Doubt and Probability—in Halakha, Thought, and Beyond—Lesson 40 – Rabbi Michael Abraham
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
- General Overview
- Opening of the lecture and the connection to Havot Ya’ir and Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport
- Havot Ya’ir responsum 61 and the lottery over a silver cup on Purim
- The debate over fairness, probability, and “his mazal caused it”
- Havot Ya’ir’s ruling: “the lottery is void” and the proof from two brothers who divided an inheritance
- The second lottery and the second mishap: one name slip was missing
- Havot Ya’ir on “a lottery is only from Heaven” and the responsum of the Geonim
- The lecturer’s critique: division of the Land as a “fiction” and the distinction between “revealing” and “constitutive” lotteries
- “Be wholehearted,” the prohibition of “consulting lotteries,” and Elef Lekha Shlomo on Kaddish
- The Vilna Gaon lottery and the question of “by divine instruction”
- Ending with a story about a lottery in Ramat Elchanan
Summary
General Overview
The lecture presents a systematic discussion of lotteries in Jewish law through Havot Ya’ir responsum 61 and a practical story about a Purim lottery, and sets against it a principled critique of the assumption that a lottery always expresses a decision from Heaven. The lecturer argues that the central distinction is between “revealing” lotteries, whose purpose is to uncover an existing truth, like biblical lotteries regarding Achan, Jonathan, and the division of the Land as it appears in the words of the Sages, and “constitutive” lotteries, whose purpose is to establish a fair division when there is no prior truth about what belongs to whom, like dividing an inheritance or holding a raffle for an object. From this it is argued that the proofs brought by Havot Ya’ir and by the Geonim from the division of the Land and from Achan are not proof regarding civil lotteries, and that an approach that interprets a constitutive lottery as the hand of God may undermine the whole meaning of fairness and proper procedure.
Opening of the lecture and the connection to Havot Ya’ir and Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport
The lecturer opens by saying that he had planned to speak about the question of lotteries in Jewish law and wants to present it in a more systematic way. A participant sent him a lecture by Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport on a responsum of Havot Ya’ir, and he notes that he himself wrote an article about that responsum twenty years ago in Midah Tovah. He chooses to begin with Havot Ya’ir and then to present, as a critique, the argument that will be the focus of the lecture.
Havot Ya’ir responsum 61 and the lottery over a silver cup on Purim
In a group of twelve householders at a Purim meal, they cast lots over a large gilded silver cup, and each one contributed one Reichsthaler. The lottery was carried out with two boxes: in one were slips with the names of the participants, and in the other were slips, one of which said “good fortune” and the others were blank. A little boy or girl would draw one slip from each container, and the winner was determined by the pairing of the two slips. “Good fortune” came up already on the second draw, and this seemed astonishing to those watching. Upon inspection it turned out that in the second box there were ten blank slips and two slips marked “good fortune.” The winner argued that this involved no disadvantage or advantage for anyone over anyone else, and that if his mazal caused it, then the same would have happened even if things had been done properly and fittingly. The lecturer stresses that this argument is different from an argument about probabilistic fairness.
The debate over fairness, probability, and “his mazal caused it”
The lecturer presents the claim that even with two “good fortune” slips, no one had any advantage, because each of the twelve still had an equal chance of winning, and therefore the lottery was fair and there was no basis for complaint. By contrast, the winner attributes the outcome to his mazal, saying that in any case he would have won even had the lottery been conducted properly. The lecturer sees this as a move toward a deterministic outlook that empties the fairness of the procedure of any significance. The participants debate whether the presence of two slips changes the odds, and the lecturer brings the discussion back to what he sees as the decisive issue: equality among the participants, not the number of “good fortune” slips when they stop at the first win. He compares this to the example of “a container with a hundred white balls and one black one” to show how intentional choice turns the model from randomness into preference; likewise, a conception that “God decided” turns the lottery into something irrelevant from the standpoint of fairness.
Havot Ya’ir’s ruling: “the lottery is void” and the proof from two brothers who divided an inheritance
Havot Ya’ir rules simply that the lottery is void, and brings proof from the Talmud in Bava Batra regarding “two brothers who divided” an inheritance and then another brother arrived from overseas. Rav said, “the division is void,” while Shmuel said, “they reduce proportionally.” The lecturer explains the dispute and the meaning of “the division is void” as restoring the legal situation and requiring a new lottery, and he emphasizes that the Jewish law follows Rav. He quotes the Talmud’s question regarding a case where two brothers divided in advance “with the understanding that there were three,” even though the third brother was not present; the Talmud distinguishes between a division made while taking three into account and one made as though there were only two. The lecturer argues that in the first case in Havot Ya’ir, the lottery is more similar to a fair division carried out in the right principled way, and therefore Havot Ya’ir’s proof seems problematic to him.
The second lottery and the second mishap: one name slip was missing
After Havot Ya’ir invalidated the first lottery, they cast new slips again, and one person won on the sixth draw. One of those who remained opened the remaining slips and saw that one name of one of those who had paid money was missing, so that in the names box there were only eleven slips. The members of the group wanted to cancel this lottery too, and the winner argued that there was no point to their complaint, because by virtue of one name being missing they were actually closer to winning. He offered to compromise with the person whose name was missing and give him four Reichsthalers, and that person accepted. The lecturer and the participants identify that here the flaw is more similar to the case of a missing brother who was not a partner in the lottery, and therefore even according to Rav’s halakhic explanation of “the division is void,” there is room to invalidate it.
Havot Ya’ir on “a lottery is only from Heaven” and the responsum of the Geonim
Havot Ya’ir cites “the responsa of the early Geonim, section 60,” saying that “a lottery is only from Heaven” and that “one who goes against a lottery is as though he goes against the Ten Commandments,” based on the verses “By lot shall the Land be divided” and “The lot is cast into the lap, but every judgment of it is from the Lord.” He brings the lotteries in the deaths of Achan and Jonathan, as well as Jonah and wicked Haman, as proof that when a lottery is done without human calculation and without human manipulation through cleverness, divine providence attaches to it. Havot Ya’ir rules that if “the lottery is defective,” whether through human scheming or through error, one cannot say that the one who won did so from God; and he presents the possibility that each person could say that had the lottery been done properly, “my hour would have stood for me according to my mazal or according to my prayer.” The lecturer points to the internal difficulty this creates: if on the one hand the lottery is from Heaven, and on the other hand they claim that a flaw severs its relation to providence. He also notes that in the story itself they held another lottery, and the same person did not win.
The lecturer’s critique: division of the Land as a “fiction” and the distinction between “revealing” and “constitutive” lotteries
The lecturer cites Rashi on Numbers regarding the division of the Land, who emphasizes that the lottery was “through the holy spirit” and that the lottery itself would “cry out” which boundary went to which tribe. He emphasizes that the description presents a procedure that demonstrates that this was not ordinary randomness. The lecturer argues that this shows that biblical lotteries were meant to demonstrate that the lottery reveals a divine truth, whereas in ordinary legal lotteries there is no “correct answer” that exists in advance and the lottery merely establishes a division. He formulates a distinction between “revealing lotteries,” which uncover an existing truth that is unknown, and “constitutive lotteries,” which create a new state of fair allocation among parties with equal rights. He explains that in lotteries for dividing an inheritance or a partnership there is no place to attribute the outcome to the will of God as a revelation of truth. The lecturer argues that bringing proofs from Achan, Jonathan, and the division of the Land into a discussion of civil lotteries is beside the point, and that an approach that interprets constitutive lotteries as a decision from Heaven undermines the concept of fairness, whose very essence lies in its randomness.
“Be wholehearted,” the prohibition of “consulting lotteries,” and Elef Lekha Shlomo on Kaddish
The lecturer quotes the Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 179: “One does not consult astrologers or lotteries,” because of the verse “Be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” He also cites Elef Lekha Shlomo by Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, who explains that Tosafot and the Shakh were speaking about lotteries consulted “regarding the future,” such as whether a sick person will live or whether a lost object will be found. Rabbi Shlomo Kluger permits “drawing lots between two matters” in order to clarify ownership or division, and proves this from the lotteries in the Temple and from the verse “Only by lot shall the Land be divided.” The lecturer explains that the key point is the difference between a lottery that purports to uncover a hidden truth and a lottery that serves as a tool for agreed-upon division, and he argues that attributing ordinary lotteries with the significance of uncovering the will of God resembles consulting the stars and is an impermissible approach. The discussion also touches on Maimonides, who explains the prohibition of sorcery and divination as attributing reality to nonsense, and participants ask how that fits with various distinctions between past and future.
The Vilna Gaon lottery and the question of “by divine instruction”
A participant asks about the “Vilna Gaon lottery,” and the lecturer says that this is a tradition perceived by believers as an authorized lottery that is “like direct divine instruction,” giving as an example its use in identifying the fallen of the convoy of the Thirty-Five by Rabbi Aryeh Levin. The lecturer emphasizes that such a lottery is a revealing lottery, not a constitutive one, and says that he himself would not do it, though he explains that those who support it rely on tradition and not on reasoning. The discussion returns to the idea that revealing lotteries require special justification, whereas constitutive lotteries do not claim to uncover a hidden truth.
