Uncertainty and Statistics – Lecture 2

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] for me, then the legal world would not recognize this as betrothal. From the standpoint of Jewish law, when I look at the question of whether there is or is not betrothal, that is a metaphysical question. Meaning, the question is whether in reality there is betrothal here, even if nobody knows who it is, and I don’t know who the woman is, nothing. But a halakhic status of betrothal was created here. Afterward I have problems with implementation—how do you do this, what does it mean—so that already falls under the laws of doubt. But Jewish law does not strip away undefined situations, because in reality something was created here. The fact that this creates a legal problem for me—fine, I deal with that through the laws of doubt. In the legal world they prefer, in such a case, to define it as if there was no act of betrothal at all, because for them these really are legal definitions; they do not see this as a metaphysical reality. But a bond—a bond of betrothal or acquisition or whatever it may be—in Jewish law is basically a metaphysical bond, and I created a metaphysical bond here first of all because I gave a perutah properly, according to law, and betrothed a woman. True, it is an undefined woman, and now we have to discuss what that means. But the fact that the woman is undefined does not interfere in the halakhic world in any case. It certainly does not interfere. There is no dispute about that. According to Abaye, that’s according to Abaye. According to Rava—Rava does agree with them. No, there is no dispute; according to all opinions, such betrothals are valid betrothals. If we are talking about when I betroth one woman out of two—not sisters, two women, one out of two women, I betroth one of them—everyone agrees there is betrothal. The whole dispute here arises, all right, because you could betroth both of them, so what happened? So that is not a contradiction; that is exactly what Tosafot says: when your act actually contradicts the whole essence of betrothal, then indeed it makes no sense. We’ll get to Tosafot in a moment, wait, first I want to explain the situation. So if there is one of two women here, not defined—which of the two is not defined—then in that case it is certainly betrothal. There is no dispute about that in the world. There is no one in Jewish law who argues about that. Okay? Therefore the fact that the woman is undefined is of no halakhic interest. What creates the problem here, according to Rava—according to Abaye even this is not problematic—but according to Rava, what creates the problem here is that these two are sisters. So then what? Then the problem is that the fact that the woman is undefined creates a problem that you cannot have relations with either of them, and that is what prevents the betrothal—not the fact that the woman is undefined. And therefore it is only with sisters, not with just any two women. And what happens—but what exactly—in the case of two women who are not sisters, when we say there is betrothal, what does that actually mean when you say there is betrothal? Because if you tell me this is only in the metaphysical halakhic world, that tells me nothing. For me, law is also in reality; there has to be a correlation with what I say. So the meaning of the matter is that there is basically something like a state of doubt here. One of the two is betrothed to me, and there is doubt which one. Exactly like if I sent an agent, he betrothed a woman for me, and then died, and I don’t know whether it was Rachel or Leah. In such a case there is betrothal, and it is a doubt. Halakhically too, our case is the same thing. It is a state of doubt. I agree; I also asked last week about this very issue: how can there be anything at all taking place here when I say something vague into the air that lands on nothing? Meaning, not on some specific woman? It’s undefined, it is meaningless. How can it happen? Why do we even treat this as something happening? Undefined and meaningless are two different expressions. Undefined—I agree. Meaningless—I do not agree. How do you—what meaning? I said something in general, into the air. One of the two is betrothed to me. That is the meaning. But that has no existential meaning whatsoever, nothing in reality. How can you say—? Everything is in some imaginary world of definitions of words, but it has no connection to reality. One of the two is betrothed to me in the most real world possible, not imaginary at all. Can I betroth a stone? No. You can betroth a woman, but even if she is undefined, you are betrothing her. But the woman has to be specific. No, I betroth someone who is specific; I am not betrothing “just anyone.” So in Jewish law, no. It has to be a woman, not a stone, but the woman does not have to be specific. That is exactly what is written in this Talmudic passage. But if instead of saying “Behold, you are betrothed to me” I had just muttered some random collection of words, it would not take effect. Correct. Here too I am muttering some meaningless collection of words, and it takes effect and everyone gets excited. I’ll repeat the same answer: you are not muttering anything. You performed an act of betrothal properly, according to law—clear, defined, everything fine. The only thing is: you did it with respect to a woman who is not specifically defined, but rather one out of two. That’s all. You performed an act of betrothal. The Torah said “a woman”; the Torah said, “when a man takes a woman,” not a doubt, not something imaginary, not a verbal creation of human beings, but a woman who lives in the reality God created, who is a descendant of human beings. We are repeating ourselves, so there is no point. Jewish law says one can betroth such a woman; with a bit of abstract thought, there is a woman here and there is betrothal here, and I do not see the slightest problem with it. I see no problem at all here; it is completely fine. The whole problem that arises—meaning what I say also for myself, but Jewish law certainly says this—Jewish law says there is no problem at all with such betrothal; the betrothal takes effect. You are the husband of a woman. Which woman is it? One of these two. That’s all. Now I ask what happens if one cannot have relations with them, and about that the dispute of Abaye and Rava arises. Because you cannot have relations with them. Tosafot says: also in the case of a priest and a divorcée, that is a betrothal where you cannot have relations with the woman. So why is that not “betrothal not given over for relations”? Tosafot says that in the case of a priest and a divorcée, the prohibition existed already before the betrothal, and the betrothal did not create it; it simply remained after the betrothal as well. In the case of betrothal not given over for relations, the betrothal itself is what created the prohibition, and that, according to Rava, is not betrothal. What does that mean? After all, this is not just some technical distinction. The prohibition exists without the betrothal; it exists after the betrothal; bottom line, the