the bailee’s oath
- Common denominator versus conceptual construction in oaths and the implications for extension
- The topic in Kiddushin 7a: the law of a guarantor, the law of a Canaanite slave, and the law of both together
- Explicit conceptual construction in the Talmud and the fusion of problematic features
- Pushing the move to the extreme: “Here is a maneh, and I will become betrothed to you” and the discussion of an important person
- Graphic representation and group theory: moving the arrowhead and moving the arrow tail
- The approach of Behag in Beit Yosef and understanding the passage
- The concluding answer: why not every action counts as betrothal
Summary
General Overview
The text presents a logical tool called conceptual construction, distinguished from learning through a common denominator in that it creates a new law through the fusion of different components from two source cases, rather than from a shared characteristic. The author first demonstrates this in the context of the Sabbath and oaths, and then moves to the topic in tractate Kiddushin 7a dealing with the law of a guarantor, the law of a Canaanite slave, and “the law of both together,” showing how the Talmud itself presents an explicit combination of two laws there. He then proposes a formal, graphic analysis of the passage, describes the combinations as operations of moving the “arrowhead” and moving the “arrow tail,” and argues that the structure is group-like, so that further combinations ought to produce valid forms of betrothal, including forms not mentioned in the Talmud. He also supports this through the approach of Behag cited in Beit Yosef, and concludes that the structural reading explains why not every random action can count as betrothal, but only an action built from the basic model through the relevant transformations.
Conceptual construction versus common denominator
Conceptual construction is similar in wording to learning by common denominator, but it does not conclude with “the common denominator between them,” because it is learned from a combination of different sides, not from a shared feature. In a common denominator, the law follows from the traits shared by both source cases, whereas in conceptual construction the law is created from the fusion of separate contributions, each coming from a different source case. The author defines the practical difference as follows: with a common denominator, one may extend to any case that falls under the shared principle, whereas in conceptual construction the extension is limited only to what resembles the two prototypes in its composition.
Sabbath example: spitting as a fusion of throwing and sowing
The author brings the law of one who spits on the Sabbath and the spit travels four cubits in the public domain, according to the Jerusalem Talmud as ruled by the Rema, and presents in the name of Rabbi Nachman of Ilya that the prohibition is built from a combination of throwing and sowing, even though they have no common denominator in this context. He explains that from sowing one takes the assistance of the wind, and from throwing one takes the transfer of four cubits in the public domain, and combines them into one mechanism of “moving four cubits with the aid of the wind,” which is the case of spitting. The example serves as a model for the idea that the fusion is specifically of features that seem problematic for the law, but it turns out from one of the source cases that each feature by itself does not cancel liability.
The fusion of oaths: ten laden vines and the bailee’s oath
The author analyzes a Mishnah in tractate Shevuot about a claimant who says he deposited ten laden vines with a bailee, and the bailee admits to five and denies five, and shows that from the wording of the Mishnah it appears to be the oath of one who admits part of a claim, but from Maimonides and Rabbi Yosef ibn Migash it emerges clearly that this is the bailee’s oath. He explains that the bailee’s oath belongs to the “contract of safekeeping,” and therefore when the defendant denies the very existence of the safekeeping arrangement, there is no basis to impose the bailee’s oath on him—unless there is an admission that creates the background of an existing transaction. He proposes that the mechanism of partial admission creates the infrastructure for imposing the bailee’s oath, because the admission to part shows that there was in fact a contract and that the dispute is only about its extent, even though from the standpoint of partial admission there is a problem of “here it is” with vines attached to the ground, and therefore the oath would not normally apply.
Common denominator versus conceptual construction in oaths and the implications for extension
The author proposes two understandings. One can view the case as a common denominator, where the shared principle is “the oath of defendants on the defensive,” and any defendant who finds himself in a defensive posture must swear, because “the common denominator of all Torah oaths is that in all of them, the one who swears—the defendant—is defending himself and must swear.” Or one can see it as conceptual construction, in which the logic of partial admission is injected into the world of the bailee’s oath, producing a specific derivative law for the Mishnah’s case. He ties this to a dispute between the Rosh and other great authorities over whether the derivative contains all the characteristics of both source cases, and presents a practical difference regarding whether one can impose an oath on a defensive defendant who resembles neither partial admission nor the bailee’s oath.
The topic in Kiddushin 7a: the law of a guarantor, the law of a Canaanite slave, and the law of both together
The Talmud cites in the name of Rava that “Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will become betrothed to you” is valid by the law of a guarantor, and it is explained that the guarantor becomes obligated even though no benefit reaches him directly, because of the benefit of the trust the lender shows in him. The parallel is that the woman gains benefit from the fact that the man treats her request as important and gives to someone else at her instruction. The Talmud also brings that “Here is a maneh, and become betrothed to so-and-so” is valid by the law of the Canaanite slave, just as a Canaanite slave acquires himself even though he gives up nothing, because another person gives the money to the master. It then brings “Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will become betrothed to him” as valid by the law of both together, and the author explains that this is a case where the husband does not give and the woman does not receive, and the Talmud formulates it as a combination of the two laws through a discussion of “the guarantor proves it” and “the Canaanite slave proves it.”
Explicit conceptual construction in the Talmud and the fusion of problematic features
The author argues that “the law of both together” is the only place he found where conceptual construction is explicitly laid out on the table in the Talmud, because it is defined as being “by the law of both” and based on joining features from two source cases. He explains that from the law of a guarantor we learn that even though the woman did not receive money, that does not obstruct the betrothal; and from the law of the Canaanite slave we learn that even though the husband did not give money, that does not obstruct it either. “The law of both” fuses these two features together. He emphasizes that the fusion concerns features that should have prevented the law from taking effect, similar to the assistance of the wind in sowing, and yet from each prototype separately it becomes clear that the feature is not disqualifying.
Pushing the move to the extreme: “Here is a maneh, and I will become betrothed to you” and the discussion of an important person
The Talmud brings a question of Rava about “Here is a maneh, and I will become betrothed to you,” and the author describes this as a stage that seems to reverse the very concept of betrothal, since the woman is the one giving. Mar Zutra in the name of Rav Pappa says, “She is betrothed,” and Rav Ashi challenges this from the laws of acquisition concerning property with responsibility and property without responsibility, as though the man acquires the money and by means of the money acquires the woman, contrary to the rule that “property without responsibility is acquired along with property with responsibility.” The answer is that this is not an ancillary acquisition, but rather “we are dealing with an important person, because through that benefit that he receives a gift from her, she resolves and transfers herself to him,” meaning that the benefit of being accepted by an important person turns the act into betrothal through benefit.
Graphic representation and group theory: moving the arrowhead and moving the arrow tail
The author presents a comic-strip or graphic representation in which, in ordinary betrothal, the husband transfers money to the woman and the woman transfers herself to the husband, and he distinguishes this from betrothal through an agent, where there is appointment of agency and the principal’s money. He defines the law of the guarantor as moving the arrowhead, so that the money reaches a third party while the betrothal still remains with the giver of the money; and the law of the Canaanite slave as moving the arrow tail, so that the money comes from someone else but the betrothal is still to the one betrothing. He argues that composing the two operations in different orders is not commutative, and therefore different results are obtained, and he speaks in terms of group theory, closure of the group, and compositions that generate additional laws, including “the reverse law of both together,” which does not appear in the Talmud.
The approach of Behag in Beit Yosef and understanding the passage
The author cites from Beit Yosef a discussion of “she gave and he spoke,” and shows that the Ran rules that since he is not important, there is no doubt that this is not betrothal because of “when a man takes,” whereas Behag wrote that it is a case of doubtful betrothal, and Beit Yosef says, “his words did not appear correct.” He argues that Behag reflects the straightforward meaning of the Talmud, and interprets the doubt as a rabbinic-level problem, while on the Torah level the betrothal takes effect, because Rav Pappa said “she is betrothed,” and the challenge in the Talmud is presented as a problem in the laws of acquisitions, not as a fundamental refutation in the laws of betrothal. He adds that there is a continuation of examples, including a case involving four people, and argues that the group-theoretic perspective resolves difficulties raised by medieval and later authorities and explains the limits of extension.
