Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 1 – Lesson 38

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re dealing with Issi ben Yehuda because this is an opportunity to open up broad questions, both generally with respect to Jewish law and with respect to the laws of the Sabbath themselves. In other words, Issi ben Yehuda’s statement places the whole system of primary categories and derivatives on the Sabbath in some different position from what we’re used to, and it’s a bit surprising that you don’t really see fingerprints of this issue in the halakhic decisors and so on. I asked you about this on the sheet too, so we’ll talk about these things today. Okay, so the baraita that defines the four domains, which we’ve been dealing with over the last few classes, mentions there, after defining the private domain and the public domain, the rule that if someone carried out and brought in unintentionally, he is liable to a sin-offering; if intentionally, he is punishable by karet and by stoning. Okay? Just inserted there in passing. And about this the Talmud asks here on 6b: The Master said: if he carried out and brought in unintentionally, he is liable to a sin-offering; if intentionally, he is punishable by karet and by stoning. Liable to a sin-offering if unintentionally? Obviously! So the Talmud says: It was necessary to teach that if done intentionally, he is punishable by karet and by stoning. Meaning, right, the sin-offering is obvious, but karet and stoning are what it needed to teach. An interesting question is why. Why is karet and stoning—later the Talmud comes back and rejects this too—but in the initial assumption the Talmud sees this as a greater novelty than liability to a sin-offering. I’d say the opposite. I think in a certain sense there’s more novelty in the sin-offering than in karet and stoning, because with the sin-offering the question of dividing liabilities into separate sin-offerings always comes up, and that comes up here too in the passage, whereas with karet and stoning it doesn’t come up. If you’re liable to death, you’re liable to death once; there aren’t two deaths for two—so precisely with the sin-offering there was more reason to see some kind of novelty. But the Talmud immediately rejects that and says: that too is obvious. In short, that’s not an answer. In short, that too is obvious. So what was the initial assumption at all? That’s what the Talmud goes on to say. So in short, there is no novelty here at all. And then the Talmud says: here it teaches us in accordance with Rav, for Rav said—Rav, I remind you, historically speaking, to place him—Rav, right, Rav is first generation of the Babylonian Amoraim, and he’s basically considered half a tanna too,

[Speaker B] Rav is a tanna and may dispute.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So sometimes when Rav argues with tannaim, the Talmud says that’s okay, Rav belongs to the transition generation between tannaim and amoraim; he has some sort of status that also allows him to argue with tannaim.

[Speaker B] We’re on Zoom. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re on Zoom. Good that there’s Zoom too. Not only is there Zoom too, but the classroom isn’t set up properly—we talked about that earlier—the classroom isn’t set up, so even those sitting here are basically learning with me on Zoom. The whole thing is pointless. Fine, but as long as you can’t make it, we’re not going to force everybody, so there’ll also be Zoom. There’s nothing to do about it. Okay, anyway, back to our subject. So Rav, historically speaking, Rav still sat in Rabbi’s court, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s court, and his uncle Rabbi Chiya as well, and then he went down to Babylonia. The nephew went down to Babylonia—the famous Talmudic passage in Sanhedrin. When Rav goes down to Babylonia, the line of the Babylonian Amoraim basically begins. Okay? So Rav and Shmuel are the first among them. Rav was first generation of the Babylonian Amoraim, and he still has the status of someone who can also dispute tannaim—Rav is a tanna and may dispute. Why is that important? Because the permission to write down the Oral Torah was instituted by Rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, which is basically, let’s say, one generation before Rav; Rav still met him. Okay? Now this hidden scroll that they found in the academy of Rabbi Chiya—Rabbi Chiya is Rav’s uncle—and it brings a statement of Issi ben Yehuda, who himself is a fifth-generation tanna, meaning before Rabbi, before the permission to write down the Oral Torah, and there it says that the primary categories of labor are forty less one, and one is liable only one. Okay? So what exactly is the meaning of this? In other words, there was some initial assumption that someone who performs even all the labors, all of them, unintentionally on the Sabbath, would incur one sin-offering. Okay. Now if someone forgot that today is the Sabbath, then in fact he is liable to one sin-offering regardless of the question of distinction among sin-offerings, because that’s one act of error; for one act of error you bring one sin-offering. I deliberately didn’t get you into the issue of sin-offerings here because that’s a complication in itself.

[Speaker B] And then they ask which labor he has to do. Why does it matter? Why does it matter which labor he did? The fact is that there’s a Sabbath—if he—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Did two.

[Speaker B] Or did a hundred—why does it matter?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How many sin-offerings does he bring?