Ending with a story about a lottery in Ramat Elchanan
At the end of the lecture, the lecturer tells of a ba’al teshuvah carpenter who donated a kitchen cabinet to a kollel, and the head of the kollel made a lottery over it at one hundred shekels a ticket. A thousand tickets were sold, so the kollel received one hundred thousand shekels. The story serves as an example of the practical power of lotteries as a tool for allocation and fundraising, without depending on any theological claim that they reveal a truth from Heaven. The lecture ends with the blessing: “Good night, Sabbath peace.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I had planned this time, before the last unit that still remains for us here, to talk about the question of lotteries in Jewish law. These are topics I mentioned last time as well, but I want to present this a bit more systematically. In a surprising or random way, the hand of providence, however each of you wants to choose to call it, one of the participants sent me this week a lecture by Rabbi Shabtai Rappaport on a responsum of Havot Ya’ir, and that reminded me that I wrote an article about this already twenty years ago in Midah Tovah, about this responsum of Havot Ya’ir. So maybe I’ll start from there, and then as a critique of it I’ll present my own argument. So here we have Havot Ya’ir responsum 61: “In a group who study with me and listen to my voice, twelve householders dined together in good spirits with wine on the days of Purim. They cast a lot over a large silver cup, gilded, and each one gave one Reichsthaler,” a coin of their time. “And this was how the lot was carried out.” Right, meaning there were twelve householders there on Purim at a Purim meal, and once their hearts were merry with wine they decided to hold a raffle for a large silver cup. Each one put in one Reichsthaler, and they decided to hold a lottery for this silver cup. “And this was how the lot was carried out”: they bring two ballot-boxes or two vessels, and place twelve slips into one, with one name written on each of them, and into the second ballot-box they also place twelve slips, on one of which is written “good fortune,” and the remaining eleven are blank. Right? They take two boxes, two vessels, and into each vessel they throw twelve slips. In one vessel there are twelve slips with the names of the twelve householders there at the meal, and in the second vessel there are twelve slips, one of which says “good fortune,” meaning whoever wins this cup, and eleven blank ones. “And a little boy or little girl takes one from this vessel and one from that vessel.” Right, they have a child lift one slip from the vessel with the names and a second slip from the vessel for the cup lottery, and each name gets whatever the accompanying slip indicates. If a blank slip comes up, he gets nothing; whoever gets the slip that says “good fortune” receives the cup. That’s how they conducted the lottery. “And whoever came up with ‘good fortune’ won the cup. And it happened in this lottery that ‘good fortune’ came up on the second draw.” Right, meaning there were twelve slips, and on the second pull, when the second slip was drawn, the “good fortune” slip came up. “And it was astonishing in the eyes of the onlookers that the ‘good fortune’ slip came up so quickly.” Right, meaning how could it be that the “good fortune” slip came up already the second time? That’s too fast. Fine, we’ve already heard bigger questions than that. Just an exercise: what’s the probability that it comes up on the second draw?
[Speaker B] One-sixth. Huh?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One-sixth? Why one-sixth?
[Speaker C] No, it has to be that it didn’t come out on the first draw, and then it did come out on the second.
[Speaker B] I mean in the first two draws.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, on the second.
[Speaker B] Specifically on the second? Ah, okay.
[Speaker C] It’s 11/12 times 1/11.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Meaning, for it not to come out on the first draw and then to come out on the second, the chance is 11/12 that it doesn’t come out on the first, times 1/11 that it does come out on the second. Okay? So that’s 11 over I don’t know, 144, which is basically about 1/12. Okay? Okay. So it’s not especially surprising. In any event, if you look at it from another angle, then of course there’s apparently an equal chance that it could come up on any one of those draws. Fine, there’s a little room to quibble over the details here. There’s nothing especially surprising here, in short. But those people were surprised, and they decided to check. “It was astonishing in the eyes of the onlookers, and one of them checked and saw…” wait, let me reconstruct it for you… “It was astonishing in the eyes of the onlookers that the ‘good fortune’ slip came up so quickly. And one of them checked and saw that there were only ten blank slips, whereas there should have been eleven.” There were ten blank slips and not eleven. “And on two of them it was written ‘good fortune.’” By mistake, among the twelve slips in the second vessel there were two slips saying “good fortune,” not just one. Right? Instead of eleven blanks there were only ten blank slips. Okay, so he found the error, even though again there was no real reason to suspect anything, but he found the error. “And one of them checked and saw…” sorry, yes, “and on two it was written ‘good fortune.’ And the one who had won it sought to say that since these two errors, whether done intentionally or by mistake or by way of joking and play, involved no disadvantage or added advantage to anyone more than to anyone else—and if his mazal caused it, then the same would apply had it been done correctly and properly, his hour would have stood for him.” Right? So that one person who won when the second slip came up—let’s say Reuven, Shimon, Levi, the twelve tribes—Shimon won. Okay? So Shimon said, what’s the problem? I won legitimately. The first slip that came up, I got it, and therefore I won, fine. What difference does it make that there were two slips saying “good fortune”? In the end, the chance of each of us winning still remained equal, right? Meaning they draw the name slip randomly from one vessel, and when the “good fortune” slip comes up, whoever comes up along with it from the name vessel wins. And if the child is drawing randomly, then each of us still had a 1/12 chance of winning, even though there were two “good fortune” slips. Right, the assumption is apparently that once the first “good fortune” came up, they stopped, because whoever got the cup got it, and it was clear that all the rest were blanks—until someone got suspicious and checked the rest and found there was another slip there saying “good fortune.” Fine, but in principle, whoever got the first “good fortune” won the cup, and he’s basically arguing: it doesn’t matter. Yes, it was a mistake, but the mistake changed nothing. Right? You can think of the extra slip that said “good fortune” as, for our purposes, just another blank slip. What difference does it make? It played exactly the same role. Meaning, nothing changed in this lottery, and therefore, he argued, the mistake in writing the slips should not invalidate the lottery’s result. I won legitimately, and that was my luck. And in any case—this is also his wording—if apparently my mazal was with me, then even if they had conducted the lottery properly, I still would have won, because apparently my mazal was what was operative at that moment. So what difference does it make how the lottery was done? Why am I emphasizing that addition? Because you understand that the argument I made and the argument he made are not the same. The argument I made was simply that everyone’s chance of winning was still 1/12, it was equal, therefore the lottery was fair, so nobody should have any claim against the fact that I won. The argument he made was that if my mazal helped me, then “the same would apply had it been done correctly and properly, his hour would have stood for him”—meaning even if we had conducted the lottery properly and correctly, my hour would still have stood for me. Right? My mazal would have worked for me, so I would have won even if they had done it the normal way. Okay, meaning he’s dealing with… he’s basically saying it’s deterministic.
[Speaker C] What? He’s saying it’s deterministic basically—whatever game we played, I would have come out the winner.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, because basically his mazal was at work. Now that’s a somewhat problematic argument because, first of all, he doesn’t even need that argument, because he could simply have said what I said. He could have said: what’s the problem? All of us still had an equal chance of winning, 1/12, the lottery was fair, and everything is fine.
[Speaker B] One in six if there were two slips? What? One in six if there were two slips, not 1/12?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, 1/12, because the moment the first “good fortune” slip comes up, they stop. Whoever gets the cup gets it, and the game stops. So each of the twelve people’s chance of winning is 1/12—whoever came out with the first “good fortune” slip.
[Speaker D] Yes, because if he hadn’t checked, then as far as they were concerned it was like a blank, that’s true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. The second “good fortune” slip is as if it were a blank slip. What difference does it make? It didn’t come out. In any case it’s just lying there in the vessel. So what difference does it make what was written on it or not?
[Speaker B] But each one who draws, each one who draws, each one who draws has a one in six chance of drawing the slip with “good fortune.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, there was a child there—a child who drew a name slip and a slip from the “good fortune” bowl.
[Speaker E] For each person the chance is one-sixth, obviously.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the chance is 1/12.
[Speaker D] Why one-sixth?
[Speaker E] Because even if he drew the second one with the name…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but he doesn’t draw the second one. The moment the first one comes out, they stop the process.
[Speaker E] How many… two out of the twelve are such that if one of them is drawn they already win, and the chance of drawing two out of twelve is what, one out of… It’s one-sixth, obviously he’s right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The chance that a slip saying “good fortune” will come out is one-sixth, because there are two slips—on the first draw, say, on the first draw, okay? That’s not relevant, because in the end, when I randomly draw a name from one vessel and randomly draw the “good fortune” slip from the other vessel, the chance for each of the names to win is equal. They are not drawing two “good fortune” slips.
[Speaker D] Each person draws one slip.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes.
[Speaker E] But each person’s chance…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, each person’s chance…
[Speaker E] When you ask what the chance is on the first time, what the chance is that that person wins, it’s one-sixth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I didn’t understand.
[Speaker E] It’s obvious. What, I didn’t understand? If they asked the first person before they lifted the slip, before they took out the slip, and asked what the chance is that that person wins—it’s one-sixth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who is “that person”?
[Speaker E] They took out one name from the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They draw together, they draw a name from here and a slip from here.
[Speaker E] Fine, so after on the first name there is some name written and we don’t know whose it is…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but any one of us can come out first. Fine, so then what’s the problem?