The concluding answer: why not every action counts as betrothal
The author returns to the question why one cannot betroth by any action at all, such as humming or whistling, and answers that the act must be built out of the basic betrothal act through the transformations of the guarantor and the Canaanite slave. He states that there will always remain a transfer of money from someone to someone within the structure, even if it is not necessarily from the husband to the woman, and therefore only the combinations that can be generated in this way are valid betrothals. He concludes by proposing to upload to the group a long file with the full analysis, the sources, and the mathematics, and in closing the lecture he parts with “Shabbat shalom.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re in the middle of conceptual analysis, and in the last few lectures I talked about what I call conceptual construction. Conceptual construction is a structure that on the face of it resembles a mode of derivation called a common denominator, and you can formulate them almost the same way, except for the concluding sentence: “the common denominator between them is such-and-such, and therefore the derivative case has that same law.” That sentence will not appear in a conceptual construction, and the reason is that with a common denominator we learn from the features shared by the two source cases, and that’s why it ends with “the common denominator between them,” because there is a common denominator between them. In conceptual construction, we learn from a combination or fusion of the different sides of the two source cases. I brought, for example, the case of spitting according to the Jerusalem Talmud as ruled by the Rema. If someone spits on the Sabbath and it goes four cubits in the public domain, Rabbi Nachman of Ilya explains that this is really a combination of throwing and sowing, where obviously throwing and sowing have nothing in common in this context. They are two completely different things. Rather, each contributes something, and the contributions of those two things are fused together—fused, with a tav-khaf, not with a tet-khaf—together in order to produce the prohibition of spitting. The assistance of the wind is taken from sowing, and the transfer of four cubits in the public domain is taken from throwing. The combination of those two things is moving four cubits with the aid of the wind, and that is spitting. So that’s the example of conceptual construction. We also saw the Rosh regarding “his stone, his knife, and his burden” that fell from the top of a roof. In the previous lecture—actually the one before the previous—in the previous lecture I talked about the fusion of oaths, and I tried to show that this logic underlies the Mishnah in tractate Shevuot that speaks about someone who claims that he deposited ten laden vines with his bailee, and the bailee denies it—he says there were only five. And the discussion there was whether this is the oath of one who admits part of a claim, or the bailee’s oath. From the wording of the Mishnah it looks like the oath of one who admits part, but from Maimonides and Rabbi Yosef ibn Migash it’s clear that this is the bailee’s oath. And I said that what really lies behind that Mishnah is a conceptual construction—or a common denominator, I showed two possibilities there—of the bailee’s oath and the oath of partial admission. Because I said that if I sue a bailee, saying I deposited something with him, and the bailee denies it, then certainly he should not have to swear the bailee’s oath to me. The bailee’s oath is part of the laws—part of the clauses—of the safekeeping contract. But if he denies the very existence of a safekeeping contract, then I have no basis at all to impose an oath on him. The bailee’s oath applies only after it is clear that there is a safekeeping contract between us and you claim it was stolen or lost—a gratuitous bailee who is exempt—but if you claim, “I was never a bailee at all, I don’t know you,” then obviously I cannot impose an oath on him just because I claim he’s a bailee. I have to show that there was a bailment contract between us. And what I tried to show is that from the mechanism of the oath of partial admission, I can create the bailee’s oath in the situation I just described. If I deposited ten laden vines with him and he says, “You only deposited five,” then our dispute is over the extra five. And regarding those extra five, he denies it. If he denies it, then as far as those are concerned he is not a bailee at all—so how can I obligate him to swear about them? The answer is: because he admitted part of the claim regarding the other five vines. And the argument was that if you admit part, that basically means that there was, first of all, some transaction between us—we only have a disagreement over its scope. You say five vines, I say ten vines. So that means there is indeed a contract in the background, and therefore by the logic of the oath of partial admission I can obligate you in the bailee’s oath. And my argument was that this can be understood in two ways. Either it is a common denominator, and really the point is: what do the oath of partial admission and the bailee’s oath have in common? They are both oaths of defendants on the defensive. These are simply different situations in which the defendant, although he is the defendant and ostensibly the burden of proof is on the claimant, nevertheless there is something here that causes him to have to defend himself, and where the defendant has to defend himself, an oath is imposed on him. Therefore, what I want to say—one possibility—is that the bailee’s oath and the oath of partial admission are both an oath, an oath of defendants on the defensive, and anyone who is in a defensive posture, although he is the defendant, will have to swear, because the common denominator of all Torah oaths is that in all of them, the one who swears—the defendant—is defending himself and has to swear. That is one possibility. A second possibility is to see it as a conceptual construction. And I said that really—this is what I described before—I am building the idea of the oath of partial admission into the world of the bailee’s oath. And that’s what I described earlier. I said that if you admitted five vines, then regarding the other five it cannot be said that I’m just picking on you, because after all there was a contract between us. I claim ten, you claim five, but you’re not saying, “Who are you? I don’t know you at all.” Rather, obviously there was a contract between us and our dispute is only over its scope. And since that is so, I can basically come to you with a claim by force of the safekeeping contract that existed between us. Because there is in fact a safekeeping contract between us, and you are claiming that this contract was only for five and not for ten. And you are in a defensive position, and therefore you must swear the bailee’s oath because of the logic of partial admission. So from the standpoint of the bailee’s oath—say, if I were formulating this as a derivation from two source cases, yes, for this case of ten vines and five—let’s make it a derivation from two source cases. I have one source case, the bailee’s oath; a second source case, partial admission. The source case of the bailee’s oath cannot teach the case, because regarding the five for which I am the bailee—well, I’m the defendant—regarding the five I deny, I claim that I was never a bailee for them at all, not that something happened to them and I’m exempt. So from the standpoint of the laws of the bailee’s oath, I have no oath obligation at all. From the standpoint of the laws of partial admission, I do have to swear regarding the rest, but from the standpoint of partial admission there is another problem that we didn’t get into. I can’t impose the oath of partial admission here—there is a problem of “here it is.” For those who know, I’ll say briefly: with “here it is,” in the case of these vines, they are attached to the ground. So when I say, “Look, these five I admit are yours; the other five you never deposited with me”—the five I admitted to are right here. I don’t have to hand them back to you, because those vines are where they are. It’s not a movable object that I need to take from myself and transfer to you. Therefore, the moment I said, “These five I admit are yours,” the discussion over those five is over. And now all that remains is the discussion over the other five. Therefore, from the standpoint of the oath of partial admission, in a case where there is “here it is,” I am not obligated to swear regarding the rest. Because the part I admitted and already gave back to you is no longer part of the dispute, and as for the remaining part I deny everything. So I’m not obligated in the oath of partial admission. Therefore the oath of partial admission can’t be imposed here either. And then the law returns: the bailee’s oath plus the oath of partial admission—that can be imposed here. That is basically the point. So that is a mechanism, one of two mechanisms—either common denominator or conceptual construction—through which I create from the two prototypes, yes, the bailee’s oath and partial admission, the law of the derivative case, which is the oath stated here in the Mishnah about ten vines where he admits five. The difference between whether this is a common denominator or conceptual construction lies in the question whether the derivative contains all the characteristics of the two prototypes, what we saw in the Rosh and the great authorities, the dispute of the Rosh and the great authorities. Another implication is what happens if I have some defendant who is in a defensive posture but does not resemble either partial admission or the bailee’s oath—something else entirely, I don’t know, one would have to think of something, but something else that resembles neither. If it’s a common denominator, one can impose an oath there too. Because what comes out is a rule: the common denominator is basically that every defendant who is in a defensive position has to swear. Now I no longer need to look for resemblance to partial admission or to the bailee’s oath or whatever. For me this is now basically a rule that says every defendant who is in a defensive posture has to swear. If that’s the case with me, then I have to swear. But if it’s a conceptual construction, then obviously I’m speaking only about the Mishnah’s case here of ten vines and five. Because I fused partial admission together with the bailee’s oath and created this thing, yes, like sowing and throwing—so I can derive from that the case of spitting, because spitting resembles sowing a little and throwing a little. I can’t derive from that something else that has nothing to do with sowing and throwing. Okay, so that’s the difference between whether this is a common denominator or conceptual construction. What I want to do today is show one more example, and with that I’ll finish this whole matter of conceptual construction. I want to show one more example. It’s an interesting example. It requires—I mean, I won’t get into it—but there are also mathematical aspects here, group theory. But overall it seems to me that I can show that here too there is some kind of conceptual construction, some