betrothal is not given over for relations. Why do I care what created the prohibition on relations? If the betrothal needs to be realized through relations, then what difference does it make whether the prohibition that prevents that realization was created by the betrothal or already existed beforehand? Bottom line, the betrothal cannot be realized. Why is there a difference between a priest and a divorcée and the case of betrothing one of two sisters? The answer is—I think at least that this is the plain meaning in Tosafot, and this is how most of the medieval authorities understand it; Rashi here is difficult, but that doesn’t matter right now—most of the medieval authorities understand it this way: we know of such a concept in divorce. Suppose someone divorces a woman on condition that she never drink wine. Yes? “On condition that you never drink wine.” Then that divorce is void because there is no severance. What does it mean that there is no severance? Even after the divorce, a bond is still created between the husband—rather, remains, sorry—a bond between the husband and the woman that does not cease. An eternal, everlasting bond between the husband and the woman. Why? Because all her life, if she drinks wine, the divorce will be nullified and she will return to being his wife. Meaning, the bond between the two of them is never finally severed. Therefore such a thing is not severance. What does “not severance” mean? The purpose of divorce is to sever: “and he shall write her a bill of severance and place it in her hand.” Divorce is meant to sever between husband and wife. An act that does not sever between husband and wife is not an act of divorce. The claim of the Talmud here according to Tosafot—what the Talmud is saying here—is the same thing regarding betrothal. Betrothal is an act whose purpose is to connect a couple. Now if that act itself creates a rupture between them—meaning, precisely that act is what prevents them from having marital relations—then that act cannot be considered an act of betrothal. And therefore, according to Rava, it is not an act of betrothal, and therefore the betrothal does not take effect. Abaye says that it does, but I’m explaining Rava for the moment. Notice. This is what we said; this is exactly what we said. When you do not—if you said, “I divorce you,” but you did not sever, you did not cut the connection between you forever, then you did not really say the words and you did not do anything. That is not what you said. But that is what you said also with two women who are not sisters. But with two sisters, and the meaning of the betrothal of two sisters, maybe there is some meaning there, because after all, what does betrothal mean—you are not forbidden to her, and now you will do—it may have some meaning for the bond between you, so that you do not live with the consciousness that you just happened to meet her in the market and that’s how it happened. The problem is not that you did not define the woman—that is not the problem. Rather, the problem is that the act of betrothal, instead of creating a bond between you, creates a rupture between you. And an act of that sort is not betrothal. Not because the woman is undefined, and not because you just said words, and not because it lives in a Platonic world. None of that is true, and none of that is written in the Talmud. What is written in the Talmud is simply that because this act, instead of connecting, disconnects. An act that disconnects cannot be betrothal. It cannot be considered an act of betrothal. That is the claim—just as an act that leaves the bond between us in place cannot be considered an act of divorce. An act of divorce is supposed to disconnect us. An act of betrothal is supposed to connect us, and therefore once the result of this act contradicts the essential character of the act, then the act was not done. No act of betrothal was performed here. Notice the difference from the usual definition that one might perhaps have understood in Rashi. Usually people understand “betrothal not given over for relations” as betrothal that cannot be realized. But if that were so, then a priest and a divorcée would also be betrothal not given over for relations. It cannot be realized; he cannot have relations with her; there is a prohibition. Here the definition is completely different. It is not that it is not betrothal because it cannot be realized; rather, an act of betrothal that instead of creating connection creates rupture is not an act of betrothal. So no act of betrothal was done here. That does not exist in the case of a priest and a divorcée, because there the act of betrothal did not create the rupture; it simply did not remove the rupture, but it did not create it. So the act of betrothal done there is an act of betrothal in every respect. In our case, the act of betrothal itself is what created the rupture. That cannot be considered an act of betrothal, because an act of betrothal by its essence is supposed to create connection, not rupture. That is basically the whole story. And if the act of betrothal does not create connection—not that it creates rupture, but that it does not create connection—I am speaking about his two sisters, his two women; one is forbidden, one is not forbidden. Then he says, “Behold, one of you is betrothed to me.” No, there it does create a connection. Why? I do not know with whom. Fine, I do not know with whom, but a connection was created. A priest and a divorcée—that is actually the example where no connection is created, because there I performed betrothal but I cannot realize it; there is no connection. I didn’t understand. But what is the law in the case of two women, where he said, “One of you,” what happens? “One of you is betrothed to me”—that is the law. And practically, what happens? Does he live with someone? Is he going to live with someone? What happens? If he lives with someone, it is doubtful whether he is living with his wife or not living with his wife. Living with a woman who is not his wife is not such a terrible prohibition, but in principle there is a rabbinic prohibition or a neglect of a positive commandment here. So he will choose with whom to live? No. So I’m saying, he cannot choose with whom to live, in the simple understanding. There is discussion of this—I am skipping over it here—there is a column on my website that brings views claiming that one can also choose, but in the accepted understanding one cannot choose. And if he cannot choose, then these betrothals will never be carried out in practice. They will not be carried out; there is a doubt. I will live with one of them, and the question is whether that is my wife or whether the other one is my wife. Fine, there is a doubt here. But practically speaking, these betrothals did not create a connection. They created a connection; I just do not know with whom. But it will not be realized. Why does Jewish law bother entering into situations that have nothing real about them? The answer is what I told you before: Jewish law is not bothering to enter into anything. From the standpoint of Jewish law, this state simply