[Speaker E] What is the chance before we draw, what is the chance that each of us… ah, I got it, because of the twelve.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nobody has any advantage over anybody else. They draw a name randomly, and when “good fortune” comes up, that’s the name that wins. So why should I care how the “good fortune” slips are mixed? It’s irrelevant. Meaning in the end everyone’s chance of winning is the same. Therefore the basic argument here should have been: what’s the problem? The lottery was fair, the chance was 1/12 for all of us, and therefore nobody should have any complaint. But he says no: since my mazal worked for me, presumably my mazal would have worked for me even if we had done the lottery correctly. Meaning he accepts, on the principled level, the argument that the lottery should have been done differently, and therefore in principle there was a problem with this lottery. But he says that since my mazal worked for me, then my mazal worked for me there too, it would have worked for me there too. Meaning he assumes that somehow from Heaven it was arranged that he should win—that he was chosen to be the lucky one among them—and therefore it doesn’t really matter how we conducted the lottery. That’s very problematic. Because if that’s really so, then he could make the same claim even if the lottery had not been fair. Because Heaven decided that he should win, so even if you had used an unfair lottery, say one where his chance was one in a hundred, and we ran some procedure in which his chance was one in a hundred and everyone else’s was much greater—even then, of course, the Holy One, blessed be He, would have arranged things so that he won, because God decided He wanted him specifically to win. In that case, the fairness of the lottery is no longer important. If that’s your argument, then even if the lottery really wasn’t fair—meaning if the chances were not actually equal in a second type of case—you could still make exactly the same argument. Right? But if everything is from Heaven, then from Heaven the Holy One, blessed be He, does whatever He wants.
[Speaker E] Then from Heaven they could just drop the cup into his lap without any lottery. Exactly. The fact is, that didn’t happen.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, but here it did happen—what do you mean it didn’t happen? You’re reminding me of the story about Moyshe and the nobleman, you know, who puts breakfast there for him every morning, and so on.
[Speaker C] And that’s the same argument also…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he wins a hundred percent of the time, no? What? Also if they found out that only his name was there on all the slips. Right, exactly. That’s what I’m saying. In the end it really makes no difference. Even if the lottery was completely unfair, he still could have made exactly the same claim.
[Speaker F] Fine, but he’s making the claim precisely because his odds are very low and he still won.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But his odds aren’t low.
[Speaker F] No, I mean if the lottery had in fact been fair and he had won.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The lottery in fact was fair. What do you mean?
[Speaker F] No, but that’s why he said that the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted him to win it.
[Speaker E] But by the same token you could say that his mazal caused it so that although there was a flaw in the lottery and that wasn’t what had been agreed on, he would suffer the disappointment of not winning even though he supposedly won. That too could be what his mazal caused—Heaven decided he shouldn’t win.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine, that’s already really far-fetched pilpul. But I’m saying that on the principled level, the claim of that person is not one I would have made that way. I would have said: what do you want from me? The lottery was fair, nothing changed here, everything is fine, I won legitimately. Not because the Holy One, blessed be He, manipulated things for me. And he’s making a different argument, and in a moment we’ll see why this precision matters—I’m not making it for nothing. Later this will become the focus of the lecture. He is basically making the claim that since my mazal caused it—I’m putting this into his mouth, but that’s apparently what lies behind his words—apparently the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that I am the one who should win among us, so He would have caused that even if the lottery had not been fair. Understand that from that perspective it really doesn’t matter how we conducted the lottery. As long as I have some tiny chance of winning, that’s good enough. It’s a bit reminiscent of the distinction we made there in connection with statistical evidence, where I talked about statistical evidence and fixed cases. Do you remember that? Suppose there’s a container with a hundred white balls and one black ball, and a person is looking—meaning he chooses a ball—and the question is what’s the chance he’ll pull out the black ball? The answer is one-half, not one in a hundred. If he draws it randomly, then it’s one in a hundred. But if he draws by looking—meaning he chooses—then the answer is one-half. If he likes black, he’ll draw the one black ball there is. If he likes white, he’ll draw a white one. That’s not a lottery; the whole question is what he likes. Now if you don’t know what he likes, then the probability is, say, fifty-fifty between white and black, and therefore the chance is one-half. Basically the same claim is being made here. He is saying: this lottery is not really a lottery at all—God decided that I should win. So what difference does it make whether our chances were equal, whether the lottery was fair or unfair? In the end, if God decided that you would win, you could make exactly the same claim even if the lottery had been conducted unfairly. The claim I made earlier cannot be made if the lottery was conducted unfairly. If the lottery is conducted unfairly, then the complaints of the others are justified. You won because the lottery was not conducted fairly, and we have to restore things and do it again. But if the claim is that I’m meant to win because I’m the lucky one, or because from Heaven they desire my honor, then it really makes no difference how they conducted the lottery. Fine, we’ll come back to this point later. It’s an important point.
[Speaker D] But he canceled it though. What? Havot Ya’ir canceled the lottery.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a moment, we’ll see.
[Speaker D] No, I have the responsum in front of me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I also have the responsum in front of me. Here below. “And I said…”
[Speaker D] Simply.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And I said,” yes, “and I said simply…”
[Speaker D] Here below: “and I said, and I said…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, yes. “And I said simply, the lottery is void. The lot is void, for we hold in accordance with Rav, who said: ‘the division is void’ when a brother comes from overseas, in chapter ‘Beit Kor,’ page 106b, and it is in the Tur, Choshen Mishpat, and in the Shulchan Arukh section 175.” Let’s take a look at the Talmud there for a moment.
[Speaker D] Yes, so it says like this: “It was stated: Two brothers who divided…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud in Bava Batra: “Two brothers who divided,” meaning they inherited an estate from their father and they divided it between them, each one received a field. “And a brother came to them from overseas.” Suddenly it turned out that they had a third brother; he arrived from abroad, they hadn’t known he existed. Rav said: “the division is void.” And Shmuel said: “they reduce proportionally.” What does that mean? Rav says: fine, the division is void, they need to do a new lottery. And Shmuel said: “they reduce proportionally.” What does that mean? Each of the two brothers gives one-third of his own share to the new brother, and that’s it; there’s no need to do the lottery all over again. Let’s say there were six fields. So the two brothers each got three fields. Now the third brother arrives. So each of the two brothers gives him one field from his three, and that way the division remains in place, and the other two fields each effectively remain with them. “Rabbah said to Rav Nachman…” regarding Rav, who said “the division is void”—sorry, I’ll get to that in a moment. Fantastic. So what does it say here, basically? That if a third brother arrives, then the division is void, meaning the lottery has to be redone. Okay? Havot Ya’ir says: from there we can learn to our case as well—also here, since there was some error there, the division is void, the lottery is void. What’s the connection? Why is that a proof for our case? There it’s clear why the lottery is void: because in the end each one got too large a share, or if you want, each one had too high a chance of winning—it doesn’t matter—and therefore indeed the lottery was not fair. Maybe Havot Ya’ir thinks that once the third brother gets his share, there was nothing unfair here after all. In the end each one got his third, so what’s the problem? Why should the division be void?
[Speaker G] But for the third one it turns out he had no chance at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So it could be that he conducts a lottery with each of the two brothers who divided, and gets a third. Which third does he get from each of them? There, I think the Rashbam writes, let’s say each of them got a field and a half. There were three fields, each one got a field and a half. Now the third brother arrives, and by lot he got the field that had been split between the two brothers, and he took those two halves—that’s what came up for him in the lot. So now the question is whether the two remaining brothers need to hold a new lottery, or whether each can keep the field that remains with him. So according to Rav, who says the division is void, of course each of them can demand: no, no, we’re doing a new lottery. But according to Shmuel, who said “they reduce proportionally,” then if that one agreed to take the half from each of them, what remains—the field that remained with each of the first two—stays with them, because the lottery is not void. In Jewish law, by the way, we rule like Rav: that the division is void.
[Speaker G] And what’s the logic of Shmuel? What’s the logic of Shmuel? Maybe he wanted field A—that was his dream. If he had been there from the start he’d have had a chance to win A entirely, and now he has no such chance. How can that be fixed? No, according to Shmuel, according to the one who says the division is not void. So? Then each one gives him half of something, but he has no chance of getting what the first one got.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Tough luck for him, because he wasn’t part of the lottery. What do you mean? He doesn’t like it and he didn’t get it.
[Speaker G] No, but I wasn’t here in order to participate in the lottery.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the third one will receive—there’ll be a fair lottery as far as he’s concerned. That’s okay. Or he waives it. The third one will receive, there’ll be a fair lottery as far as he’s concerned. That’s okay. Or he agrees, it doesn’t matter. As far as the third one is concerned, everything is fine. The question is what happens with the first two. Can the first two say, no, no, we’re doing a new lottery, I want your field? Or does one of them say: no, between ourselves we already did the lottery, and this field I received.
[Speaker G] Even though the third one agreed?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. That’s the discussion. So what proof is there from the case in the Talmud to our case? In the Talmudic case, Rav, who says “the division is void,” says that because the lottery really was not conducted properly—meaning there was genuinely an error in the lottery. In the end each one really had a greater chance of winning, or things of that sort, and therefore the division is void. By contrast, in our case, what’s the problem? The chance of winning was 1/12 even in the way the lottery was actually conducted. So what changed relative to the previous case? Havot Ya’ir apparently understands that it makes no difference, because if the third brother really agrees to accept the two half-fields, then in the end the lottery really was fair. What’s the problem? You could have won, you even had a fifty percent chance to win that field. If you had done the lottery from the outset among the three of us, your chance of winning that field would have been thirty-three percent. Now your chance of winning that field was fifty percent—even greater. You only benefited from the fact that we made a mistake and ignored the third brother. So how can you claim, I want your field, let’s do a new lottery? After all, the earlier lottery we conducted gave you a fifty percent chance of getting it, and you didn’t get it. So your chance was actually even greater. So what claim can you have? Therefore Havot Ya’ir says that it’s really similar. So if there the division is void, apparently whenever something goes wrong in the lottery, the division is void—yes, the allocation is void.