kind of fusion of concepts and creation of complex concepts from them, and this can even explain various difficulties that the medieval and later authorities raise with regard to this passage, just as we saw with the passage about the fusion of oaths. And again, there too I didn’t show you all the difficulties that are solved, because that would require getting into the details of the passage. Whoever wants, I have it in articles and I can send it. I’ll try to show the same thing here; although here I will try to stand on at least some of the difficulties. I’m referring to a not-simple passage in tractate Kiddushin on 7a, and this is the passage of the law of the guarantor, the law of the Canaanite slave, and the law of both together. So let’s first go into the Talmud. I’m reading at the bottom of 6b—it starts at the end of 6b. Rava said—you can see the line hiding down here—Rava said: “Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will become betrothed to you”—she is betrothed by the law of a guarantor. Meaning, Rachel comes and says to Jacob: “Give a maneh to Esau, and through this maneh that you give to Esau I will become your wife.” Usually the act of betrothal is done such that the one betrothing—the husband—gives a maneh, or a perutah, whatever, gives the money to the woman. And by that he betroths her. “A woman is acquired by money, by document, or by intercourse.” So money means a situation where the man betrothing gives money to the woman and by that he has betrothed her. Okay? Now here something strange happens. The woman says to him: “Don’t give the money to me. Give the money to someone else, and by that giving, to someone else, I will become your wife.” Why on earth should that work? How could that work? The rule in betrothal is that she has to receive money from him. How does it help her that he gives money to someone else? True, she wants this—but so what? Where did an act of betrothal happen here? So the Talmud says that this is learned from the law of a guarantor. “She is betrothed by the law of a guarantor.” A guarantor—even though no benefit reaches him directly—still obligates himself. So too this woman, even though no benefit reaches her directly, obligates herself and transfers herself. What does that mean? What is the law of a guarantor? Suppose Simon asks Reuven for a loan. Reuven says to him: “Look, I’ll give you the loan if you bring me a guarantor.” So Simon asks Levi to be guarantor. Levi agrees. Simon borrows the money from—sorry—Reuven lends the money to Simon, and thereby Levi becomes obligated as guarantor for that loan. The act that created Levi’s obligation, the acquisitional act that created the guarantee, the guarantee contract between Levi and Reuven—Reuven is the lender and Levi is the guarantor—that is basically the giving of the money, the loan to Simon. How does that work? So the Talmud in Bava Batra explains—and again, I’m doing this from above, because these are complicated passages—but the Talmud in Bava Batra explains that the guarantee took effect because the guarantor received benefit from the lender, and by that he obligated himself to the lender as guarantor. What was the benefit he received? The lender, Reuven, gave money to Simon, and by that he showed that he trusts Levi as guarantor. Because without a guarantor he was unwilling to give it. If, on the basis of Levi’s guarantee, he gives the money—he lends the money—to Simon, that means he is showing Levi: “I trust you. You are a reliable person in my eyes. I know that if Simon disappears on me, you’ll give me the money.” That very fact—that he trusts me—is some sort of benefit. He is giving me honor; he is showing that he trusts me. That benefit is basically the benefit that created the guarantee contract. Okay? I received something from him. And in betrothal we see in various places that benefit is treated like monetary value. If I receive—one can betroth a woman, for example, if I say to a woman, and the woman says to me: “Dance for me.” And once I dance before her, I have given her benefit—assuming she has taste poor enough to enjoy my dancing. But I danced before her, and thereby she derived pleasure. That pleasure—people pay money for a dance performance, right? Meaning the pleasure you get from a performance has monetary value. And since I gave her benefit, that benefit counts as money of betrothal. So now the woman is betrothed to me because she received benefit from me. Something similar appears in the law of guarantor. In the law of guarantor, the guarantor received benefit from the lender by the lender showing him that he trusts him, that he regards him as reliable; and through that benefit he received from the lender, he obligated himself and the guarantee contract was formed. Okay, that’s what the Talmud says. The Talmud says: the law of guarantor teaches me also about this case of betrothal. What happens in betrothal? The woman says to Reuven: “Give money to Simon and I will become betrothed to you.” So Reuven gives money to Simon. How did the woman become betrothed to Reuven? Simple. Why did Reuven give money to Simon? Because the woman asked him to. That means he showed the woman how significant her request is to him. The woman asked, and he was willing to spend money because of that request. Meaning, he basically gave the woman the feeling of importance, the sense that he values her will—just as in the law of guarantor I gave him the sense that he is important in my eyes, reliable in my eyes. That benefit or that feeling that I gave the woman is basically a kind of money of betrothal. Therefore, although I did not give the money to the woman but to Simon—Reuven gave the money to Simon—by that very act of giving the money to Simon, the woman becomes betrothed to him. Okay? So in the simple understanding this is basically a kind of betrothal by money.
[Speaker C] Why—why make this so complicated? Maybe the woman owes money to that third party?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, she doesn’t have to owe him. This is talking about any case, regardless of whether she owes him or not. The woman says to him, “Give money to that person,” that’s all, and by that she becomes betrothed. It doesn’t say here that she owes him anything, it says nothing.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, sorry, Rabbi, I don’t understand what the Rabbi is saying, because the Talmud says “even though no benefit reaches her directly.” Right. The opposite of what I understood from the Rabbi. It doesn’t say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the Talmud, yes: “no benefit reaches him directly” in the case of the guarantor, and “her directly” in the case of the woman. Right?
[Speaker D] That there is no benefit—the Talmud says there is no benefit.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean there is no benefit? The money he gave did not come into the woman’s hand. So how does she become obligated? Through that very benefit—through that very benefit that he trusts her, or that he values her request and is willing on that basis to spend money.
[Speaker D] But from the Talmud it sounds like there was no benefit, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The monetary benefit didn’t reach her hand. The Talmud is speaking about the benefit of the money; that didn’t reach her. But this benefit—that they trust her, that they value her request—maybe that is the benefit that serves as money of betrothal. That is apparently the explanation in terms of the comparison to the law of guarantor. I’ll comment on this later—not everyone agrees with it—but that’s the simple understanding of the Talmud. That’s the first example. The second example: “Here is a maneh”—that was the law of guarantor. The second is the law of the Canaanite slave. “Here is a maneh, and become betrothed to so-and-so”—she is betrothed by the law of the Canaanite slave. What happens now? Basically Simon comes and gives money to the woman, okay, to Rachel. And he says to her: “By this money, become betrothed to Reuven.” Meaning, again, usually Reuven, the man betrothing, has to give her the money. Reuven didn’t give her the money; Simon gave her the money. Simon gave her money and wants her thereby to become betrothed to Reuven. The Talmud says: she is betrothed by the law of the Canaanite slave. What does that mean? The Talmud says: doesn’t a Canaanite slave acquire himself even though he gives up nothing at all? So too this man, even though he gives up nothing at all, acquires this woman. What happens with a Canaanite slave? Suppose Reuven has some slave. Now I come to Reuven and I want to redeem the slave, okay? I give him money, and by that the slave can basically acquire himself from his master. So I give money to the master—sorry—and by that money the Canaanite slave is acquired. Now the Canaanite slave wants to acquire himself from his master. Who is supposed to pay in such a transaction? The slave is supposed to pay the master. But it’s not the slave who pays—I pay. I pay the master, and by that the slave goes free, meaning he no longer belongs to him, he is no longer his property. The Talmud says: that is exactly similar to our case. Meaning, the woman receives money—the woman is like the master here, because she wants to transfer herself to someone, right? It’s like the master wants to transfer the slave from himself. The woman wants to transfer herself to someone, so the woman here is both the master and the slave. The woman receives the money, and by that she transfers herself to whom? Not to the one who gave the money—to someone else. So by the law of the Canaanite slave, she is betrothed. That’s what the Talmud says. Third law—yes, Rabbi, Rabbi, according to this Talmud the woman—
[Speaker D] Can the groom’s parents give the ring to the bride so that she becomes betrothed to their son?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only the groom’s parents—even some stranger.
[Speaker D] Okay, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Notice, by the way, all this is ruled as Jewish law; it’s valid in practice. “Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will become betrothed to him”—she is betrothed by the law of both together. Here is our point. I’ll elaborate, but you can already see it here. What happens here? “Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will become betrothed to him,” to the recipient. This is already truly pathological. In the previous two cases, in one case the woman received the money, but the husband didn’t give it to her. In the second case, the husband gives the money, but not to the woman—to someone else. Here the husband does not give the money, and the woman does not receive money. Nothing—there’s no trace left of the ordinary act of betrothal. The normal act of betrothal is that the husband gives and the woman receives. The law of guarantor and the law of the Canaanite slave each give up one aspect: either the husband does not give, or the woman does not receive. In the law of both together, the husband does not give and the woman does not receive.
[Speaker B] But isn’t there some benefit here? Doesn’t the woman have some benefit, and by that benefit she becomes betrothed?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s nothing here, nothing at all.