[Speaker B] No, but it’s one Sabbath. So what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then why count the labors? No, wait, I want to… If I ate pork and afterward—

[Speaker B] also ate forbidden fat, I committed one prohibition, I committed two prohibitions, for each—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] each prohibition has a punishment. So if there are two prohibitions, then two punishments.

[Speaker B] Why is Sabbath different?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s say there’s only one primary category of labor on the Sabbath, okay? Let’s say only carrying out. I carried out in the morning and then carried out again in the afternoon. How many punishments do I deserve? It’s one Sabbath, but I did it twice; I committed two prohibitions. I committed two prohibitions, so I deserve two punishments.

[Speaker C] Yael, the prohibition is not on the Sabbath but on the person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There, that’s the drawback of the format. Wait, Yael, are you done?

[Speaker D] I’m saying, the Sabbath has already been desecrated.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? What does that mean, desecrated? There’s one prohibition. If I ate pork once, am I allowed afterward to eat pork again?

[Speaker D] On—

[Speaker B] Yom Kippur, someone who doesn’t fast—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] on Yom Kippur, he already isn’t fasting. No, no, that’s not right. On Yom Kippur too, if he eats in the morning and eats in the afternoon, he has violated two prohibitions.

[Speaker D] But if it were that simple, they wouldn’t discuss it later in the chapter Kelal Gadol, where that is exactly what they debate.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, she’s asking even before the discussion, what’s the discussion about at all? Forget the distinction among sin-offerings and all that. There’s one Sabbath here, so it’s one prohibition. That can’t be. Now the question is, so what—

[Speaker C] Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I wanted to say: when a person doesn’t know that today is the Sabbath, then even if he does several labors in that same act of error, he brings one sin-offering. Why? Because the number of sin-offerings is the number of acts of error. And if your error was that today is the Sabbath, and on the strength of that you committed several violations, then the sin-offering you bring is one, because the number of your errors is one. But we’re talking about a different case. I know that today is the Sabbath; I forgot that trapping is prohibited and I forgot that selecting is prohibited.

[Speaker D] That’s what they explain—they explain it in the Mishnah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the Mishnah in Kelal Gadol, fine, but now the question is what the baraita is adding. In the Mishnah in Kelal Gadol of course it has to say that.

[Speaker C] I think maybe it’s important to distinguish that the Sabbath isn’t the issue here. The issue is the person. Just as I have a small child—he can desecrate the Sabbath—or a gentile can desecrate the Sabbath. The issue is that an adult Jew is prohibited from desecrating the Sabbath just as he is prohibited from eating on Yom Kippur. So I’m not looking at the Sabbath; I’m looking at the person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the person committed several transgressions, then he deserves—

[Speaker C] Exactly, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So the claim is basically that since Issi ben Yehuda says that if you perform all thirty-nine primary categories of labor, but in thirty-nine separate acts of error—not in one error. In other words, you know that today is the Sabbath, but you forgot that writing is prohibited and forgot that trapping is prohibited and forgot that selecting is prohibited, and so on, and you committed all those violations—it doesn’t matter which, and we could talk just about two, but they talk about thirty-nine to show the widest possible range—then you would think that you bring thirty-nine sin-offerings, because there are thirty-nine errors here. Thirty-nine labors, each one of which you forgot. Issi ben Yehuda says: one is liable only one. Even though he essentially performed thirty-nine labors in thirty-nine separate acts of error, he owes one sin-offering. In talmudic-halakic language, this is called: there is no distinction among labors. What does that mean? The labors are not distinct from one another and do not constitute separate prohibitions. It’s all just the same prohibition. And therefore there aren’t thirty-nine errors here; there is one error, namely that you are not allowed to do—

[Speaker E] But that’s not necessarily the reason. Again? It’s not certain that the reason here is because there’s no distinction among labors. That’s one option—it could be the reason—but there could be another reason why only one sin-offering is required. Like what? Why do I think only one sin-offering is required? I’m not really sure. From what I understood later, it could be that all the sin-offerings are actually in doubt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, wait a second, you’re—this gets rejected, and then we arrive at a different story.

[Speaker E] Yes, yes, but when you say there’s no distinction among labors, that’s just one option.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not an option. At this stage in the Talmud, what it says is that there’s no distinction among labors.