[Speaker B] But Rabbi, Rabbi, you’re relating to the brothers between whom the division was made in order to say that before the lottery, in the first lottery, each one had a greater chance of winning that field. But if you relate to the one who arrives, then of course you have to go back and make a new lottery.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously, yes, yes. But let’s say he agrees to accept the two halves, then the discussion remains only between the first two. So let’s look at the continuation there. “Rabbah said to Rav Nachman: According to Rav, who says the division is void, apparently the legal status returns.” Right, we restore the legal status. “If so, according to his view, in the case of three people where two of them arose and went and divided, would you also say that the division is void?” Right? There are three brothers. Two brothers come and do the lottery by themselves. They know they have a third brother, and the two of them come and, on their own, hold a fair lottery in front of an accountant and a lawyer and public figures, okay? And each one gets thirty-three percent of his field, and they conduct a fair lottery among the three of them. Now the third brother arrives and says, wait a second, I wasn’t present at the lottery. So Rabbah says: according to Rav, who says the division is void, here too it should be that the division is void and the lottery has to be redone. Right? So he says, “Would you also say that the division is void?” And he answers: “How can you compare the cases? There they went down with the understanding that there were three from the outset; here they did not go down with the understanding that there were three from the outset.” What is he saying? It’s not comparable. Because in the second case, the lottery took into account from the outset that there were three brothers. He wasn’t present, but the way the lottery was conducted was the way it should have been conducted. There are no complaints about the manner in which the lottery was conducted. In the first case, there are complaints about the manner in which the lottery was conducted because you only held the lottery between two and there was a third brother. Therefore even according to Rav, who says the division is void, in the case where two brothers conduct a fair lottery also on behalf of the brother who is not present here, even he agrees—he too says—that here the division is not void. Now why am I saying this? Because it brings us back to the question whether one can really bring proof from there to the case of Havot Ya’ir. The case of Havot Ya’ir, in my view, is similar to the second case in the Talmud, not the first. Because what do they basically say to the third brother who arrives in the second case? We held a fair lottery—there were public figures and an accountant, okay? And we held a fair lottery; you shouldn’t have any complaint about the lottery. Since that’s the case, you can have no complaint. It’s true that in principle you were supposed to be present. You weren’t present, but we have witnesses, everything is clear, the lottery was conducted properly. Okay? And therefore here Rav says that the division is not void. The only time he says the division is void is where the lottery itself was conducted in error. Meaning, in principle, if the third brother had not agreed, then of course everything would revert. That would mean that in principle this wasn’t a fair lottery. Except that the third brother agreed to accept those two half-fields, and therefore he seemingly fixed the situation afterwards. But that agreement—before he agreed, the division had already become void. So now that he agrees, it doesn’t retroactively become valid again. Right? His agreement won’t change the situation if in the end something truly improper happened here. You took more than the share that should have come to you. That is not the situation when two brothers conduct a lottery on behalf of the third brother. There the lottery was completely fair, so what’s the problem? Now if you look at it this way, then the case that appears here, the case of these twelve householders in Havot Ya’ir, is similar to the second case in the Talmud. The lottery was fair, with a 1/12 chance. There is no reason Rav would say there that the division is void. Therefore in my view Havot Ya’ir’s proof is a problematic proof. Okay, let’s continue, because he has some kind of thesis, and I think that’s what guides him all the way through. And I return to Havot Ya’ir. The saga isn’t over. Fine, so Havot Ya’ir ruled that the lottery is void and another lottery has to be held. “And they returned and cast new slips in the same manner into the two vessels, and one of them won on the sixth draw.” This time the sixth slip that came up had “good fortune” written on it. You remember that in the previous lottery it was the second slip, which aroused suspicion because it was too quick. Here it was on the sixth draw, which is more plausible. “And one of those remaining at the box innocently”—this time without suspicion, just casually he decided to check again—“opened the wrapped slips that remained,” the closed slips that remained in the vessel. “And through this he saw that one name of one of the contributors had been left out and had not been thrown into the box, only eleven slips of householders.”
[Speaker D] So here too there was a mishap. What happened?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There were actually only 11 slips. There was one “mazal tov” slip, excuse me, only 11 out of the 12 names were in the slips in the container with the names. In the second container there really was one “mazal tov” slip and 11 blank slips. But in the container of names they didn’t put in one of the householders’ names, only 11 slips. And the members of the group said this lottery too should be canceled. So they said, fine, this has to be canceled because it isn’t fair. And the one who won argued against them that there was no basis to their complaint to spoil the lottery. On the contrary, because one name was missing, they were closer to winning. And regarding the fact that one was missing, the winner asked to make peace with him and give him four reichsthalers, and he was satisfied. What’s going on here? Here the fellow says: they wanted to cancel the lottery, okay? The one who won says to them: what exactly is your complaint? You had a 1-in-11 chance of winning instead of 1-in-12. You only gained from this lottery. You didn’t end up winning, I won, but this lottery gave you a better chance than the fair lottery would have given you. So you really have no complaint at all. Except what? There remains that one person whose name didn’t appear at all. So he’s obviously the injured party; he had no chance of winning. So the winner says: leave it, I’ll appease him, I’ll give him four reichsthalers. I’ll work it out with him. I’ll give him four. The goblet is worth 12 reichsthalers, right? So he says: I’ll give him four reichsthalers as compensation. Of course that’s much better for him than a 1-in-12 chance to win 12 reichsthalers, right? The expected gain is one reichsthaler. You’re getting four, so take the four and be quiet. Now, he could have refused, because he had every right to say: yes, but I want a chance to win the 12, I want another lottery. But he agreed. He consented to take these four reichsthalers from the person who won. So basically the winner says: what’s the problem? You have no claim, because you had a higher chance of winning than usual, and he’s the only one who could complain, and I worked it out with him, and he agreed. So everything is fine, the lottery stands. What would you rule?
[Speaker B] It’s similar to the second case in the Talmud.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker B] When the brother agreed, like when they divided it between the first two brothers and the third brother agreed. That’s the first case, not the second. The first, sorry, that was the first. Right. So there’s no reason to go back.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary, then yes, the division is void. We rule like Rav in that case. That’s the first case in the Talmud, and Rav says the division is void. Why? So I explained this earlier. According to Rav, once the lottery wasn’t fair, it’s void. The fact that afterward the brother agrees and retroactively arranges the matter again—that’s irrelevant. That’s already a new case. A lottery conducted in such a way, unfairly, is automatically void. First of all, it’s void. It doesn’t matter that afterward we straighten things out and everything is organized. Now if that really is the explanation, then obviously in the case we’re discussing here, the lottery is void. Right?
[Speaker B] But in the brother’s case, the third one necessarily has to get something. Which is not the case in this lottery, where the one whose name wasn’t there was supposed to receive a chance to win.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That doesn’t matter. I was talking about returning to this lottery. I said that lotteries generally are instead of dividing the object itself, you divide the chance. Right, you have a goblet worth 12 reichsthalers. Now not everyone can get the goblet. There’s only one goblet. So what do you do instead of dividing the goblet? You divide the chance to win the goblet. Okay? You treat it like receiving one-twelfth of the goblet.
[Speaker D] No, but here too, ostensibly, it should also nullify it, because that takes us back to the first story, right? Or the second. Right. Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I’m saying the first mistake that happened there is actually similar to the second case.
[Speaker D] To the second case, where he really could…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore there too Rav says the division is not void. And the Havot Ya’ir for some reason compares it to the first case. I don’t agree. But the second mistake that happened in the Havot Ya’ir really is similar to the first case.
[Speaker D] Yes, the person who was left out is really similar to the brother who wasn’t there. Yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So I’ll go back to the Havot Ya’ir:
[Speaker G] Why can’t we just say: we agreed on a certain lottery, and if it wasn’t carried out the way we agreed, then nothing happened. It’s not that it’s void—it simply never was. There was something else. Lots of random things happen in the world that we don’t take into account in this context. So why should we take this into account? The fact that it sounds similar to what we established—it’s similar, but it’s not identical and not the same thing, and therefore it simply never happened.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what we’re saying, that the division is void, no? Yes, yes.
[Speaker G] I’m saying, seemingly according to everyone.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right. So he says—and what’s interesting is—and in truth, at first glance the matter remained unclear to me, with no decision. Yes, it’s really strange. Precisely here he says: here I hesitated. It seemed undecided. Even though here it’s much clearer that the division is void. But after a little reflection, as one says, after sleeping on it, I ruled that here too the division is void. For we see regarding two brothers who divided property and afterward a brother came from overseas, that even if they had three fields equal in value and one of them took a field and a half, and after the brother came they tried and wrote three slips and listed three fields on them, and the foreign brother took one slip and it came up with a field that had already been divided, and the third brother agreed—as I told you earlier, and the third brother agreed to it—nevertheless each of the two brothers can completely void the first lottery. And these are the words of the Rosh in Tosafot there. And so it is ruled in the Shulchan Arukh there, even though there is no reason and no logic and no room for any of them to question it from the standpoint of reason. Right, because if the brother agreed, none of them lost anything. Nevertheless, a lottery conducted improperly is void, all the more so if the error is in the act of the lottery itself. Fine, all that is inside some parentheses. I’m leaving that objection aside for the moment. So this is basically what we said earlier. He’s just bringing Tosafot. I already mentioned Tosafot earlier. He brings Tosafot that even if the brother agreed to accept the two halves of the field, the division is void. Now he says as follows: See. See the responsa of the early Geonim, section 60, from the responsa of the Geonim, that a lottery is only from Heaven, as it says, “By lot shall the land be divided.” And one who objects to a lottery is like one who transgresses the Ten Commandments. Yes, they are basically claiming that a lottery comes from Heaven; the result is essentially a result that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought about.