[Speaker B] Why? She has the benefit that she wanted someone to be given something, and they gave it, so now the woman has benefit because they gave it to someone, and that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but from whom did she receive that benefit? From the one who gave—but she is not becoming betrothed to the one who gave; she is becoming betrothed to someone else. Yes, okay. So this is “she is betrothed by the law of both together.” What does “both together” mean? Both means guarantor and Canaanite slave. It’s a combination—again, I’m already saying it—a conceptual construction of guarantor; it’s a joining of the law of guarantor with the law of the Canaanite slave. This is the only place where I found conceptual construction explicitly laid out on the table in the Talmud. In a moment I’ll spell it out more, I’ll analyze it and you’ll see it more clearly. How is it explained? So the Talmud says as follows: A guarantor—doesn’t he, even though no benefit reaches him directly, obligate himself? So too this woman, even though no benefit reaches her directly, transfers herself. Yes, the woman didn’t receive money here and nevertheless she obligates herself—so just as with a guarantor, the guarantor didn’t receive money and nevertheless obligates himself, so we learn from the law of guarantor. The Talmud says: Is it really similar? It’s not similar to the law of guarantor. In the case of the guarantor, the one who acquires from him causes monetary loss. Exactly what I answered you, Shlomo. In the case of a guarantor, the one who acquires from him causes monetary loss. Here, this man acquires this woman and causes no monetary loss at all. In the law of guarantor, in the end the money really does go out—meaning even though the benefit did not reach the guarantor’s hand, still the one who lost the money is the one who acquired. Meaning, who acquired the guarantor’s obligation? The person who lent the money—so he paid money in order to acquire it. But in our case, the person who acquired the woman didn’t spend a penny. How can you learn this from the law of guarantor? “He causes no monetary loss at all.” The Talmud says: The Canaanite slave proves it, because he causes no monetary loss and still acquires himself. The Talmud says: Is that really similar? You can’t compare it to the Canaanite slave either. Why? There, the one who transfers is the one who acquires; here, this woman transfers herself, while he acquires nothing and gives up nothing. The guarantor proves it, because even though no benefit reaches him directly, he obligates himself. Up to here. In short, without getting tangled in the language of the Talmud, the point is this. In the law of guarantor we learn that the woman, although she does not receive money—“Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will become betrothed to you”—so the woman receives no money and still can become obligated. From the law of the Canaanite slave we learn that the husband did not give money and still he can betroth the woman. The law of both together says: the husband didn’t give money, and the woman didn’t receive money, and still she becomes betrothed to him. Do you see the conceptual fusion? This is really conceptual construction. In the law of guarantor I learn that the woman can be acquired even though she received nothing. In the law of the Canaanite slave I learn that the husband can acquire even though he paid nothing. The law of both together is where the husband pays nothing and the woman receives nothing. It fuses my two source cases and I create the law of both together. If you remember what fusion is, fusion is always of features that interfere with the matter. Remember the involvement of the wind? Say in sowing and winnowing. What did I learn from sowing? From sowing I learned that even though there is involvement of the wind, and one could have said there should be no liability here, from sowing I learn that involvement of the wind does not exempt. Right? Whenever I fuse features, I am always fusing features that are problematic in relation to the result. And I show that although that feature could have been problematic, we see from one of the prototypes that it isn’t problematic. Back to our case. In the law of guarantor, what do we learn? Even though the woman received nothing at all—“Give a maneh to so-and-so and I will become betrothed to you”—the woman receives nothing, and someone else receives it. One could have said that this interferes with betrothal, because in betrothal the woman has to receive something. From the law of guarantor we learn that the fact that the woman does not receive does not interfere. Exactly like the involvement of the wind. Even though there is involvement of the wind, it doesn’t interfere. So here too. The Talmud says that from the law of the Canaanite slave we learn that even though the husband did not give, that does not interfere—it still can be betrothal. The law of both together combines the two. I take the feature from guarantor that the woman did not receive, and the feature from the Canaanite slave that the husband did not give, and now I create a mechanism in which the husband does not give and the woman does not receive, and still she is betrothed. Amazing. But this seems to empty the concept of betrothal, the most basic definition of betrothal, of all content. What is required in betrothal? That the husband give and the woman receive. That is the definition of an act of betrothal. Every child learns that at the beginning of tractate Kiddushin, right? Betrothal by money means the husband gives and the woman receives. What do we learn here? We dismantle it of all the relevant content. The fact that the woman receives—not important; if she doesn’t receive, not important. The fact that the husband gives—not important either. So what is left? Nothing. So nothing is left. The husband doesn’t give, the woman doesn’t receive—we’re left with nothing. So now maybe one can also betroth a woman by standing on one foot, or I don’t know, by whistling to myself the song “Two friends set out on the road.” There too the woman received nothing, I gave nothing, and there is no problem—the woman is betrothed. Basically you need nothing in order to betroth a woman. Do whatever you want. That is totally absurd, right? How does this business work? Now look at the continuation. The continuation is even more far-fetched. Rava asks—a fourth case. We saw the law of guarantor where the woman does not receive, the law of the Canaanite slave where the husband does not give, and the law of both together where neither the woman receives nor the husband gives. That was the third case. Fourth case: Rava asks, “Here is a maneh, and I will become betrothed to you.” This already knocks me flat. Meaning, the woman comes and says to the husband: “Take money from me, and by that I will become betrothed to you.” This is already the complete opposite of all the basic requirements in the laws of betrothal. This passage really is an outrageous passage. It looks as if the person who wrote it was on drugs. There is a basic definition of betrothal, and we dismantle that definition, empty it completely of content, and after we emptied it of content, everything still remains fine—there is betrothal.
[Speaker B] According to this, does what people do today—when the woman gives a ring to the husband under the wedding canopy—work?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, apparently yes. We’ll get to that at the end, but apparently yes. Everything people fight about today—what do you mean, the husband has to betroth the woman, not the woman taking the husband, otherwise it’s not betrothal. If the woman gives a ring to the husband that invalidates the betrothal—invalidates meaning nullifies, not just rabbinically disqualifies. It’s not betrothal at all. Look—here in the Talmud it says otherwise. “Here is a maneh”—take a maneh, and by this I will become your wife. Against the whole concept of betrothal. And here it’s not only that the woman doesn’t receive and the husband doesn’t give. Here the woman is the giver. That is already the reverse of betrothal. Not only is there no betrothal here; it’s the opposite of betrothal. This is every officiating rabbi’s nightmare. Every rabbi who officiates weddings goes to these couples who aren’t really committed to Jewish law, or are too feminist, and he never knows what to do, because he knows that any moment the bride’s request is going to land on him—that she give a ring to the groom. What do you do with that? From the standpoint of betrothal, you need somehow to maneuver it in a way that won’t ruin the betrothal. Here there’s no problem at all—the Talmud says it’s perfectly fine. “From where in the Torah do we know feminism?” Kiddushin 7a. Okay, now it’s not that they exchange rings—only the woman gives a ring. Only the woman. Fine, so it’s not that simple. So Rava says, if so, apparently that should be the law. Notice how this is presented here. Here it’s not presented as a statement, right? “Rava asked.” What is this? It’s a challenge, a result of what came before.
[Speaker B] Before this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Basically what Rava is doing is taking it to the point of absurdity. He’s basically saying: “Look, you completely emptied the concept of betrothal of content, right? You went with me step by step. You gave up the requirement that the woman receive money, then you gave up the requirement that the husband give, then you gave up both together, and you were left with something where the husband doesn’t give and the woman doesn’t receive. So,” Rava says, “the next concession should simply be that the woman can also give to the husband—what’s the problem?” Now how is this connected to what came before? Can this be seen as a continuation of what came before? I’m going to argue that yes. For now, it looks as if he’s just mocking them. And in the end this is not really a consequence of what happened there; he’s just saying to them: listen, the next step will be that the woman gives to the husband and she’s also betrothed.
[Speaker E] Anything that creates benefit. Huh? Anything that creates benefit on the woman’s side.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—what benefit does this create? I give her—she gives me the money. What benefit did she receive?
[Speaker E] Sometimes you give people something and you get excited that they receive it because you’re giving them the thing—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, you get excited that they receive it? Why should I get excited that I’m receiving a gift? Of course I’ll receive a gift. Why wouldn’t I receive a gift?
[Speaker E] If I give something to a very great rabbi—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, a very great rabbi is something else. A very great rabbi—we’ll get to that in a moment; that’s the next line in the Talmud. We’re talking about an ordinary person. We’ll see in a moment. The Talmud says: Mar Zutra said in the name of Rav Pappa, “She is betrothed.” That’s the law. Rav Pappa asked a question that sounds like a provocation, a reduction to absurdity. He asks it as if innocently: say, what would be the law in this case? While the subtext—I would have thought the subtext is that he’s mocking them. Like, what do you want? You emptied it of content. Mar Zutra in the name of Rav Pappa comes and says: what do you want? She is betrothed. You’re right. The emptying went all the way to the bitter end. Nothing remains of the laws of betrothal. That is already astonishing. Rav—yes.