came into being. That is a fact. It is a fact imposed upon it. As opposed to the legal conception—for in the legal conception, and there are many examples of this, I have spoken about it in the past—in the legal conception, once there is a problematic situation, the legislator will say, fine, here I define this as an invalid act. Why should I bring a healthy head into a sick bed? But from a halakhic standpoint, I do not decide whether to enter with a healthy head or which bed I am entering. The question is whether I am there or not. That is a fact; it is imposed on me; it is not something subject to my decision. And in your opinion that is the right way to do it? What does “the right way to do it” mean? It is true that that is how it is. It is not a question of whether it is right to do it. If it does not sound logical. What does “it does not sound logical” mean? It creates problems. But on the logical level, there is a woman betrothed to me; I just do not know who. According to Rava, in the case of the sisters, does he not need to give a bill of divorce out of doubt? I can’t hear. According to Rava, in the case of the sisters, does he not need to give a bill of divorce out of doubt? Correct, the betrothal is not betrothal, so there is nothing for which to give a bill of divorce. Rava, not Rabbah. So now he can start over and betroth one of them? Yes. What happens if the father says, “I had the older one in mind”? Very nice that you had her in mind, but I need to betroth her, not you. The question is whether I give you the option to choose one of them—that is something else. So clearly if the father chose, and I gave him the mandate to choose for me, and the father chose, then very good, I betrothed the older one. Then there is no problem. It is like betrothing through an agent, and I tell the agent—like Abraham sending Eliezer—“Betroth a woman for my son.” Now the agent received the mandate to choose the woman, and whomever he chooses will be the betrothed woman. There is no problem with that at all. I am speaking about a situation in which I did not choose. I mentioned that according to some later authorities, there are those who want to claim that even in this situation maybe one can choose. This is connected a bit to quantum collapse, but I will not get into that here. In any case, I do not want to badger too much, but there is something unclear to me. Now practically speaking, these two women who are not sisters, one with the other—what happens practically? These two women—what do they do with their lives now? What does this husband do with his life? What do you mean the women are forbidden one to the other? No, no, I mean they are not sisters. Okay. In the case where he betrothed one out of two, each of them is in doubt a married woman. If someone else betroths her, the betrothal will not take effect. And what will their relationship be with this husband who betrothed one of them? Maybe my wife? But they will not live together. I’m saying, if they live together they enter into a doubtful prohibition. Meaning, there will not be a real-life situation in which they can be together. Correct. Exactly like an agent who betrothed a woman and I do not know who, there will not be a real-life situation where they live together. Fine. So Jewish law, which creates this situation, is irrational, impossible. Wait, why not? Look, from a jurist’s perspective, absolutely so. From a halakhic perspective, not so. Why can’t he? Halakhic thinking is different from legal thinking in this case. That is what I told you before, because on the halakhic level what begins—let me give you another example, because I really see this is troubling people here. For example, I once wrote about intellectual property. On the halakhic level, it is obvious to everyone that there is a public interest in a person having ownership over his creation. That intellectual property should be defined as something valid, that one may not infringe on it, and so on. Right? It is obvious to everyone that there is such an interest. For jurists, once there is such an interest, then there is such ownership too. Therefore the claim that we want to define intellectual property because it is useful for promoting creativity and encourages people to create for the benefit of humanity and society and so forth—and therefore we recognize or establish such a state of intellectual property. On the halakhic level, if you examine the literature, you will see that all halakhic decisors agree that it is very important to create intellectual property, to give a person rights over his creations, his ideas. But they all also say that there is no halakhic way to do it. There is none. From a halakhic standpoint, there is no such thing as intellectual property. That is the claim. Why not? Because we are dealing here with facts. The facts are imposed on me. It is not a question of whether I want this or do not want this. The fact that I want it is wonderful. But even if I want it, if it is impossible, it is impossible; it does not work. It does not work because in reality there is no such ownership. Ownership does not take effect on something that has no substance. I am saying: the accepted view—I do not agree with it, I am only describing the accepted view. So since ownership does not take effect on something that has no substance, that is a fact. Even if I desperately want to create such ownership, it will not help me. Therefore the decisors twist themselves into knots and deliberate and make all kinds of detours through “the law of the kingdom is the law,” and expanded notions of encroachment, and all sorts of strange things, none of which are convincing beyond, at most, rabbinic law, but certainly not a Torah-level prohibition. For jurists, there is no problem at all. Once you understand that it makes sense to give a person intellectual property, then there is intellectual property. That is all. Because from the jurists’ perspective, the shaping of the legal world is given into their hands—or into the hands of the legislator; I am not getting into the current arguments about whether this should be done by the legislator or the judge, but it does not matter. The legal system in principle sees itself as having exclusive control over the situation. If the situation requires that there be such a norm, then there will be. No problem at all. On the halakhic level, all the sages can agree that it would be proper for there to be such a legal situation, and yet it will not exist. It will not exist because factually it simply does not take effect. Ownership over something that has no substance does not take effect. Period. That is it. I very much want it, it is very logical, it is very important that it exist. Okay, important, logical, all fine—but factually it does not exist. From the halakhic point of view, the outlook on the legal situation is as if there were some kind of fact here, and the facts are not in our hands. The facts are imposed upon us. But doesn’t that strengthen the question? Social agreement is intellectual property. What did I hear? I mean, but it is not against Jewish law, it is