[Speaker B] Then why didn’t they get the same result?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What—sorry, I didn’t understand.
[Speaker B] Then why wasn’t it the case that the one who won the first time also won the second time, if his fortune caused it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent question. I don’t know, I didn’t think of that. Maybe the same person did come out? He doesn’t say.
[Speaker G] Wait, what’s the claim here? He…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says: after all, in the lottery they held another lottery, and the winner there apparently was not the same winner as in the first lottery. Now if his claim is that he won because his fortune, from Heaven, brought it about for him, then he should also have won the second lottery. Wonderful question, I didn’t think of it. Yes.
[Speaker C] Maybe his hour ran out—he said he had his moment, and it ended exactly then.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying that at that moment he had a bit less luck?
[Speaker D] In the last minute there.
[Speaker C] So that…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That somewhat suggests that I wasn’t right earlier when I attributed this to the Holy One, blessed be He. Rather, his time was favorable at that moment, but not that he truly was the person who, from the standpoint of the Holy One, blessed be He, was meant to win. Because if that were so, it wouldn’t be reasonable to tie it to timing. Fine, but here he does say it: that a lottery is only from Heaven, as it says, “By lot shall the land be divided.” Yes, he learns from the division of the land that the lottery is according to Heaven, and one who objects to it is like one who transgresses the Ten Commandments. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, has spoken, and you don’t accept the result of the lottery—so it’s like transgressing the words of the Holy One, blessed be He. For we have seen from the Torah, from the Prophets, and from the Writings that they relied on lotteries when they were done without human thought and without human action through scheming—yes, without human involvement—“Only by lot shall the land be divided.” A lottery done fairly, without human involvement, we see as the hand of God. And therefore one may not challenge it. And they also relied on lotteries…
[Speaker D] But a lottery is something people do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sorry?
[Speaker D] A lottery is something people do. That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, commands Moses our Teacher, “Only by lot shall you divide the land,” and he conducts a lottery and they sit and draw one by one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but the claim is that this lottery essentially reflects the result the Holy One, blessed be He, desires. He used the lottery to carry out what He planned. Yes, but it’s a bit speculative. That is the claim here in the responsum of the Geonim.
[Speaker G] Wait, what exactly is the claim here before we ask?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand what claim…
[Speaker G] Of the Havot Ya’ir.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He brings the responsum of the Geonim and says that the lottery is from Heaven, and he learns this from the lottery of dividing the land—that one who objects to it is like one who transgresses the Ten Commandments. Meaning, the responsum of the Geonim learns from the lottery of dividing the land that one who objects to it is like one who transgresses the Ten Commandments. Meaning, the result of the lottery is essentially a divine command. The Holy One, blessed be He, arranges the lottery. Wait, we’ll see in a moment. For we have seen from the Torah, from the Prophets, and from the Writings that they relied on the lottery when it was done without human thought and without human action through cunning—“Only by lot shall the land be divided.” So he says—this is already the Havot Ya’ir’s response—that means everything is from Heaven. And they also relied on the lottery in the deaths of Achan and Jonathan—yes, Jonathan son of Saul and Achan are two lotteries that appear in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh): Achan is the lottery to determine who violated the ban, and Jonathan is the lottery for who violated the oath, who ate there right before the battle, and it turned out that Jonathan was the one who ate. Had the people not redeemed him, not because of his confession, and it says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every judgment is from the Lord.” So this all essentially came from the Holy One, blessed be He. And the fact is they relied on the lottery—had the people not redeemed him, they would have harmed him because the lottery showed that he was the one who ate. You see that the lottery really is viewed as something that reflects divine truth. And the same with Achan, where the lottery showed that he was the one who violated the ban. So you see that the lottery reflects some kind of truth, and one cannot challenge its result. Yes, just like the responsum of the Geonim. And even among the nations of the world this was accepted, as with Jonah and wicked Haman. Haman the wicked, in the plain meaning of the verse. Because it is likely—I’m skipping these parentheses—because it is likely that if the lottery is proper, higher providence clings to it, as it says… “be wholly sincere”—I’m not sure exactly what that text is here. If the lottery is corrupted, there is no basis to say that the one who won—this was from God. Whether the corruption came through human manipulation or by mistake, in any event the lottery is corrupted. And each one can say: had the lottery been conducted properly, my favorable hour would have stood for me according to my fortune or according to my prayer that I should have success in all my affairs—more than what is written in the Talmud in Bava Metzia 106, never mind, that’s a separate topic. So what is he basically saying? As it is written, “You uphold my lot,” and so on.
[Speaker B] It seems to me he’s a bit contradicting himself, because here he says that even if it was by mistake, and earlier he said without scheming, even though it’s human action or scheming.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or scheming.
[Speaker B] Meaning, of course people can lift the slips, in the case of Achan or Jonathan, but without scheming because they don’t know, they don’t see. How is that different from a mistake?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—if they distorted the lottery. If they distorted the lottery, whether deliberately or unintentionally, a distorted lottery is not—the result is not the word of God. That’s the claim he is making here.
[Speaker D] But in the first story of the Havot Ya’ir, where the one who won drew the second slip, that wasn’t distorted. What do you…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, it wasn’t distorted?
[Speaker D] You can’t call that a distortion. The extra slip, yes, doesn’t distort anything, it’s not playing…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the first, not in the second.
[Speaker D] In the first—that’s what I said.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, there was no distortion there.
[Speaker D] In the first one, where he won on the second. Right. Yes, so that’s a contradiction, a contradiction to his words.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, wait, wait, just a second—we haven’t gotten to his words yet. So he is basically saying that if there was corruption here through human manipulation or by mistake, yes, in any event the lottery is corrupted. What is he really trying to say? There’s a hidden question here. If indeed the result—that’s what I asked at the beginning of the class—if the result of the lottery is from God, then what difference does it make if the lottery was corrupted? Suppose my chance of winning was smaller. If the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that I would win, then I would win anyway. So apparently according to this conception of the responsum of the Geonim, and that the Havot Ya’ir also follows, there is no room to challenge lotteries at all, even if someone says that the lottery was truly corrupted—meaning that the odds really changed, not merely some distortion that doesn’t change the odds, but even if the odds really changed—what difference does it make? After all, in the end, if the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that I should win, then I’d win even if my chance was one in a hundred. What difference does it make? So this is what troubles the Havot Ya’ir. So the Havot Ya’ir says: no, the whole idea that the lottery expresses the divine decision was stated only about a proper lottery, not a corrupted one. A corrupted lottery is not the hand of God. Why not? How does he know that? I have no idea. It’s his own invention to resolve this difficulty.
[Speaker I] Since when is it our role to help the Holy One, blessed be He, with individual providence?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.
[Speaker I] Since when does the Holy One, blessed be He, need our help in carrying out individual providence? If He wants to pass it to the person it belongs to. We need to deal with property rights. A lottery says nothing… He doesn’t need our help.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say He needs our help.
[Speaker I] Then why do we need this lottery? What, we need to help Him carry out individual providence, as it were?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Holy One… we don’t need anything. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: make a lottery, and He uses that lottery to bring about what He wants to bring about, that’s all.
[Speaker I] But this lottery… but that’s only with a fair lottery. One second. We need to deal with property rights. A lottery says nothing about property rights. All it does is help the Holy One, blessed be He, carry out individual providence so that it falls to whomever He planned. That’s roughly what is being said here. To whom He planned, to whom the property rights…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Are his.
[Speaker I] No, the property rights are equal for all of them. There isn’t someone here who has greater property rights in this land. There’s no uncertainty here; it belongs equally to all of them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait—that. Leave that aside for a moment, I’m getting to that in a moment. That’s a different distinction. Just a second. So he basically says this: since there is divine involvement, then in principle there’s also no claim against a corrupted lottery. He says no—he has a major novelty here, a scriptural decree: which lottery expresses the divine decision? Only a lottery done in a wholly sincere way, yes, cleanly, without human involvement, whether by accident or intentionally. It doesn’t matter. Only such a lottery expresses the divine decision. Corrupted lotteries are lotteries that… and since He is not involved in them, one cannot claim that the result is a result that comes from the Holy One, blessed be He. That’s his claim. And then he says: and more than that, yes? A lottery that in any case is fit for providence if done properly. And more than that, it seems to me: if a person concealed the matter and placed two slips with his own name into the ballot box. I wrote slips into the ballot box, I put in two slips of mine with my name on them. And someone else won the “mazal tov” slip. Suppose I put 13 slips into the ballot box, two of which were mine. Okay? And somebody else won the “mazal tov” slip. And afterward the sinner revealed it; he told them he had cheated. And they checked and found that it was so. Nevertheless, the others can void the lottery, and even he himself. The sinner himself, who wrote two slips, can void the lottery. Even though the lottery that actually took place increased his odds as compared to a fair lottery. Still he can void the lottery. Why? Because a lottery done in a way that is corrupted has no divine involvement in it, and therefore the result is not the proper result, the result intended by the Holy One, blessed be He. That’s basically the claim. Now…
[Speaker H] Rabbi?
[Speaker J] Yes. This whole pilpul that he’s doing starts from an assumption that is very hard to understand—that a lottery is the hand of God. Even though he brings a scriptural decree or I don’t know what sources, it’s very hard to understand.
[Speaker I] Completely obvious.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Akiva, that’s what someone noted here earlier. That’s exactly what you read in the Havot Ya’ir. That’s his claim. His claim is that the lottery reflects the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, as written in the responsum of the Geonim. As you see with Achan and with the division of the land. But there there was a command.