[Speaker D] But all the derivations up to now brought proofs. What? I mean, all the questions up to now, the Talmud brought proofs. Right. Here it’s without proof. Excellent question.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly what I noted earlier. On the face of it, what Rava asks does not really continue what happened there. Can he build his picture out of the guarantor, the Canaanite slave, both together, and the dinar? It doesn’t seem so—the Talmud at least doesn’t build it that way. Rather, he’s saying: you simply emptied betrothal of content, so let’s go all the way and let the woman give the ring to the husband. Right, apparently he’s just mocking them.
[Speaker B] But if you don’t need—the Rabbi—if you don’t need the woman to receive, and you don’t need the husband to give, then why not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: then what happens if it’s just whistling—two friends went out on the road—is that also betrothal? The husband doesn’t need to give, the woman doesn’t need to receive, everything’s fine. I don’t know—say I’m just humming to myself at home. Maybe that way I can betroth a woman in Australia, because I’m humming to myself at home.
[Speaker B] But no, here the woman says something—she says, “Here, take this, and I’ll become betrothed through it.” What if she says that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then she can say it until tomorrow. And if she tells me to hum, then what?
[Speaker B] No, but there’s a connection here, it’s not just random humming in the air. There’s—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She told me to hum. She told me to hum—or I say that I’m humming and betrothing her through that? So what? On what basis? So is there any act that is not betrothal? Tell me one act that is not betrothal. Why do we need Tractate Kiddushin at all? The whole tractate deals with the question of how you betroth a woman and how you do not betroth a woman. Throw the tractate in the trash. Every act you do is betrothal. Because after all, the husband doesn’t need to give, the woman doesn’t need to receive, everything’s fine. Just if they say to each other, “Through this act we are becoming betrothed,” fine, let them say it. But you don’t need to do anything in particular. There’s no rule that limits how betrothal is done. Anything you do is betrothal. That’s absurd. Seemingly… wait, one at a time, yes.
[Speaker B] There always has to be a giving of money, even if it goes from here to there and from there to here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does there have to be a giving of money? Why does there have to be a giving of money?
[Speaker B] Because in kiddushin we learn that in “taking” there has to be money.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In kiddushin we also learn that the husband has to give the money. So what? Just as you’re giving up what we learn in kiddushin, give it up all the way. Seemingly that’s what Rava is saying. But I would have expected people to say to Rava: don’t talk nonsense, we’re not going that far. But Mar Zutra says in the name of Rav Pappa: she is betrothed. No—it’s not even a doubt: she is betrothed. Everything is fine. In other words, you emptied everything out, and yes, indeed. Now look, it doesn’t end there, it continues. Rav Ashi said to Mar Zutra: if so, then property that carries responsibility would be acquired together with property that does not carry responsibility, but we learned the opposite: property that does not carry responsibility is acquired together with property that carries responsibility, by money, document, and possession. Meaning, how can you acquire a woman together with an acquisition of money? After all, the husband is basically acquiring the money, and along with the money he acquires the woman. Now, the woman is considered like land, like property that carries responsibility, while the money is property that does not carry responsibility. In transactions, when I sell movable goods and a field, the buyer has to acquire the field, and along with the field he acquires the movables. He cannot acquire the movables and along with the movables acquire the field. So Rav Ashi says to Mar Zutra: if you were right that the woman can give money to the husband and thereby become betrothed to him, it comes out that she gave him movable goods—the money—or the ring, and along with the money, or along with the ring, she herself, who is property carrying responsibility, is acquired by the husband. We never heard of such a thing. In acquisition law, you have to acquire the property that carries responsibility, and along with that the movables; here it works in reverse. Now notice what bothers him. He isn’t troubled that not a single element of the laws of kiddushin is being fulfilled here. Do you understand? That doesn’t bother him. What bothers him is: this doesn’t fit with the laws of acquisitions. That’s all—a completely technical problem. Meaning, he has no problem with the laws of kiddushin; he has a problem with the laws of acquisitions. So notice: even the objection is not what we would have expected. I would have expected the objection to be: are you out of your mind? There’s nothing left of the laws of kiddushin. No—he’s not bothered by kiddushin law at all. He says, just know that in the laws of acquisitions, fields and so on—after all, a woman is compared to a field; you acquire a woman the way you acquire a field. But with a field it doesn’t work this way, because with a field you have to acquire the field and along with it acquire the movables, not the other way around. And here you’re doing the opposite. Theoretically, if I acquired the woman and along with the woman acquired the money or the ring, that would be fine. It works.
[Speaker B] So he says—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To him now he answers: “Did you think she said to him ‘along with’?” We are not dealing here with acquisition by association. Here we are dealing with an important man, where, through that benefit—that he accepts a gift from her—she resolves and transfers herself to him. Now we’ve reached Rava the great, the one you asked about earlier. What does that mean? Now they make an interpretive qualification. The Talmud says we are dealing with a case where the woman comes and wants to become betrothed to an important man. What difference does it make—what happens with an important man? When an important man gives me a gift—or sorry, when I give a gift to an important man—that means I got something from it. I showed that he’s sort of my friend. If I go and give a gift to the President of the United States, then obviously I’ll immediately take a selfie with him and photograph the fact that I gave him a gift, and I’ll boast about it to all my friends. Why? Because there is some important person here who showed me regard—he’s my friend—so I received something from him. Through that benefit she becomes betrothed. Or in other words: “Here is a maneh, and become betrothed to me through it”—in the ordinary case, she is not betrothed. And obviously—that’s simple—that would be nonsense; she can’t become betrothed that way. Only if he is an important man, because with an important man, when she gives him the gift, she is thereby receiving recognition or esteem from him, and through that benefit she becomes betrothed. Fine, so that’s benefit—ordinary betrothal by benefit. He effectively gave her a benefit, and through that she became betrothed—he betrothed her. What benefit did he give her? That benefit: that an important man accepted a gift from her. It doesn’t matter—it’s like dancing before her, or like any other kind of benefit. And then it really turns into something that is not very novel; in any case it’s not connected to our topic. Okay? So in fact Rava did not really empty the laws of kiddushin out completely. It’s not that this mechanism just works in kiddushin law as such. That’s the apparent picture, and that’s how people usually learn it, and all the halakhic decisors learn it that way. Ask anyone today, and that’s what they’ll tell you. And I claim everyone is mistaken. And from the structure of the passage I’ll show you that. And not only will I show you that, I’ll also show you it appears in the approach of medieval authorities (Rishonim). But in order to do that, I want to go through the passage again, but this time with illustrations. We’ll make a comic strip of the passage—but a comic strip according to my meager abilities, so don’t expect much. So let’s begin. I’m now going to make a graphic representation of all these actions. All right? In ordinary kiddushin, the first thing is standard betrothal—yes, standard betrothal: the husband gives money to the woman. That’s the solid arrow, do you see? The husband gives money to the woman. The dotted, broken arrow is that the woman becomes betrothed, or gives herself over, to the husband. It’s like a regular acquisition: when I buy a field, I pay the owner of the field, and the owner of the field gives me the field. So the solid arrow is the transfer of the money, and the dashed arrow is the return of the goods in exchange for the money. In the case of kiddushin, the goods are the woman. And again, don’t learn from this that acquiring a woman is a commercial acquisition of goods—that’s not true. I wrote a whole explosive article about this, but it’s a big mistake, not true. But in terms of the mechanism, that’s how it works. I give her money, and she transfers herself to me—meaning, she becomes betrothed to me. When they say “transfers herself,” they mean “becomes betrothed.” Okay? So that’s the symbolization of ordinary kiddushin; that’s the standard law of kiddushin. Now what happens when I do kiddushin through an agent? So the woman wants—meaning, this so-and-so is the agent of some other person, and he gives money to the woman. You see, the solid arrow is the transfer of the money. So so-and-so gives money to the woman, and the woman becomes betrothed to the other man. You see? Meaning, the money she receives is from so-and-so, and she becomes betrothed to the other man. Now notice: this is not the law of a guarantor, not the law of a Canaanite slave, not the law of two cases combined, nothing like that. It’s simply kiddushin through an agent. True, there is a law of agency in kiddushin, at the beginning of the second chapter of Kiddushin: a man betroths by himself or through his agent; a woman becomes betrothed by herself or through her agent. Okay? So here we are talking about the husband’s agent. The husband is the other man; so-and-so is appointed as agent—you see that thick arrow there—that’s the appointment of the agent. The other man appoints so-and-so to be his agent. So-and-so gives the money to the woman, and thereby the woman becomes betrothed to the sender, to the other man. There is no novelty here beyond the law of agency. Why not? Because the law of agency tells me that once I appoint so-and-so as my agent, so-and-so is basically me; he is my extended hand. Therefore the money that so-and-so gives is as though I gave it. So you see that basically the picture here is the same picture as here. This is the regular picture. All right? It’s the regular picture, the picture of kiddushin. In kiddushin through an agent, it’s essentially the same picture. Only now insert into it a small circle of an agent who gives the money. Now the agent is identified with the husband because he appointed him as an agent. So that is not—and there’s no novelty there. Okay?