not a transgression, if the system or society agrees that there should be intellectual property. Obviously, certainly not. The sages too can institute intellectual property through a rabbinic enactment. But there will not be Torah-level intellectual property, because ownership over something without substance does not exist. So what practical difference does it make—that one cannot go to a Torah court on this issue? For example, yes. Now today, again, by rabbinic law they will act in one way or another. In any case I recommend not going to a Torah court with such matters. Indirect damage, direct damage—you will not get out of it in a Torah court. As for a religious court that judges according to state law, since after all in monetary matters “the law of the kingdom is the law,” then perhaps they will judge you according to state law, and then everything is fine, as if you had gone to civil court. How does this example help? I do not understand; it only sharpens the point that there is actually nothing tangible here. I am saying: this example helps in showing that the difficulty you see in this situation stems from legal thinking. In halakhic thinking there is no difficulty at all in this situation. Because in halakhic thinking, the whole question is whether something was factually created, not whether it makes sense to define it, not whether it creates problems for me that it was created or does not create problems for me that it was created. The question is whether it was created or not, and the answer is: you gave a perutah to a person who really was the father of the woman, so the betrothal took effect, period. The fact that there is no defined woman here—fine, there is no defined woman here, so you are in doubt. Why did it come into being? Why did it come into being? Abaye and Rava start from the father’s ability to betroth his daughter. That’s all. What happened if you consecrated one perutah out of the five perutot you have in your pocket? You consecrated it to the Temple. Okay? What do you think should happen? This is the example you gave last week as another example of this issue. What do you think should happen in such a case? Same thing—again there is nothing here that takes effect on the object. In a halakhic case, one perutah is consecrated to the Temple. And I cannot determine which one, because I did not define which of the five. I consecrated it; I am the owner; I can consecrate a perutah. The moment I consecrated it, and the perutah is mine, the consecration takes effect, period. Now you ask, okay, but on what did it take effect? You do not know on what it took effect, so there are laws of doubt. But there is no reason that would prevent the consecration from taking effect, because I own the coins, I performed an act of consecration that is defined by Jewish law as an act of consecration, and since that is so, the consecration takes effect. That is all. What would stop it from taking effect? Now I simply do not know on what it took effect, so I am in doubt—that is all, exactly like with the woman. But to call the effect of the betrothal a fact—in Rava’s view it is not a fact; in Abaye’s view it is a fact. Ah—because Rava too sees it as a fact, I’ll repeat again. Rava does not dispute that. Rava claims that here, because the betrothal is not given over for relations, it is not betrothal—not because the woman is undefined. If these were two women who are not sisters, then Rava too agrees there is betrothal. It is a halakhic problem, not a logical problem. Yes, exactly. It is a problem in the laws of betrothal. An act of betrothal that creates rupture instead of connection is not an act of betrothal. That’s all. But that is not because of the problem of the woman’s lack of definition. That does not trouble Rava. And certainly not Abaye. It really is an interesting point in how one looks at all of Jewish law. Rabbi, Rabbi, if the Rabbi would consider nevertheless an existential perspective, then one could understand that there is a difference when you betroth two women who are not sisters: there is some connection between you; you do not feel as though you hit a concrete wall. So it has meaning. And also when you consecrate one out of several coins, then you feel a sense of responsibility in that you… whereas when you betrothed two women who became forbidden to you because they are sisters, then it has no meaning at all, because it has no existential possibility; there is no existential meaning to anything you did. That is a huge difference. First of all, that is the claim you already repeated several times earlier. I do not see what is new here. If you are trying to persuade me to adopt an existentialist approach, I do not know what that approach even means, but I do not adopt it, and therefore I do not see what is new in this question beyond what we already argued about before. I am not an existentialist, I do not think Jewish law is existentialist, I do not believe in existentialism at all—it is a branch of psychology, not philosophy—and therefore I do not see what it adds here. The woman is betrothed. There is no defined woman here; therefore there is one woman out of the two who is betrothed. That is all. It does not sit well with me existentially—so I’ll take a pill or go to a psychologist. A metaphysical statement detached from reality is basically gibberish, unless we believe in some sort of eternity in things. We keep returning to the same topic every time, but I claim that it is not gibberish and you claim it is gibberish, so what can I do? Fine. For me it is not gibberish; I understand it perfectly well, and I also do not see why to call it gibberish, since I understand it perfectly. Gibberish is something one does not understand. I understand it completely; everything here is totally clear to me. There is nothing that is not… Is there any possibility in Jewish law that someone would come and say—not about the forbidden women, not about two sisters—but say that according to Jewish law, since something was created here that is not real and in life also creates nothing, nothing changes, I only have some kind of metaphysical statement here that this is Jewish law—that someone would come and say that practically we cannot allow ourselves to maintain such a reality and we undo it by authority? Generally I do not think there is such a thing. That style of thinking is not characteristic of Jewish law. At most, it could be some kind of rabbinic enactment. Where a problem arises, the rabbis intervene and annul or do something like that. But as a matter of fundamental law, that does not happen. There are situations in which from the perspective of the laws of betrothal it will happen, and that is what happens here. According to Rava, Rava argues that because of the definition of the act of betrothal, it really does not take effect. But that is a specific halakhic problem, not because some conceptual or logical problem is created here. Okay? Simply, in the laws of betrothal, betrothal that does not create attachment between the couple but rather creates separation between the couple—that is simply not an act of betrothal