[Speaker I] With Achan there was a special command, so that means that the Holy One…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Blessed be He directed it. Right, that’s what he says there. Even though it was by direct instruction—that’s the parenthetical remark I skipped there. Never mind. You still see the principle from there.
[Speaker I] You could put it to a simple test. Hold the lottery twice and see that the result is different.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I just answered you. Someone noted that earlier—that’s what you read in the Havot Ya’ir. They put it to the test.
[Speaker D] Yes, yes. I just didn’t understand what this has to do with the silver goblet. This whole discussion about the Holy One, blessed be He, God, lotteries, the Ten Commandments—it’s very nice. There are 12 householders who want to raffle off the silver goblet. They raffle it among themselves, yes? What does this have to do with a divine command or anything heavenly at all?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it has nothing to do with a divine command. But if I won, then apparently the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted me to be the one who won. I deserved to win.
[Speaker D] Where exactly did you even connect that puzzle?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what the Havot Ya’ir claims. In a moment—I already said that I don’t accept his approach. So the point is this, look. In the previous class we discussed the lottery on the ship, yes? From Liverpool. And that was following a conversation of Eli Merzbach with Yuzefovitch, and a book Eli Merzbach wrote, called I think The Logic of the Lottery or something like that. And Eli Merzbach’s basic thesis—not only in that book but in many places—is that nothing is random. Meaning, all lotteries ultimately are the way the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved in the world without people noticing. Okay? That is basically the claim. And what stands behind this, of course, is a more fundamental theological claim which says that everything that happens in the world is in fact the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He. Even things that appear random, like a lottery. And certainly things that occur deterministically. That is basically the claim. And I think that when you look at it from that theological perspective, you can definitely arrive at the conclusion of the Havot Ya’ir. Because in the end, if the lottery gave me the result—I won—and all of it is the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, then apparently I truly deserved to win. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that I deserved to win. But—the theology itself can be debated, and it seems to me you already know that I don’t agree with that theology. But let’s talk about the proofs, not about the theological assumptions. So I want to start for a moment with the division of the land. This is another article I once wrote in Midah Tovah. The division of the land appears in several places in the Torah. “Only by lot shall the land be divided; according to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit; by lot shall his inheritance be divided between the many and the few.” Yes, and there too the lot… all these are lotteries, in short, all these places. Rashi there, on the first source in Numbers, writes this and explains how the story was conducted. This follows the Sages. He says: “To the many you shall increase its inheritance”—to the tribe that was larger in population they gave a larger portion. And even though the portions were not equal, since everything was divided according to the tribe’s size, they nevertheless did it only by lot. Rashi says this is very strange, because “to the many you shall increase its inheritance” means that a big tribe got a large inheritance. So that means nothing here was random. So what is the lottery for? Just give each one according to its size. No, they wanted to do it by lot. And the lot was according to divine inspiration, as explained in Bava Batra: Eleazar the priest was clothed in the Urim and Tummim and said by divine inspiration, “The tribe of so-and-so is coming up, and such-and-such territory is coming up with it.” It reminds you of the lottery of the Havot Ya’ir; it’s exactly the same thing. There was a hat with names of tribes and a hat with parcels in the Land of Israel—12 of these and 12 of those. They lifted a slip from here and a slip from there and matched a parcel to a tribe, an inheritance to a tribe. And the tribes were written on 12 slips and the 12 boundaries on 12 slips, and they mixed them in a box, and the prince put his hand into it and took two slips. In his hand came up a slip with the name of his tribe and a slip with the boundary designated for it. And the lot itself would cry out and say, “I, the lot, have come up for such-and-such boundary for such-and-such tribe,” as it says, “By lot.” And the land was not divided merely by measure, because one territory is superior to another, but by valuation—a large measure against a small measure, all according to value. Fine, that’s less important. But what Rashi is basically telling us here—notice, this is the Sages, but Rashi brings it here—is that this whole division, this whole lottery, was a fiction. Because in the end, understand, there was something superfluous here. Why do you need two hats with two slips? Also in the Havot Ya’ir, by the way, why did they do it this way? They took it from the lottery of dividing the land. In principle one of the hats is unnecessary. Put one hat with 12 slips, with one saying “mazal tov,” each person pulls out a slip, everyone opens his own slip, and whoever sees “mazal tov” has won. Why do you need a child to take from this hat a slip with a name and from that hat a slip with “mazal tov” or a parcel and then match them? In the division of the land too, same thing. Why did you need two hats? Let each prince draw the inheritance and he wins it. Not to mention that the whole story was in any case a fiction, because each tribe got the inheritance due to it according to its size. More than that, each time it was the prince—this was not one child lifting the two slips and matching the inheritance to the tribe, but the prince of the tribe himself would draw a slip from here and a slip from there, and every time the slip with the name of his own tribe came up for him. Even though it was supposedly random. And the inheritance that came up was matched to his tribe. In short, the whole story seems absurd. That’s not how you run a lottery. What is the meaning of this? There is no doubt that this whole strange procedure came to say one thing: that this lottery was the will of God. That the Holy One, blessed be He, was the one who determined which inheritance would go to which tribe. Right? That’s obvious. From the procedure of the lottery it’s completely clear. Now why is that so? Because on the conceptual level there really isn’t a right and wrong division here. It’s not that some specific tribe deserved this parcel and the lottery came to determine which tribe that was. Nobody deserved anything; the land didn’t yet belong to anyone. We were now carrying out the division. So one could have viewed this lottery as a random lottery, not as expressing the word of God. Therefore, precisely for that reason, it was so important to do it in this way—to say that even though ostensibly this is a random lottery, no, this lottery is really one done according to God, and the results are results that the Holy One, blessed be He, intended. The same with Jonathan and with Achan, the two other lotteries carried out in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). There too you have to understand: these lotteries came to clarify some kind of truth. They wanted to determine who violated the ban or who violated the oath, yes, who ate there. So there there is a correct answer. There is one person who violated the ban; we don’t know who he is. The lottery says: it’s Achan. Meaning, there it’s a lottery that by definition comes to express what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. Right? The lottery was only the way through which the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks. So all the biblical lotteries—Achan and Jonathan as well—that’s obvious. In the case of the land there was room to say no, but therefore the Sages tell us: no, in the lottery of the land too it was like that. This is unlike another kind of lottery—for example, two brothers dividing an inheritance. Okay? They want to divide it, there are two fields and each one has to get one of the fields, so they hold a lottery. That is a lottery of a different character. It is not a lottery like those types. Why? Because that lottery has no correct answer. It’s not that one field belongs to one brother and the other field belongs to the other brother, we just don’t know which is which and the lottery will reveal it. No. The lottery determines to whom the field belongs; it does not reveal to whom the field belongs. Do you understand the difference? Meaning, the lotteries of Jonathan and Achan are lotteries that came to clarify what the true answer is. There is a true answer here: who violated the ban? A lottery dividing a partnership or an inheritance is not a lottery that comes to uncover truth. It’s a lottery that comes to find a fair solution for how to divide an inheritance between two people who have equal rights to everything. On the contrary, precisely because neither one has a greater right to any part than the other, we use a lottery to determine which field goes to whom. So now I’m making the following claim: there are in fact two kinds of lotteries in the world. One kind, the first type, is biblical lotteries. Biblical lotteries are lotteries whose purpose is to reveal the truth. We don’t know what the truth is, and we want the Holy One, blessed be He, to reveal to us what the truth is. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: hold a lottery, and through the lottery I will reveal to you what the truth is. That is My way of revealing it to you. Okay? That is the first type of lottery. Let’s call them revealing lotteries—they reveal some truth. The second type of lottery is constitutive lotteries, not revealing ones. These are lotteries that reveal nothing. A lottery between two brothers does not reveal that this field is mine and that field is yours. The lottery makes this field mine and that one yours. It is a lottery that constitutes the state of affairs, not reveals an existing state. A lottery that creates, as opposed to a lottery that reveals, you could say. Okay.
[Speaker J] But how—how do you divide between them? What’s the difference?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, what’s the difference?
[Speaker J] No, I mean, I understand the difference the Rabbi is presenting now, but in what case will it be revealing and in what case will it be…?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where there is a truth. You can’t use a revealing lottery if there is no truth to reveal. Say you make a lottery over who violated the ban. You don’t know; you know that someone violated the ban, but you don’t know who it was. Now if there had not been a word from the Holy One, blessed be He, saying to hold a lottery, we would never in our lives hold a lottery. Why? Because here the purpose of the lottery is to reveal, not to create a state, but to reveal an existing state. Who can guarantee us that the lottery really reveals the correct state? You need a word from the Holy One, blessed be He, that this is the method—a lottery. What?
[Speaker J] I’m saying, it reveals something that already was, and we just don’t know what it was.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Now in the division between two brothers, that is a creating lottery, not a revealing lottery. We don’t have a way to divide, there is no true division here. But we need to find a fair solution, so we hold a fair lottery between the two brothers; each has an equal chance to get field A and field B, and whatever comes out, comes out.
[Speaker J] But in the lottery of the tribes it doesn’t reveal anything.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That’s why I said earlier: the biblical lotteries of Achan and Jonathan are clearly revealing lotteries. The lottery of dividing the land—there specifically there was room to say that this was a creating lottery, not a revealing one. You have the land, like a division between partners. You have the land, you need to divide it between two tribes, so you hold a lottery. Therefore the whole procedure Rashi describes comes to say: even though it looks to you like a creating lottery, no, this is a revealing lottery. The Holy One, blessed be He, claims that each tribe is entitled to a certain inheritance, and He used the lottery to tell us which inheritance belongs to which tribe.