[Speaker D] Rabbi, but the agent—do you hear? With an agent, doesn’t the money have to come from the sender? Isn’t there a connection at all?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is, yes. The sender gives money to the agent, the agent gives the money to the woman, and thereby the woman becomes betrothed to the sender.
[Speaker D] Ah, so with an agent it’s always from the sender’s money? Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, I understand. All right? So that’s the ordinary law of agency, and there’s not much novelty there. The law of the guarantor: “Give a maneh to so-and-so, and I will become betrothed to you.” The other man gives a maneh to so-and-so, and I become betrothed to you. You see? The dashed arrow—the woman becomes betrothed to the giver of the money. The other man gives money to so-and-so, and the woman becomes betrothed to the other man. That is the law of the guarantor. How does that relate to the ordinary law of kiddushin? So let’s do a little exercise. The ordinary law of kiddushin is basically when this arrow points to the woman, right? Put so-and-so aside. The ordinary law of kiddushin is when this arrow points from the other man to the woman, and then the woman becomes betrothed to him. What does the law of the guarantor teach me? I’m moving to formalism. What does the law of the guarantor teach me? That I can take the head of the arrow and move it in the direction of another person. Okay? Think of a picture where there’s an arrow here going from the other man to the woman, and now I take the head of the arrow and shift it toward so-and-so. The law of the guarantor teaches me that I’m allowed to move the head of the arrow toward someone else. Okay? That is the law of the guarantor. In the graphic language, the law of the guarantor means shifting the head of the arrow—not its tail, its head. Okay?
[Speaker B] Isn’t it a benefit here?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? No, I’m not getting into the mechanism right now. No explanations. I’m saying what it does, what the picture is, what happens there. The mechanism is to move the head of the arrow from the woman to so-and-so, to someone else. All right? Here we got the law of the guarantor. What is the law of the Canaanite slave? What are we doing here? “Here is a maneh, and become betrothed to so-and-so”—in this case, to the other man. In my notation, the other man is always the husband, so by convention the other man is always the husband. Okay. Fine. Now: “Here is a maneh, and become betrothed to so-and-so”—for me, so-and-so is the other man, it doesn’t matter—so he gives her a maneh: “Here is a maneh, and become betrothed” to the other man. That is the law of the Canaanite slave. In graphic terms, what happens here?
[Speaker B] The opposite of the guarantor, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, the opposite? What are we doing? Think about ordinary kiddushin, leave the guarantor aside. Think about ordinary kiddushin. In ordinary kiddushin, what happens? This arrow goes from the other man to the woman, right? What does the law of the Canaanite slave do? It moves the tail of the arrow. Agreed? Meaning, if the law of the guarantor moved the head of the arrow, the law of the Canaanite slave moves the tail of the arrow. Agreed? Meaning, this arrow used to go from the other man to the woman. When I say that from ordinary kiddushin I move to the law of the Canaanite slave, what that means is: I take the tail of the arrow and move it to someone else. It now comes out of someone else, not the husband. Agreed? Excellent. Now look at the relationship between this and agency. The picture of agency looks exactly the same, right? Except for one thing: here a thick arrow appears from the other man to so-and-so, remember? The appointment of agency. Because here he did not appoint him as agent. Okay. In truth there are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who want to claim that there was an appointment of agency here too—that’s a dispute—but I’m not getting into that right now. Let’s say he did not appoint him as his agent. What else is different, as was noted earlier? That the money given here is so-and-so’s money, not the other man’s. In agency, the money is the other man’s money. He gives the money to so-and-so the agent, and so-and-so the agent gives the money to the woman. But it is not so-and-so’s money; it is the husband’s money. Here, the kiddushin is effected through so-and-so’s money. Nothing came from the husband. No money came from the husband at all; it is so-and-so’s money. Okay? That is the novelty of the law of the Canaanite slave. Even if there were an appointment of agency here—as I said, there are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who claim there was—then you could ask: so what is the novelty in the law of the Canaanite slave? We already know there is agency in the Torah. If you appoint someone as an agent, he can act on your behalf. What novelty is there in the law of the Canaanite slave if we already know the law of agency? The answer: the novelty is that this can be done with the agent’s own money. In the ordinary law of agency, the agent takes the sender’s money and betroths the woman on his behalf. The law of the Canaanite slave teaches that this can be done with the agent’s own money. Or in other words, the one actually performing the act of kiddushin here is the agent, not the sender.
[Speaker B] But a Canaanite slave can’t have money. A slave can’t have money at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, and that’s why there is a novelty in the law of the Canaanite slave. Because there’s no other way: a Canaanite slave has no money. The only way to free a Canaanite slave is for someone else to pay on his behalf. But if that works in the law of the Canaanite slave, we learn from it that it also works in kiddushin.
[Speaker B] That’s a very big novelty.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A very big novelty, but that’s the Talmud’s novelty. Okay. All right? So really, moving the tail of the arrow means that so-and-so performs the act in place of the other man. He gives money, and it is his money. That is the real meaning of moving the tail of the arrow. In the case of agency there is no problem at all. Once I appoint an agent—you can see here, this is the picture of an agent—then there is no novelty. The money goes from the other man to so-and-so; I appointed him as agent; so now I’m effectively standing here—I am the other man—I’m standing here with my money and giving money to the woman. So what’s the problem? That’s ordinary kiddushin. Once I know the law of agency, this is just ordinary kiddushin. There’s no novelty there. Here there is a great novelty: I moved the tail of the arrow. Okay? The tail of the arrow now, instead of being with the other man, has shifted to so-and-so. Next. The law of both of them—what happens there? Notice what I’m doing. I start from the state of ordinary kiddushin, right? So this arrow goes from the other man to the woman. Agreed? This arrow goes from the other man to the woman. What is the first thing I do? I take its tail and move it up here; then I get the law of the Canaanite slave. After that I take the head of the arrow and move it over here. By what right can I do that? By virtue of the law of the guarantor. The law of the guarantor means shifting the head of the arrow. Right? And that gives me the law of both of them. By the way, note that this is not commutative. It is not an Abelian group, for those familiar with mathematics. If I did it the other way around—think of the arrow being here. All right? Now I begin by shifting the head of the arrow, not the tail—I start with the head. Then I arrive at an arrow that goes from the other man to so-and-so, right? Now I move the tail. So I would get here an arrow going from the woman to so-and-so. Do you understand? I would not get this picture; I would get a fourth picture, which the Talmud doesn’t discuss at all: an arrow going from the woman to so-and-so—she gives money to so-and-so, and through that becomes betrothed to the other man. Agreed?
[Speaker B] Yes, that’s another option in addition to these three options. Exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, if I now take this and see it as a conceptual construction, and my two basic building blocks are the law of the guarantor and the law of the Canaanite slave, now I can combine them in two different ways. I can say that first I apply the law of the guarantor and then the law of the Canaanite slave, or I can say that first I apply the law of the Canaanite slave and then the law of the guarantor. The results will be different. What the Talmud calls the law of both of them is when I first applied the law of the Canaanite slave, and after that I applied the law of the guarantor. If I had first applied the law of the guarantor and then the law of the Canaanite slave, I would have gotten the picture of an arrow going from the woman to so-and-so.