in terms of the definition of the nature of the act of betrothal, not because the result is absurd, an undefined result. I understand. That is something different from the arguments raised here. One needs to understand—even Rava is saying something different. Meaning, the arguments raised here are very logical in the legal world; in the halakhic world it does not work that way. So basically that is what comes out according to Tosafot. Sorry, I wanted to go back to the explanation you used through the process of divorce to explain that the result of the betrothal runs contrary to the whole process, the whole purpose of betrothal, and therefore it is not betrothal, just as with divorce it is not something that fully severs because she still remains bound. It is not exactly the same thing, because with us the situation is worse. Exactly, it goes in the opposite direction; with divorce it does not matter. Correct. There I created half a divorce in the sense that the divorce achieved the backward state and turned it from one into half. Here in betrothal, the betrothal created the prohibition. Exactly. So all the more so: if in divorce there is a problem, then in betrothal not given over for relations there certainly will be a problem. Yes, I agree. Now another question: according to Maimonides, the rule is that Torah-level doubt is treated leniently on the Torah level; only rabbinically do we have to be stringent in cases of doubt. Then the question arises here: in betrothal not given over for relations, we have doubt about who my wife is, and therefore also who my wife’s sister is, so with respect to each of the two women there is a doubtful Torah prohibition on having relations with her. But according to Maimonides, Torah-level doubt is treated leniently, so why are these betrothals defined as betrothal not given over for relations? And notice again: the question is both according to Abaye and according to Rava, because both agree that such betrothal is not given over for relations. The only question they dispute is whether betrothal not given over for relations is betrothal or not. But that such betrothal is not given over for relations—on that they both agree. And the question is: why is it not given over for relations? Because out of doubt I can be lenient on the Torah level and have relations with either one of them, so for Maimonides this should be like betrothing one of two women who are not sisters, and therefore it should have been valid betrothal. So how would Maimonides explain this passage, which treats such betrothal as betrothal not given over for relations? Here the point is basically what Rabbi Shimon Shkop says in Sha’arei Yosher, Gate 3. He is really the one who formulated things clearly, although I think it is also fairly clear from the Talmudic passage itself; it is just a matter of putting your finger on the state of affairs, on the facts. It is simply a fact; it is not Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s own theory, but he is the one who defined it. “And it seems to my humble opinion that in one who betrothed one out of five women, and similarly one who consecrated a perutah among the coins in his pocket, there is a deep inquiry here: in what way does the legal effect take hold on one of them?” What is the meaning of the fact that the status takes hold on only one woman or only on one perutah? Is it doubt like any other doubt, or is it something else? He says: “For behold, in one who betroths one woman out of five women, where the betrother and the betrothed woman did not specify which of them would be designated for betrothal—how can we say that in actual reality one specific woman became designated for betrothal? For what reason or cause would Heaven designate a particular woman to be the betrothed one, more than the other women?” Did the Holy One, blessed be He, simply decide which woman is betrothed? Or which perutah is consecrated? No. I did not decide, and there is no reason to assume that God decided in my place. Therefore what? “Rather, it seems more reasonable to say that in every such case, even in actual reality itself, no specific woman became designated for betrothal.” “Actual reality” means reality in itself, irrespective of the question of what I know about reality. If I were to ask the Holy One, blessed be He—and in such a case one cannot say, “if Elijah were to come.” Yes, this is a Talmudic phrase in tractate Yevamot; it does not matter right now, but the claim is that in cases of doubt I can say that if Elijah comes, then he can point out to me the woman who is betrothed to me, and this has various implications. He says that in our situation you cannot say, “if Elijah were to come,” because even if Elijah came, he would not be able to point to one particular woman as the one betrothed to me. He also would not know; even the Holy One, blessed be He, would not know. “And the fact that we say each one is prohibited because of doubt is not like other ordinary doubts. For the nature of doubt is: perhaps this is the one that is definitely so in reality.” In an ordinary doubt, when I have a piece of meat that I found and I do not know from which store it came, then obviously in actuality it came from one of the stores. I just do not know from which store it came. Or a woman whom the agent betrothed and then died—there is one woman who is betrothed to me; I do not know who. And here, says Rabbi Shimon Shkop—I continue reading—“the matter is that every legal effect exists because of a cause that brought it about.” There was a law here because there was a cause that produced it. I gave a perutah to betroth a woman, and therefore I betrothed a woman, but there is no defined woman here. Yes, I continue reading in the next passage: “And the cause of the legal effect of the betrothal is the act of betrothal, the giving of the money and the declaration”—yes, “Behold, you are betrothed to me.” “And since he gave the money and said, ‘One of these five women shall be betrothed to me,’ by which it is fitting that one of them should come under the law of a married woman, because of this each one is prohibited by force of the act, and not because we are in doubt about her, that she is more the betrothed one than the other four women remaining. And similarly in every such case.” It is not that we are in doubt whether this one is betrothed, or this one, or this one. Rather, the act imposed betrothal on one—but that one is undefined. A definite betrothal upon an undefined woman. In the yeshivas they call this not “doubt-definite” but “definite-doubt.” “Doubt-definite” is when in reality there is certainty but I am in doubt which certainty is the correct one. Here it is “definite-doubt”: I know all of reality with certainty, but reality itself is indeterminate. That is what I called earlier ambiguity and not doubt. And that is what he says: “And in every such case, the nature of doubt is not ‘perhaps this is the definite one.’” Yes, it is not doubt whether this woman is definitely betrothed to me or another. “For in such a case there is no definite thing even in actual reality itself; rather, for