[Speaker D] What about the Vilna Gaon’s lottery?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, one second. So that’s a revealing lottery. A creating lottery is a lottery we conduct because of constraint. We make an agreement between ourselves, a contract between ourselves: how shall we divide this? Let’s hold a fair lottery, and whatever comes out, comes out—that is our agreement. We don’t need to say that the final result is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted. He wanted nothing; He’s not involved in it. It’s simply the fair way to divide property when we have no other way.
[Speaker J] So basically what Rashi is saying, according to the Rabbi, is that… we might have thought this was a determining lottery, but actually it isn’t, it’s revealing, because the result is so implausibly exact—it fits precisely what we thought according to size.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It was meant to demonstrate before the eyes of all Israel that this lottery—even though it looks to you like a creating lottery—is not so; it is a revealing lottery. Look, you have open miracles here. Meaning, every prince who lifts a slip lifts his own slip. So you understand that nothing here is random, and therefore it is obvious that the Holy One, blessed be He, orchestrated everything. But from the positive you infer the negative: in ordinary lotteries of this type, where we don’t see all sorts of miracles, there is no reason to assume that it is a revealing lottery; it is a creating lottery. Right, but…
[Speaker B] If…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Therefore the whole claim, all the proofs that the Havot Ya’ir and the responsum of the Geonim bring from biblical lotteries, are beside the point. They prove nothing at all, because all the biblical lotteries are revealing lotteries. He notes there in a parenthesis that I skipped that this was done by direct instruction, so what proof is there? Maybe only there is it revealing, not in a lottery that is not done by direct instruction. I claim the problem is not that it was done by direct instruction, but rather that there the purpose of the lottery was to reveal a truth. Now, it’s true that in order to conduct such a lottery it must be done by direct instruction, otherwise why assume that the result would really reflect the truth? But the point is not that it was done by direct instruction—that’s not the point. Rather, the point is that the purpose of the lottery there was to reveal some truth. In contrast, an ordinary lottery—a legal, commercial, ordinary lottery—is a lottery that has no purpose of revealing truth, but only of dividing property fairly. Therefore there is no proof at all from biblical lotteries that in ordinary lotteries too this is the hand of God and the result is essentially what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended. Therefore this whole strange move of the Havot Ya’ir seems to me completely unfounded. There is no reason in the world to assume such a thing, and certainly there is no proof of it from biblical lotteries.
[Speaker B] But apparently from the very fact that they also used, as the Rabbi pointed out earlier, they used two baskets even though there was no need in the division of the land—that’s what proved it was from Heaven—here too they used two baskets.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That proved nothing. It proved that they thought it was from Heaven.
[Speaker B] They…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After all, they decided to do it that way. No heavenly voice came out by direct instruction and told them to do it with two baskets.
[Speaker B] Yes, yes, yes—no, I mean that they wanted to imitate what had been done in the division of the land, to show that here too…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. They decided to imitate what was done in the division of the land because they thought like the Havot Ya’ir, because they thought that even in creating divisions this too is the hand of God. That is exactly the point. And that is why I drew your attention to the claim of the first winner. Because the first winner did not say, look, the lottery was fair, what do you want? No—he said that if my fortune was such, that means the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted me to win, so what are your complaints? I would have won anyway. Meaning, that is why I insisted there on making the distinction between two kinds of claims, because I wanted to show you that these people really are students of the Havot Ya’ir, yes—these are attentive students, as he describes there. Meaning, they basically accepted from him this conception of lotteries, a conception that in my view is incorrect. It is also Eli Merzbach’s conception, that every random thing that happens here in the world is actually the result of the hand of God. Why ever? It is completely random, and on the contrary, the whole idea is that it should be random so that the division will be fair. If it is random, then it is fair; precisely the randomness is the important thing here.
[Speaker J] Rabbi, but even regarding the revealing lottery, you can very easily show that the claim is still very difficult. What do you mean? I mean, if we perform the same lottery twice and…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It would come out the same. What? It would come out the same. If you were to conduct the lottery over the land twice, the same division would emerge. If you were to conduct the lottery over Jonathan or over Achan twice, the same result would emerge—that’s exactly the point. But in the Havot Ya’ir, as someone noted earlier—I didn’t even notice this—the story itself shows you that you are wrong. Because they did it twice and the winner did not come out the same. So the Havot Ya’ir has an invention; he solves it, the Havot Ya’ir. What is his invention? That if the lottery was not conducted properly, then the Holy One, blessed be He, is not involved, and the second lottery was not conducted properly. But where does that invention come from? He comes to defend his thesis against evidence from reality, so he invents another invention. But no—the thesis is not correct, and there is no need to defend it. Ordinary lotteries are random lotteries; they are not lotteries of the hand of God. Now, in the legal authorities themselves I can show you in the legal authorities themselves—maybe I’ll just do this one thing more.
[Speaker C] Rabbi, in the division of the land there were in principle two lotteries there, because in fact the head of the tribe also got his own name, and he also got the parcel suited to the size of his tribe. Right. So that means that these are actually two different things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True enough, true enough. That’s what I said. Therefore there they very much wanted to emphasize the fact that this was not a random matter. That is exactly the point; that is why they did it.
[Speaker G] And what about Jonah, for example? In the story of Jonah—why in the world did they decide on Jonah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, now with Jonah, since you ask, I’ll throw in Jonah too. We spoke about Jonah in the previous class, and I said there—I made a distinction between two paragraphs in Sefer Hasidim. Notice, in Jonah, what kind of lottery was it? A revealing lottery. Revealing, right? There was someone whom the storm, in effect, was targeting. And therefore now they needed to hold a lottery, but the lottery was not like a lottery of division; it was a revealing lottery. It was a lottery that came to reveal whom Heaven was after here.
[Speaker G] But by what right did they take that upon themselves?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second, one second. Therefore what did I explain there? That if in fact the storm—and this is the distinction in resolving the contradiction in Sefer Hasidim—if in fact the storm is around our ship alone and around the other ships there is no storm, then one may hold a lottery. Why? Because Heaven has revealed to us that there really is someone here whom they are after. Then it may be that we are permitted to conduct a revealing lottery that will reveal whom they are after. But if the storm attacks all the ships, then you do not have direct instruction, right? You do not have revelation from Heaven telling you that if you conduct a lottery, you really will identify someone who is guilty and that this will solve your problem. In such a situation, it is indeed forbidden to conduct a lottery. Meaning, the distinction I made in the previous class is exactly the “direct instruction” that we are seeing in this class.
[Speaker G] Wait, Rabbi, would the Rabbi justify it if, say, there were only a storm on our ship and we decided, let’s hold a lottery and it will fall on the guilty one? Who says? Who says the Holy One, blessed be He, chose to reveal it to us?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no. But there Sefer Hasidim claims yes. Sefer Hasidim claims there is a very clear indication that the Holy One, blessed be He, is after someone on this ship, and therefore one may conduct a lottery. But not in a situation where there is no indication, because where there is no indication the lottery will reveal nothing—there is nothing here to reveal. Now one has to understand that in a lottery between two brothers, it is not only that I have no indication that the result is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants; rather, as someone asked earlier, there is not in fact any property right of one over one of the parts. I just need to determine whether my right is to field A or field B. There is no correct answer at all. So why ever assume that the Holy One, blessed be He, is involved there and gives me one part and you another? On the contrary, we should each have an equal right to receive either part. That is what fairness says. We are two brothers; both of us equally deserve it. The involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, if it were there, would be unjust involvement. Because it creates an answer where there is no answer, not that it reveals an existing answer. Here there is no answer at all. So why ever create involvement that gives me one field and you another? That’s not fair. I deserve a 50 percent chance to get the better field. The whole thing makes no sense. Now I just want to get in one more thing, to show you simply that even in the legal authorities they make this distinction.
[Speaker G] Seemingly, Rabbi, someone who is a determinist like me would say that this is always what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. After all, not only did He want it, He also determined it. I didn’t understand. A determinist…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If a determinist truly does not accept randomness. Many determinists do accept randomness; they just do not accept free choice.
[Speaker G] Randomness that isn’t quantum? What kind of randomness could there be that isn’t quantum?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Come on, that’s already a different discussion. There are no quanta in the Talmudic text.
[Speaker G] Right, so what kind of randomness could there be? I didn’t understand. If someone is a determinist, then apparently there really is no randomness. A determinist today?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One who knows quantum theory and all that? Fine.