[Speaker B] And why can’t that work?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say it can’t work. I claim that it can work. I claim, as Jewish law, that if that is done, the woman is betrothed. Why? Because I claim that what stands behind this Talmudic passage—not behind it, it’s written in it—is a conceptual construction. Conceptual construction means—and here I need to… I mean, I can’t get into all the details, but anyone who wants can read it—my claim is that there is basically a group of representations here. And I claim the following: we start from the picture of ordinary kiddushin. That’s the picture, the basic picture. All right? And standing on the side is some so-and-so who isn’t yet playing on the field. And now we begin making shifts. You know what? I can actually get to this. It’s simply a file from the book we wrote about… about synthesis of concepts, synthetic thinking. So I copied the relevant part here. Just one second, I just want to get to the diagrams. Here it is, the law of both of them, okay? “Give a maneh to so-and-so, and I will become betrothed to him.” You see? So-and-so here is the other man, yes? Meaning: give a maneh to this one, and I will become betrothed to the one who received the maneh. That is the law of both of them. And here I show that this is really a conceptual construction. If you take the law of the guarantor and the law of the Canaanite slave, and take feature alpha 1 that is found in this one and alpha 2 that is found in that one, and add them both to here—yes, alpha 1 is not found here but is found there, alpha 2 is not found here but is found there—you take the two features, the one absent from this and the one absent from that, and fuse them into a third concept. That is basically conceptual construction. This is a symmetric construction, by the way, but I’m not getting into that; there are asymmetric constructions too. Now… here, this is group theory. We start with this. Do you see the picture? This is the picture of ordinary kiddushin. The money goes from the other man to the woman and the woman becomes betrothed in return for the money. Here on the side stands some so-and-so, whom I draw only for completeness of the picture. How do I get the law of the guarantor? By shifting the head of the arrow. “Give a maneh to so-and-so, and I will become betrothed to you.” The law of the Canaanite slave… so now I can describe the actions of kiddushin as a group, what I call a mathematical group. A mathematical group means there is a base element, and that is this element, and there are basic actions, what are called symmetry operations—there are basic actions that I apply to the base element. The basic actions are moving the tail of the arrow and moving the head of the arrow. And my claim is that this is a group. The defining characteristic of a group is that every composition of the operations belongs to the group. A group has to be closed; that is one of the properties of a mathematical group. That means every composition of the operations, in any way I perform it, belongs to the group. Meaning, it will be a valid kiddushin, because this is the group of representations of acts of kiddushin. And then my claim is the following: if this is the basic act of kiddushin, the law of the guarantor tells me that if I move the tail of the arrow—sorry, the law of the guarantor is moving the head of the arrow—moving the head of the arrow does not change the law. If the basic action was a valid action in kiddushin, if you move the head of the arrow in another direction, you still remain with a valid kiddushin action. The Canaanite slave teaches me that if I start with a valid kiddushin action and I move the tail of the arrow, what I get is still a valid kiddushin action. And now I say: all compositions—move the tail, move the head, then move the head again, move the tail again, the tail again, the tail again, the head again—in whatever order you want, every result you get here will be a valid action of kiddushin. That is my claim. Now look at something beautiful. The law of both of them—I already explained it. This is the law of the Canaanite slave, I showed the law of the guarantor, and now I’m showing you the law of both of them. How does the law of both of them work? I start from ordinary kiddushin, apply the transformation of the Canaanite slave, get the law of the Canaanite slave—moving the tail, you see? I moved the tail. Then on that I apply the transformation of the guarantor. And what I got is this. Moving the head of the arrow, I got the law of both of them. That is applying the Canaanite slave and then applying the guarantor. Rabbi?
[Speaker D] Yes. There’s something basic in this passage that I don’t understand. Yes. All these derivations—what are they? A scriptural decree, or reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s what I’m saying. It’s logic, the logic of the Talmud. Conceptual construction is a logical tool that can be used anywhere. You don’t need a scriptural decree for this. If you have two building blocks, every combination of them in any form—that’s the mathematics of this entire field of conceptual construction. The field of conceptual construction is basically group theory. That’s all—group theory in Jewish law. And I gave here a proof of all sorts of theorems in group theory and showed how it resolves—it’s a fantastic structure. It resolves lots of difficulties. It’s unbelievable how this thing works. The very assumption that we’re dealing here with conceptual construction, and that this is a group. So look at the first example: the law of both of them. I applied the transformation of the law of the guarantor to the law—I mean, I started with the transformation of the law of the Canaanite slave, I started with this. You see the black arrow going downward? The black arrow going downward means I took this case, moved the tail of the arrow, and got this. Right? That’s the law of the Canaanite slave. Now on top of that I apply the law of the guarantor—not to the basic case, but to this case, which is already a complex case. I apply to it the law of the guarantor, which means moving the head of the arrow over here. And you get this. See? The transformation passes through; that’s the law of both of them. According to my claim, if I did it in the opposite order, I would basically get a woman who becomes betrothed to the other man when she gives money to so-and-so. That is if I began with the guarantor and continued with the Canaanite slave, rather than beginning with the Canaanite slave and continuing with the guarantor. This is a non-commutative group. Operations done in a different order do not lead to the same result. A commutative group is called an Abelian group, after Abel the mathematician. So this is a non-Abelian group, but it is still a group, and all the operations are valid operations. And now look at the next amazing thing. Here I prove all kinds of theorems. Now this is the reverse case of both of them. I start from the basic case, apply the first transformation of the guarantor, not of the Canaanite slave. I moved the head of the arrow, see? I got the law of the guarantor. On the law of the guarantor I apply the transformation of the Canaanite slave—that’s the next tool, the next black arrow. What did I get? The reverse case of both of them, which does not appear in the Talmud. I claim as Jewish law that the woman is betrothed. Because this is a group. And if this is a legitimate element in the group, then this is a valid kiddushin act.
[Speaker B] That’s the fourth example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the example… no, that’s a fourth example that does not appear in the Talmud. Yes, yes, one moment.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, in this example, who says what, basically, here? In this example?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The woman says to the other man: “I am giving a maneh to so-and-so, and I will become betrothed to you.” All right? Moving on. Now look—
[Speaker D] Wait, one second, Rabbi—so according to this, then all the more so if she gives it to him, no? According to this case of the—gives it to whom? To the husband? To the other man?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now I’m getting there, getting there, now we arrive. I’m skipping over a few other cases. Here—reversed kiddushin. Notice. Well, mathematically this is with operators on top, never mind, but I’m describing everything graphically, without mathematics. Okay? Notice: we begin with ordinary kiddushin, so this arrow is reversed, right? The arrow goes from the other man to the woman. Okay? Notice what I do now. I take the head of the arrow and move it here—that’s an operation of the law of the guarantor. Okay? Now I take the tail of the arrow and move it here—that’s an operation of the Canaanite slave. And now I take the head of the arrow once again, in another guarantor operation, and move it here. Here I need three applications: guarantor, Canaanite slave, guarantor. You see? That’s ABA. Never mind; here you can see all—I checked all the possibilities, all the combinations. It’s a closed group. And in fact applying the law of the guarantor, then the Canaanite slave, then the guarantor, gives me reversed kiddushin. What is this case? Sound familiar? “Here is a maneh, and I will become betrothed—”
[Speaker B] —to you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Here is a maneh, and I will become betrothed to you.” Yes. Now you understand why Rava asks what the law is in such a case. He’s not asking in order to mock them. He says: this is a group. If it’s a group, then this too follows from the law of the Canaanite slave. And I asked earlier how this follows from the two previous cases. Was he just trying to make fun of them? The answer is no. It is the continuation of the same pattern of thought. After all, it follows from the two previous cases. Apply the law of the guarantor, then the Canaanite slave, then the guarantor again, and that’s what you’ll get. Rava asks: and will she then be betrothed? This is already really the reverse of ordinary kiddushin law. Rav Pappa says to him… why?
[Speaker B] Why does the Talmud say that it’s because he has—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, we’ll get there, we’ll get there. Rav Pappa says to him: she is betrothed. Yes, you’re right, because it is a group. Now look how the Talmud continues. I already read this before and hinted at it before. The Talmud—and matrix representations of the group, for those interested, it’s really beautiful. The whole of group theory enters here. You can prove theorems here, it’s wonderful. And every such thing has practical legal implications. Now look, let’s learn the Talmud again. Rava asked: “Here is a maneh, and I will become betrothed to you”—what is the law? Right? That’s the picture. And as we saw, this is part of the group. In principle it ought to be valid. So Rava’s question is not a cynical one; he asks it seriously, because he understands that there is a group here. Mar Zutra said in the name of Rav Pappa: you are right—she is betrothed. Except that we have a problem. What is the problem? The problem is what I already pointed out. It is not in the laws of kiddushin. In the laws of kiddushin, you’re right. But in the laws of acquisitions, it’s a problem, right? Why is the Talmud not disturbed that this does not fit the laws of kiddushin? Because it does fit the laws of kiddushin. Since it follows by the set of basic operations out of ordinary kiddushin, it fits the laws of kiddushin. It belongs to the group. I have no problem with the laws of kiddushin. Now I only have a problem with the laws of acquisitions. So what does he answer? An important man. Right? We are dealing here with an important man. So now I’m in trouble. Because according to my position, this should have been valid kiddushin. And the Talmud says no, such kiddushin is not valid. If he is an important man, then there is benefit here—that doesn’t interest me. But from my perspective it should have been valid with any man, not only an important one, right? But what—
[Speaker B] But what does that do? It means that kiddushin, which all the time we say isn’t really an acquisition—you’re not really buying—suddenly turns it into yes, a purchase, yes, an acquisition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t buy; there is an analogy. Just as in the laws of acquisitions, so kiddushin has to work. It’s not that kiddushin is an acquisition. It is not an acquisition.