practical conduct we must treat each one under the law of doubt because of the cause that generates the law that one of them must be the one, but it is not clarified who that one is, and all are fit to be that one.” What is happening here? Precisely he is answering what you asked earlier. He says: after all, I gave a perutah and said, “Behold, you are betrothed to me.” The one who received the perutah was the woman’s father, which is a halakhically valid act, and therefore it is clear that betrothal was created here. The betrothal was created here not because I have doubt regarding which one I betrothed, as though I betrothed one woman and I do not know which one. No. Because an act of betrothal was performed, therefore one woman is betrothed. Now since there is no defined woman here, this is treated as a state of doubt, but this doubt is not because I do not know something. I know everything there is to know. I performed an act of betrothal; that created betrothal, but it created betrothal upon an undefined woman. Now he says: “And according to this, in such a case the law of nullification by majority does not apply.” Yes? What would happen if, say, I consecrated one out of five coins in my pocket? One is consecrated and four are not. Fine—let the consecrated one be nullified by the majority. True, a coin is not nullified, but that is only rabbinic law; on the Torah level it is nullified. So let it be nullified by the majority. Why is it not nullified? He says it is not nullified. In our situation there is no nullification by majority. Also with the women: suppose we have five women, one of whom is betrothed to me—let her be nullified by the majority and now all of them are single. No. Why not? Because what happens in nullification by majority? Nullification by majority is when I have one coin that really is consecrated and it fell into a pile of identical coins that are not consecrated, and now I do not know which coin it is. That coin has a different character from the other coins, and the character of the other coins overpowers its character and, as it were, converts it to be like them. That is the mechanism of nullification by majority. The permitted side overcomes the forbidden side and turns the forbidden into permitted. But it all begins with the tension, the dissonance, that exists between the majority which has one kind of character and the minority which has another. Because of the clash of those characters, the character of the majority prevails and transforms the minority’s character to match it. So the laws of nullification by majority exist when I have a majority with one character and a minority with another character. That is not our case. In our case, all the women have exactly the same character. They are all questionably betrothed. But it is not that there is one woman who is definitely betrothed and four sisters who are not betrothed and I just do not know which is which. There there might have been nullification by majority. But in our case all five women have exactly the same status and the same character. There is no minority and majority here. Therefore here there is no nullification. That is Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s claim. Because here there is no minority with a different character from the majority. All the units in the mixture have exactly the same character. By the way, for the same reason, regarding what I asked earlier about Maimonides—why, how would Maimonides explain this passage? After all, according to his view, doubtful Torah prohibition is treated leniently, so I can have relations with any one of them. True, she is perhaps my wife’s sister, but doubtful Torah prohibition is treated leniently, so I can have relations with her. Why does the Talmud say that this is betrothal not given over for relations? The answer is: no. Here too Maimonides would agree that I am forbidden to have relations with them. Why? Because each one of them is my wife’s sister. It is not “perhaps my wife’s sister” or “perhaps not.” We use the term “doubt,” but this is not really doubt—it is ambiguity. Or in other words, one could say: each one of them is my wife’s faint sister. Each one of them is my wife in a faint way; she is half my wife. It is not that one of them is my wife and I do not know who; rather each one is a bit my wife, or my wife in a diluted sense, or she is both my wife and not my wife. Consequently each one of them is also both my wife’s sister and not my wife’s sister. And if that is so, what sense is there in saying here that doubtful Torah prohibition is treated leniently? Doubt exists where there is one possibility that she is not my wife’s sister and another possibility that she is my wife’s sister. To be lenient means I may assume that she is not my wife’s sister and have relations with her. That is what it means to be lenient. But here there are not two possibilities. She is both my wife’s sister and not my wife’s sister. It is not a question of whether she is this or that; she is both this and that. So if she is both this and that, obviously I am forbidden to have relations with her, because this is certainly a prohibition. It is not a prohibition out of doubt. She is certainly my wife’s faint sister. Therefore I am forbidden to have relations with her. It is just that the prohibition is faint; it is not a doubtful prohibition. It is not fifty percent whether there is a prohibition or not. It is a definite prohibition of fifty-percent intensity. The intensity of the prohibition is fifty percent—not that there is a fifty-percent chance of a prohibition or no prohibition. Therefore here too Maimonides would agree that one must be stringent. That is obvious, because this is not doubt, it is certainty. It is certainly my faint wife. So her sister is a faint prohibition of my wife’s sister. And with a faint prohibition, one must be stringent on the Torah level. By the way, it is entirely reasonable that the same would apply in rabbinic law. Suppose, according to everyone, doubtful rabbinic prohibition is treated leniently. Right? According to Maimonides, doubtful Torah prohibition too is treated leniently. But everyone agrees that doubtful rabbinic prohibition is certainly treated leniently. What happens if I betrothed the woman with a form of betrothal that works only rabbinically, for the sake of the discussion? Then now each one of them is maybe my wife, and each one of them therefore is also maybe my wife’s sister. Right? And now this is doubtful rabbinic law because she is my wife only rabbinically. So can one be lenient? I claim not. Because this is not “perhaps my wife’s sister.” She is certainly both my wife’s sister and certainly not my wife’s sister. And since she is certainly my wife’s sister, only faintly, there would be a prohibition here—even though it is a rabbinic prohibition. It is not doubt. The term “doubt” here is misleading. There are not two possibilities. There is one clear and known reality; no information is missing. Rather reality itself contains ambiguity, or contains faintness of being. So the prohibition may be a smaller prohibition, but