[Speaker G] No, let’s leave quantum aside, because quantum isn’t relevant here. So if you’re a determinist, then everything was fixed at the Big Bang.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if you leave—
[Speaker G] quantum theory aside, then everything was fixed at the Big Bang.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is also randomness besides quantum. That’s why I’m saying: that’s a question of quantum theory, never mind; but on the basic level, determinism can accommodate randomness, it just can’t accommodate free choice. That’s the claim. Fine, never mind. Look, in the Shulchan Arukh it says as follows, Yoreh De’ah 179: “One does not inquire of astrologers or by lots, because it says, ‘You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God,’ and all the more so it is forbidden to inquire of sorcerers, diviners, and magicians.” Okay? So in the responsa of Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, HaElef Lekha Shlomo, he says: You asked me to clarify how we practice casting lots regarding Kaddish. Right? There are several people saying Kaddish, and they cast lots to decide who will say it, and so on. Now, the Shakh wrote in the name of Tosafot that one does not inquire by lots. Yes? The Shakh on this ruling in the Shulchan Arukh that appears above writes that according to this it is forbidden to make lots, because it’s like inquiring of the stars. It violates “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” like magic or sorcery or divination and so on. Now know, he says, that the intention of Tosafot is about when one asks through lots about the future, what will be—such as whether the sick person will live, or whether the lost object will be found, and things of that kind. Regarding future matters one may not inquire, as it is written, “You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God.” But to draw lots between two things in order to know whether it belongs to this one or that one—that is certainly permitted, and “You shall be wholehearted” does not apply here, for in the Temple they would cast lots to determine who would slaughter, and so too we learned in the Mishnah and in the halakhic authorities, and so on, that one does not cast lots on a Jewish holiday—implying that on ordinary days it is permitted to cast lots. And it is explicit in Scripture: “Only by lot shall the land be divided.” And how could the Holy One, blessed be He, command something improper? That comment of his is not correct, in my opinion. But what he basically wants to say—his general claim is certainly correct; the remark from the division of the land, as we saw earlier, is not correct. But what he basically wants to say is this: there is a difference between lots that come to reveal some truth—those are lots about the future, but he doesn’t actually mean specifically the future. Rather, there are lots that come to reveal some truth, and those it is forbidden to cast unless it is by divine instruction. But a lot that divides between two partners—what’s the problem? You have no other way to divide. That is not inquiring of the stars. Inquiring of the stars means trying to discover what the truth is going to be and thinking that the lot brings you the truth. Thinking that the lot brings you the truth—that is idolatry, that is prohibited, unless it is done by divine instruction. Therefore, in my opinion, the Havot Ya’ir is not only mistaken, he’s actually offending in that he claims that this lottery of the twelve householders expresses the will of God. That is inquiring of stars and sorcerers. It is forbidden to do such a thing, only by divine instruction. If by divine instruction they tell you that this is from the Holy One, blessed be He, then yes. If it is not by divine instruction, then it is forbidden. But the whole story is wrong, because that lottery there is a constitutive lottery, not a revealing one. And with a constitutive lottery there is no problem at all. What prohibition is there against holding a constitutive lottery? It’s not like inquiring of sorcerers and magicians where I claim that the lottery reveals some truth to me. It reveals nothing to me; it is simply the fair way to make the division. That is exactly what he says here.
[Speaker D] By the way, Maimonides. What about the Vilna Gaon’s lot?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What about the Vilna Gaon’s lot?
[Speaker D] In that case it comes out that it wasn’t by divine instruction, and there they asked very difficult questions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The tradition of the Vilna Gaon is perceived by people as something that is by divine instruction. They have an ancient tradition that this is how one can cast a lot—opening a Torah scroll or all kinds of things like that. There are some earlier sources even before the Vilna Gaon. And the claim, again—I’m not saying I accept it—but their claim is that this is by divine instruction. Meaning, it’s an authorized lot that we received by tradition, and that one may indeed use. The Vilna Gaon’s lot was certainly a revealing lot. Right, what they did with the dead of the Convoy of the Thirty-Five. Yes, Rabbi Aryeh Levin did that lot there, the Vilna Gaon’s lot, in order to discover the name of each body; they couldn’t identify the dead there, so they used the Vilna Gaon’s lot. Now that lot was a revealing lot, not a constitutive one.
[Speaker D] Clearly, yes, but how could they do that in such a case?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good question. I really wouldn’t do it. But those who believe in it claim that this tradition of the Vilna Gaon is as if it were by divine instruction; we have a tradition that such a lottery is indeed the word of God, so that one may do it.
[Speaker D] But that’s faith, not reasoning. You can’t build this on faith.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, they thought you could. Don’t try to convince me; I agree.
[Speaker I] Maimonides explains that the reason it’s forbidden to use sorcerers and magic and all these things is not because it’s idolatry, but simply because it means believing in these nonsense things. Right. So what you’re saying here is that his distinction between future and present isn’t relevant, because it’s nonsense, and if someone deals in nonsense then it makes no difference whether it’s past or future.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he’s not distinguishing between future and past; I explained. When he speaks about the future he does not—
[Speaker I] mean—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] future because it’s future. He means a revealing lottery as opposed to a constitutive lottery.
[Speaker D] Also, in the Mishnah in Middot, when the priests held lotteries, it was only to determine who did which function.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s a constitutive lottery; there’s no problem, it’s permitted to do that. Like a lottery among brothers who divided an inheritance, like many lotteries there are in Jewish law, and nobody waits for it to be done by divine instruction. It’s a strange claim, this claim they asked Rabbi Shlomo Kluger about. But you have to notice that this strange claim is the thesis of the Havot Ya’ir. The thesis of the Havot Ya’ir is that it’s all the same kind of lot.
[Speaker J] Rabbi, it seems to me that a lottery never reveals anything, and that it’s simply the only method we have when we have no information at all about the case in question.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So then what is the lottery doing? You ask yourself who violated the ban. Fine? Now you hold a lottery and it comes out: Moshe Zuchmir. So what, will you kill him? What, there’s no chance that he violated the ban if this is a lottery that doesn’t reveal? Why on earth would you kill him?
[Speaker J] No, wait, if—if—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Unless perhaps that lottery there does reveal.
[Speaker J] If there aren’t two people, there are a hundred people, and only one of them—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] violated the ban, and you don’t know who.
[Speaker J] I don’t know who.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now you did a lottery and out came Moshe Zuchmir. They kill him!
[Speaker J] What are the chances that I’d do another lottery and the same person would come up out of a hundred?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The same thing, one chance.
[Speaker J] Hard to believe. It seems to me we just don’t have the—hard to believe?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This is a lottery by divine instruction; it’s a revealing lottery, and the Holy One, blessed be He, shows you through it who violated the ban. What’s hard to believe here? What’s the problem?
[Speaker J] If you believe. It’s not reasonable, it’s obviously unreasonable that it would come out the same way twice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it’s not chance! If it were chance, then it wouldn’t be reasonable, but it’s not chance! The Holy One, blessed be He, is bringing about the result.
[Speaker J] It’s very, very surprising to me that the rabbi agrees with that, very surprising.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean agrees? It’s obvious! The simplest thing in the world.
[Speaker J] It’s not obvious at all, it’s not obvious, we have no other way—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Holy One, blessed be He, told you to cast a lot, and He told you! The Holy One, blessed be He, told you to cast a lot, and I will show you through the lot who it is. What’s surprising about that?
[Speaker J] No, I think He’s telling us to cast a lot because we have no other way of knowing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if you have no other way, then you can’t kill a person on that basis. What, you kill someone just because you have no other way?
[Speaker B] The Holy One, blessed be He, is serious—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You just randomly choose someone and kill him?
[Speaker K] Besides, all these passages with Achan and with Jonathan—that’s the reason they were brought, to strengthen faith in God, to show that God was involved in the matter. Yes, exactly. Otherwise they wouldn’t have brought it.
[Speaker D] Yes, but you can’t derive law from that, that’s the whole point. Right, right. Right, you can’t. It’s just… Also with Jonah, I once thought about it—that in Jonah’s case you’d have to limit it only to the people who were on that ship, and exclude the crew, the ship’s crew.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The lottery there was also among the people on the ship—what do you mean? Obviously.
[Speaker D] Yes, but I’m saying we don’t know how many people were there and what happened there, and it could be that the lot there—even though the Holy One, blessed be He, was involved there—it could be that even without that it would have pointed to Jonah. Besides, afterward he got up and said that it was because of him that it happened.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand the argument.
[Speaker D] No, I said that all these stories, in principle, show us nothing; you can’t learn from them. Obviously, yes.
[Speaker G] Actually, in Jonah’s case he’s right, because it could be that when you read the verses, after the lot fell on him it doesn’t say they immediately threw him overboard. They asked him. If he had said, “What are you talking about, it’s a mistake, what do you mean, why did you suddenly make a lottery? I’m perfectly righteous,” maybe they would have said, “Fine.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The whole story of Jonah is strange. A bunch of gentiles made a lottery—so what do I learn from that, that lotteries are permitted?
[Speaker G] No, of course not. I’m saying it could even be that they themselves didn’t think that was what would decide it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I said—they asked him.
[Speaker G] Yes, exactly what you said.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but I’m saying the whole derivation from Jonah is strange. The whole story—so they did this, they did that—why do I care? A bunch of gentiles did something, so what?
[Speaker B] The part with the fish is even stranger.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said it was permitted? Fine, I don’t know. Okay, let’s stop here.
[Speaker H] I’ll tell you a story about a lottery in Ramat Elchanan. What? There’s still a minute to tell you a story about a lottery in Ramat Elchanan.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Go ahead! For a good story there’s always a minute.
[Speaker H] A newly religious carpenter decided he was donating a kitchen cabinet to the kollel. To the kollel. Okay. And the head of the kollel asked me how much I thought they could get for this kitchen cabinet if he sold it. I told him between four and six thousand shekels for the cabinet, because you also have to pay someone to install it. So he laughed at me. I said, why are you laughing? He told me, come to the next lesson and you’ll see what I did. I came to the next lesson and he told me: I made a lottery. A hundred shekels per ticket, they bought a thousand tickets. I sold that cabinet for a hundred thousand shekels without core curriculum studies. Okay, it reminds—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] reminds me of a story, reminds me of a friend of mine. He once thought of inventing some coating for teeth that would protect them against bacteria, and then brushing your teeth and dentists and all that would become unnecessary. I said to him, nice initiative, so now I suppose you’re going to produce it? He said, are you crazy? I can make money from it without producing a thing. I’m going to the dentists and telling them: if you don’t pay me, I’ll produce it. Well then, that’s all for today. Good night, Sabbath peace.