[Speaker E] Ah, okay, fine. Later we’ll talk about a different interpretation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right now in the Talmud: no distinction among labors. That’s what’s being said here. What does that mean, no distinction among labors? It means, let’s say I forgot that it’s prohibited—wait—if I forgot that trapping is prohibited, okay? And I went trapping in the morning and then trapped again in the afternoon. One went to trap, one went to catch him—that’s how the story goes there. So I went trapping again in the afternoon in the same state of error; I didn’t remember the prohibition of trapping in the middle, right? In that same state of error. There I bring one sin-offering, right? Because it’s one error. What did I err about? The prohibition of trapping on the Sabbath. Now in the morning I trapped and in the afternoon I selected. Here it depends. If there is distinction among labors, then that means trapping and selecting are two different prohibitions. And if so, forgetting that trapping is prohibited and forgetting that selecting is prohibited are two separate errors, and they require two sin-offerings. If all the labor prohibitions are basically one prohibition, then it doesn’t matter that one time I trapped and one time I selected; it’s like I trapped and then in the afternoon trapped again. Because trapping and selecting are just different realizations of one prohibition, the general prohibition of labor.

[Speaker E] And in that case—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I would be liable to one sin-offering, because it’s one error.

[Speaker E] But if I trapped—meaning I forgot that trapping is prohibited, I trapped, and then in the afternoon I again forgot that trapping is prohibited and trapped, then I bring two already.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, because you have two separate errors. So distinction among sin-offerings, distinction among labors, or distinction with regard to sin-offerings, always means: what happens when I do this through several different errors? If I do it in one error, then in any case it’s one sin-offering, whether there is distinction among labors or not. Because it’s one error: I forgot that today is the Sabbath. And that’s the error underlying all the violations I committed. But if I know that today is the Sabbath, I just forgot that trapping is prohibited on the Sabbath—so if I trapped in the morning and trapped in the afternoon in the same state of error, I didn’t remember in between, then I still bring one sin-offering because it’s one error. What if I trapped in the morning and selected in the afternoon? Here it depends. Why? Because if there is distinction with regard to sin-offerings, distinction among labors, then it means that each labor is actually a separate prohibition. And if each labor is a separate prohibition, then I committed two separate errors here: I forgot prohibition A and I forgot prohibition B—the prohibition of trapping and the prohibition of selecting. So then I should have to bring two sin-offerings. If there is no distinction among labors, then the conception is that the prohibition on the Sabbath is the prohibition of labor: you’re not allowed to do labor. What is labor? Trapping, selecting, harvesting, whatever you want, but that doesn’t matter—they’re different realizations of the same prohibition. So forgetting that trapping is prohibited is the same thing as forgetting that selecting is prohibited. It’s simply forgetting that there is a prohibition of labor on the Sabbath. Therefore it’s one sin-offering. That’s the question: whether there is distinction with regard to sin-offerings or not. And in the initial assumption the Talmud says that Issi ben Yehuda’s words basically mean that there is no distinction among labors for sin-offerings. Okay? No distinction in sin-offerings among the Sabbath labors. That was the initial assumption. The Talmud says: wait—I didn’t share the file. The Talmud rejects this. And what does it say? Is that so? But didn’t we learn in the Mishnah: The primary categories of labor are forty less one. That’s a Mishnah in the chapter Kelal Gadol. And we discussed it: why do I need the number? Right? There in the Talmud on 73b they ask: why do I need the number? Why does it have to say forty less one? You list them all; I know how to count too. Why count them and tell me there are thirty-nine? And Rabbi Yochanan said: so that if one performed them all in one lapse of awareness, he is liable for each and every one. Okay? So if he did them all, he is liable for each one, which means there is distinction in sin-offerings. The number in the Mishnah comes to teach that there is distinction in sin-offerings. If so, says the Talmud, it can’t be that Issi ben Yehuda came to say there is no distinction in sin-offerings, because there is an explicit Mishnah saying there is distinction in sin-offerings—that’s inferred from the Mishnah.

[Speaker D] But now—he’s a tanna. Can’t he argue with a Mishnah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So of course the question that comes up here is: Issi ben Yehuda was a tanna. By the way, a tanna of Babylonian origin, which is very rare. So this Issi ben Yehuda was a strange creature. He came from a Babylonian city, Hutzal I think, and went up to the Land of Israel and basically functioned as a tanna. This was before the Babylonian Torah world, so in order to study he probably had to get to the Land of Israel. But he was a sage of Babylonian origin. What? Like Hillel? Right, Hillel was much earlier, before the exile of Edom, so that could still be remnants of sages who had been there from the First Temple period, the craftsmen and the smiths. Okay, fine. Yes, anyway, he was a tanna. That’s what the Talmud says. What?