[Speaker B] But the Talmud says that it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How does it—
[Speaker B] —works if that doesn’t work.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the Talmud doesn’t say that. The Talmud says this is parallel to the acquisition of property that carries responsibility together with property that does not carry responsibility. Because the acquisition of a woman parallels the acquisition of a field—it’s a verbal analogy of “taking” from the field of Ephron. But that’s a parallel, not an identification.
[Speaker B] So why doesn’t the Talmud answer: fine, true, it’s not an acquisition?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud can’t answer that, because there is a verbal analogy between acquiring a field and betrothing a woman. What do you mean, fine? It’s not fine—there is a verbal analogy; that’s where you learn it from.
[Speaker B] So the Rabbi says that it really is not an acquisition?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course not. There is lots of evidence for that. I wrote an article about it, but there’s no point getting into it here; that’s not our subject. There’s enough evidence. If you want, take a look—I have an article about it on the site. It’s clear that it’s not an acquisition. So in short, what’s happening here? Seemingly, in the end I’ve fallen. You see that this is not a group. Here is a legitimate element in the group; it is obtained from the basic operations, and nevertheless it is not kiddushin. Now look at something interesting: the position of Behag, brought by the Beit Yosef.
[Speaker E] Is this whole analysis on the Rabbi’s website?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—no, it’s not on my website, it’s in the book. In the book—in which book? I think the ninth book in the Talmudic Logic series. Fine. I can also infer it precisely from Tosafot, but here things are simple. Look at the Beit Yosef. The Beit Yosef brings—the discussion here in the Talmud is about where she gives and he says. After all, the husband is supposed to say the formula and give the money of kiddushin. What happens if the woman says it? The medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagree about this. The Talmud says as follows: but if she gave and he spoke—since he is not an important man—what happens? She gives him money and he says to her, “Behold, you are betrothed to me with the money that you are giving me”—that’s our case, yes? Since he is not important, one cannot say that this is kiddushin, because the verse reads “when a man takes,” and therefore there is no room to doubt that these would be kiddushin. There is no doubt: this is not kiddushin, because it goes against the laws of kiddushin, says the Beit Yosef—yes, in the name of the Ran. I disagree with him, to my sorrow. The Talmud does not say that this contradicts the laws of kiddushin; the Talmud says that it contradicts the laws of acquisitions. In terms of kiddushin law, this is perfectly fine. Look what he now brings: but Behag wrote that if she gave and he spoke, that too is a case of doubt, and his words were not accepted. And other medieval authorities (Rishonim) also bring in the name of Behag that this is doubtful kiddushin. This Behag is not well known; most people would tear their hair out on hearing him—but that’s what he says. There is doubtful kiddushin here. I’ll tell you more than that: I have proofs that when Behag says here “doubtful kiddushin,” he means this is rabbinic. On the Torah level it is complete kiddushin. On the rabbinic level they take these kiddushin into account; it is not doubt in the sense of a Torah-level doubt. And that is the completion of what I said earlier. Why is it kiddushin? Because it is an element in the group. And therefore, if she gives him the money and becomes betrothed to him through it, Behag says that on the Torah level she is his wife. Whoever has relations with her is liable to death. On the rabbinic level they say no. But she will not leave without a bill of divorce. On the rabbinic level they need to separate—this is not rabbinic kiddushin—but on the Torah level, yes. And in my view that is the straightforward meaning of the Talmud. Everyone shouts at Behag, but Behag is the straightforward meaning of the Talmud. Because our Talmud says that this is a group, and I showed you that this case is a legitimate element in the group, and the only problem the Talmud finds here is a problem in the laws of acquisitions, not in the laws of kiddushin. And therefore it gets to the case of an important man, and therefore I claim that even with an ordinary man it is at least doubtful kiddushin, and in my opinion it is only a rabbinic problem, but there is kiddushin on the Torah level. That is what Behag claims; that is what Behag writes. At least according to Behag’s approach, this really is a complete group. Even according to the other approaches, incidentally, apparently they are saying: up to this point. Meaning, the whole group, everything’s good, up to here. At the point where the woman betroths the husband, it is simply “when a man takes a woman,” and not “when a woman takes a man,” and therefore because of the laws of kiddushin they are not willing—they say this element in the group is an exception.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, I don’t understand Behag. The Talmud said that because of the acquisition problem she is not betrothed, if I understood the Talmud correctly. Did I understand the Talmud correctly? Yes. So how does he say she is betrothed? How does he say that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How does he say it? How does he say it? Because his claim is that she is not betrothed only on the rabbinic level. On the Torah level she is betrothed. Why? Because that is what Rav Pappa said. Rav Pappa said: she is betrothed, period. Why? Why did Rava ask the question in the first place? Rava did not ask it for nothing, because it is an element in the group. And Rav Pappa answers him: correct, she is betrothed. The Talmud then says: wait, but there is some problem here because this is property that does not carry responsibility. The Talmud says: fine, it’s an important man. But the problem, he says, is a rabbinic problem. On the Torah level, even with an ordinary man she is betrothed.
[Speaker B] So did the Rabbis uproot her kiddushin? What is this “doubt”? What is it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One can discuss whether the Rabbis uprooted the kiddushin; if so, then it is no kiddushin at all. If the Rabbis said this is not kiddushin on the rabbinic level, then we say: betroth her again, or divorce her.
[Speaker B] Or divorce her? Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, now one could elaborate on this, but I don’t have time to elaborate further. Anyone who wants can read it there. Maybe I’ll upload the file to the group; we’ll see how we do it. But in the file you’ll be able to see the whole analysis, with all the mathematics and the sources and the problems that this solves.
[Speaker B] Are there more examples in that file? I didn’t understand. Did the Rabbi also give a few more examples there?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I bring more examples. What happens in a case where four people are involved, not three? Look here—let’s just see it very briefly. Okay, what happens here? The woman says to one so-and-so: give a maneh to a second so-and-so, and I will become betrothed to the other man. To the third? No—there are four people here. In all the examples we’ve seen up to now, only three people were involved.
[Speaker B] Yes, but she and two men, and she becomes betrothed to a third. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, there are three men and one woman here. One man gives money to a second man, and the woman becomes betrothed to a third man who is neither of them. This is the only case, by the way, that involves four people. Because if you think about it, any other direction of arrows will neutralize one of the people. One of them will not be involved, and we’re back to the three-person case, the previous group. Here too she is betrothed? What? I can’t hear.
[Speaker D] Here too she is betrothed?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I claim yes, because it is an element in the group, and I brought sources here that show it. I proved it from halakhic decisors. And the story continues beyond that. And in all these things people always raise objections; they don’t understand where it comes from. But once you look at it through the mathematical lens of group theory, you see there is a composition of concepts here, a composition in group structures, compositions including complicated compositions, and suddenly everything looks crystal clear, everything is obvious, there is no difficulty about anything.
[Speaker B] So maybe the Rabbi really should upload it, so we can download it, print it, and read it properly, if that’s possible.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s quite long. Anyone who wants to print it—it’s sixty-something pages, I think. But fine, I’ll try to upload it to WhatsApp or something like that as a file. Okay, that’s it.
[Speaker D] Rabbi, in simple words, earlier the Rabbi asked: so why shouldn’t she become betrothed through just any random thing? Some random thing—right, the Rabbi asked that? Yes. So basically, in simple words, what is the final answer to that question the Rabbi asked earlier?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now the answer is clear. What is it? You have to take the standard act of kiddushin and move either the tail or the head of the arrow, but there must always be a transfer of money from someone to someone, because without that there is no kiddushin. You need to build the action you’re talking about out of the basic kiddushin act by means of the transformations of the Canaanite slave and the guarantor. Now, humming “Two friends went out on the road” you will not succeed in building that way. This is a transfer of money from one person to another in a way that can be constructed as I showed here. Everything you can reach in that way is valid kiddushin. All right?
[Speaker D] Wait, so in the end, if she says, “Take the ring and let me become betrothed to you,” then that’s what we were talking about earlier, right Rabbi? Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There aren’t, by the way, that many cases here. I do the count there and show all the possible cases. There aren’t more cases than what I showed there. Just a few cases. Only one case for which I found no source at all—that’s the example of applying the guarantor and then the Canaanite slave, the reverse case of both of them. For that I found no source, but I claim in light of this analysis that she is betrothed. For the other combinations I bring sources that she is betrothed. I mean, there are disputes, but there are sources—there are halakhic decisors who say she is betrothed. Okay, let’s stop here. Thank you very much, Yitzhak. Sabbath peace.