it is not a prohibition due to doubt. It is fifty-percent prohibition, not fifty-percent chance that there is prohibition. There is certainly a prohibition at fifty-percent strength. In such a case, even with a rabbinic prohibition one must be stringent. With a rabbinic prohibition, I am allowed to take the risk if I… I do not know whether there is or is not a prohibition, so I take the risk on the side that if there is no prohibition, I did nothing. If there is a prohibition, I stumbled. I am allowed to take that risk. Here it is not a question of risk. It is certain that I violated a rabbinic prohibition—just a faint rabbinic prohibition. That is not called taking a risk. That is not what was permitted under the rule of leniency in doubtful rabbinic prohibition. Therefore here one must be stringent even if this is doubtful rabbinic law. In other words, the term “doubt” is used here, but it is very misleading, because in fact we are dealing here with ambiguity, not doubt. You mentioned earlier, Eliav—you mentioned earlier what I once said about conditional divorce, which Rabbi Shimon Shkop explains: if I divorce a woman conditionally, then at the stage when it is not yet known whether the condition—say, that she not drink wine for thirty days—during those thirty days I still do not know whether she will drink wine or not, so she is in a state of doubt, either divorced or not. Rabbi Shimon Shkop argues: she is not in a state of doubt; she is both divorced and not divorced. And what is the idea here? It is not doubt whether she is divorced or not; rather these two statuses exist simultaneously. And yes, they contradict one another. If she is divorced, then she cannot be a married woman, and if she is a married woman, she cannot be divorced. The claim is that she is divorced in a faint way. She is both divorced and not—meaning, it is half a divorce. Not fifty percent chance that she is divorced, but she is definitely divorced at fifty-percent intensity. That is basically the claim. The same thing also exists in the concepts of retroactive clarification. What happens with retroactive clarification? Suppose—we’ll do this briefly, simply because the arguments took a lot of time today, and I just want to finish this point. Suppose I have a barrel of wine, and it contains one hundred log. Now one separates terumah; the ordinary amount is one-fiftieth. So I want to separate two log of terumah out of the hundred log—one-fiftieth. So I say this: the two log that will remain at the end in the barrel—I am going to drink the whole barrel—the two log that remain at the end are terumah already from now. And now I begin drinking the barrel. The moment only two log remain, I have finished the ninety-eight log—after that I probably should not drive—but two log remain. Those two log that remain are terumah, and there is no problem. They were terumah from the beginning; I just could not identify which two log were the terumah, but it does not matter. Whatever remains at the end is two log of terumah. So I separated terumah from the beginning and was permitted to drink, apparently. The Talmud makes this depend on the question whether there is or is not retroactive clarification. Clarification retroactively—because the two log that remain at the end become clarified retroactively as having been terumah from the beginning. According to the one who says there is retroactive clarification, one really can do this. According to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification—and in Torah-level matters we rule there is no retroactive clarification—according to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification, one cannot do it. What is happening here, what is the situation? According to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification, Rashi writes in several places—this is a dispute among the medieval authorities, but this is the position of Rashi and other medieval authorities—that according to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification, it is not that no designation of terumah took effect on anything. There are two log of terumah inside the mixture, only they are two log that are not clarified. Every two log in the mixture are doubtful terumah. Why should I care? After all, once I drink, in the end those two log will remain and it will become clear that those were the two log of terumah from the beginning. So I was in doubt—so what? But even if I am in doubt, when I drink, I am not taking a risk that maybe I am drinking the terumah, because by definition the terumah is what remains at the end. So what I drank clearly is not the two log of terumah. So why does it matter whether this is doubt or not? Why is it forbidden for me to drink according to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification? Clearly Rashi means to say that there are two log, and according to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification, this means that these are just some two log. Not the two log that remain at the end. Rather, the moment I said such a thing, I imposed the designation of terumah on two log of wine, but without defining which two log. So we have exactly the same situation as in our case. This is ontic doubt, not epistemic doubt. It is not that I do not know which two log; I will drink and then I will know. No. There are two log here, but every two log are terumah in a faint way. They are one-fiftieth terumah, in the intensity of terumah that they possess. Okay? And this will not become clarified; even if I drink everything and only two log remain at the end, that will not reveal that those two log were the ones that had been terumah from the beginning, according to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification, because there is no retroactive clarification. So what happens when you create such a state—say when someone drinks this wine—according to some of the medieval authorities he violated the prohibition of untithed produce because he did not separate terumah. According to Rashi, he did not violate the prohibition of untithed produce; he violated a doubtful prohibition of terumah, because there is terumah here even according to the one who says there is no retroactive clarification, only this terumah—every two log have some side of terumah, or terumah in a faint way. Therefore one may not drink it, because it is a terumah prohibition, not an untithed-produce prohibition. So all these situations are basically situations that involve ontic doubt or ambiguity, not doubt in my terminology. Meaning: in reality there is no doubt in the sense that I lack information about reality. I lack nothing. I know everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows. All the true facts about reality I know. No information is missing to me. But in reality itself there is no unequivocal definition of what is happening. Not that something is happening and I do not know what it is—no. What is happening is ambiguous. And that is what I call ontic doubt and not epistemic doubt, or ambiguity and not doubt. In principle, in situations of ambiguity we are not supposed to deal at all with tools of probability and statistics, because these are definite situations; it has nothing to do with probability. Probability tells me which of the possibilities is true. But here all the possibilities are true, only each is true partially. Therefore the tools of probability are not relevant to ontic doubt, only to epistemic doubt. Because probability tells me what the likelihood is that option A is true and what the likelihood is that option B is true. But with ontic doubt, it is not a question of likelihood. It is both true—A is true and B is true as well. Only true at fifty percent. Fifty-percent true, not that there is a fifty-percent chance that it is true, but both are certainly true at the level of fifty percent. So what does probability have to do with it? It does not belong here. By the way, in quantum theory the use of probability really is a very great innovation. In principle, probability should not have been the tool to deal with quantum phenomena, because quantum phenomena are ontic doubt, not epistemic doubt. Probability in quantum theory does not determine which is the correct answer; rather, it determines what part of the correct answer is this and what part of the correct answer is that. The whole meaning of probability in quantum theory is not probabilistic at all. Many people do not understand this; sometimes physicists also do not understand it. What they call “probability” there is not probability at all. Because probability always determines—say in the double-slit experiment, I send an electron, there is slit A and slit B, and the question is whether it passed through A or through B. Now in a superposition state it passed through both A and B. So they call this fifty percent that it passed through A and fifty percent that it passed through B. But that is not epistemic doubt. It is not that I am fifty percent right and fifty percent wrong, or that it either passed through A or through B. If I say about A that I am fifty percent right and fifty percent wrong—no. I am certainly right when I say that fifty percent passed through A and fifty percent passed through B. The passing through A and B is a faint passing. It passed fifty percent through A and fifty percent through B. Sometimes people say fifty percent of it passed through A and fifty percent of it passed through B. But not that there is a fifty-percent chance it passed through A and a fifty-percent chance it passed through B. Therefore, the whole use of probability in quantum theory is not probability at all. It is really fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic is the tool that should be used to deal with ambiguous realities. Probability is for epistemic doubt, and then probability tells me what the likelihood is that A is true, B is true, or C is true. Like when I throw a die: it will land on one of the faces, that is clear, I just do not know which one. So there is a one-sixth chance that it lands on one, on two, on three, up to six. Probability tells me which of the possibilities will be the truth; that is epistemic doubt. But in quantum theory, probability does not tell me which of the possibilities will be the truth. It tells me how much of the truth is in this possibility and how much of the truth is in that possibility. Or in other words, that the particle behaves like a wave and not like a particle. Yes—when one says that the particle behaves like a wave, that means that fifty percent of it passed through slit A and fifty percent of it passed through slit B. So we use the language of percentages as though it were probability, but it is not. It is simply dividing the particle between slit A and slit B. Exactly as with the women. With the women, when I say that they are in doubt, that each of the two sisters is questionably betrothed, I do not mean that she is in doubt betrothed. Rather, each of the women is fifty-percent betrothed to me. She is betrothed to me at fifty-percent intensity. But surely the formulation of fifty percent is the most accurate formulation, because actually two sisters cannot both be betrothed to the same man. Why? Why not? They can. One of them is betrothed to me—but that “one” is each of the two of them. In quantum language, let’s say it this way: there is one pure classical state in which Rachel is betrothed to me and Leah is her sister. There is one pure state in which Leah is betrothed to me and Rachel is her sister. And the real state is a superposition of those two states. That is the most accurate description. And then there is no problem, because each of those states is coherent. One is betrothed and the other is my wife’s sister. In the second state, the other one is betrothed and this one is my wife’s sister. The real state is the sum of those two states. But doesn’t that make them fifty-percent betrothed? Because if two sisters—therefore I say here, when I use percentages here, this is not probability. Period. Rabbi, how did the Sages know that there is such a possibility of betrothing half a woman? How did they know there is quantum theory here in betrothal? How did they know it is true, that really the Holy One, blessed be He, agrees to such a thing? They did not know quantum theory; they arrived at it by reasoning. Whether the Holy One, blessed be He, agrees or does not agree, I have no idea—you have to ask Him. But this is the Jewish law. If we compare this to quantum theory, what happens if the man who betrothed one of two sisters without specifying which one later brought a diary from home in which he wrote, “On Thursday I am going to the father of the sisters and I am going to betroth Leah”? Is there collapse in that situation? No. Again, that is not collapse. That is saying that from the outset he implicitly intended Leah. That is a question in the laws of betrothal; it has nothing to do with quantum logic. Collapse is when after I performed the act of betrothal and there is nothing written in my notebook, and now I say, okay, at present I have an ambiguous state—either Rachel or Leah—and now I choose Leah. I want the wave function to collapse onto Leah. Is such a thing possible? So there is a column on my website, number 324, where I bring views that hold that way. One can draw this closer to a state of collapse, to say that there will be a machine that reads thoughts, and then it will become clear that when he spoke to the father, Leah was in his mind. So I’m saying: that is not collapse. That is not collapse. It becomes clear to you that he betrothed her. It is like the detector sitting on the—it is exactly like the detector—but in this context there is no point comparing it to quantum theory. He simply betrothed Leah, that is all. In quantum theory, the claim is that placing the device does something to the wave function. Here the claim is that if you have a device that reads thoughts in the head, then those are simply the thoughts in his head. This is a completely classical state. I betrothed Leah. Okay, we will stop here. I went on a bit long. If there is a comment or a question, then of course one can—yes. Okay, have a peaceful Sabbath. Thank you, have a peaceful Sabbath.