[Speaker D] Issi ben Yehuda? Yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to other sources—I gave you a link, you can look at the link—other sayings of his appear there too. Maybe I’ll mention a bit, because he really was an interesting person. He dealt with several very sensitive points of Jewish law. Meaning, how to read the Torah, for example—an undecided punctuation—he has some statement there. He kind of touched very sensitive points. And here too, in a certain sense. But in a moment.

[Speaker B] Anyway, maybe his name comes from the Essenes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why Essenes? Ah, from the Essenes, not from the princes. No, no, that’s just his name, right. Issi—the accepted assumption is that this is basically a Babylonian form of the name Yosi. Okay, anyway. So the Talmud basically says that it can’t be that he argues with the Mishnah. And the question that really comes up here is why, since he’s a tanna. A tanna can argue with a Mishnah.

[Speaker B] So here I’m skipping—and the fact that he too counts the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so look at Tosafot. Tosafot on “and Rabbi Yochanan said.” Do you see? “There is no need to explain that it asks because presumably he does not disagree”—about Issi it says there—“rather, from Issi’s own words too this can be inferred, since he teaches the number, just as it is inferred later in Kelal Gadol.” Tosafot says: there’s no need to say that necessarily there is an assumption here that Issi does not argue with the Mishnah. You don’t need to assume that, because the same inference we make from the Mishnah can also be made from Issi’s own words. After all, Issi himself talks about thirty-nine primary categories of labor.

[Speaker D] So he wouldn’t have needed to count them if he didn’t think they all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Therefore from Issi himself too you can make the same inference, that there is distinction in sin-offerings. The interesting question is: if that’s so, then why does the Talmud bring the Mishnah in order to infer it? Infer it from Issi himself. Because if there’s no proof from the Mishnah—after all, with respect to the Mishnah he can disagree, since he’s a tanna—and the difficulty is basically because of an inference from his own wording, then why not cite his own wording? Why do you need the Mishnah, where maybe he actually disagrees with it?

[Speaker E] Wait, what’s the inference from his wording? I didn’t manage to understand what the inference is in his wording that there is distinction in sin-offerings.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Issi’s statement: “I found a hidden scroll”—I’m blacking it out again, you see?—“I found a hidden scroll in the academy of Rabbi Chiya, and it was written there: Issi ben Yehuda says, the primary categories of labor are forty less one, and one is liable only one.” So here too it says “the primary categories of labor are forty less one,” and here too you can infer: why are you telling me this whole story? Wait, but—

[Speaker E] He says “one is liable only one,” meaning there is no distinction in sin-offerings. Right. But the Talmud argues that he does not disagree.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud raises a difficulty—again. The Talmud assumed that Issi ben Yehuda says there is no distinction in sin-offerings. The Talmud says: that can’t be. Why? So it brings the Mishnah in the chapter Kelal Gadol. But in order to prove that that can’t be, you don’t need to get to the Mishnah. Prove that it can’t be from Issi’s own wording.

[Speaker B] But by bringing Kelal Gadol, it shows the dispute there, so we won’t think there is a dispute between Issi ben Yehuda and Rabbi Yochanan.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We don’t need to avoid thinking that—on the contrary. Once you show me that this is also inferred from Issi ben Yehuda himself, then of course we won’t think there is a dispute. That’s obvious.

[Speaker E] But there is a dispute, because according to Issi there is distinction in sin-offerings and according to Rabbi Yochanan there isn’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the Talmud is challenging that. The Talmud thought that according to Issi ben Yehuda there is no distinction in sin-offerings. The Talmud says: that can’t be, because Rabbi Yochanan says there is. So there is some assumption in the Talmud’s question that Issi does not disagree with Rabbi Yochanan. Okay? So I’m—look, you have to read the Talmud differently. The Talmud means, as Tosafot explains, to prove this from Issi’s own words, not from the Mishnah. So what’s the proof? You make an inference from Issi’s wording. After all, it says forty less one—why do I need the number? The Talmud says: the same inference they made on 73b, because there too the Talmud used that same wording. “And we discussed it”—because there they asked why the number is needed. Apply that here. Otherwise the Talmud wouldn’t have had to say all of “and we discussed it.” What should the Talmud have said? “And Rabbi Yochanan said: he is liable for each and every one.” Why does it bring all that give-and-take? It brings all that give-and-take in order to tell me: my proof is from Issi, not from the Mishnah. It’s just that the same inference Rabbi Yochanan makes from the Mishnah and reaches his conclusion there, I apply to Issi here. That’s obvious. Therefore Tosafot’s explanation is entirely correct. It isn’t forced; it’s obvious that that’s what the Talmud is bringing here. Otherwise it wouldn’t have needed all of— in many places the Talmud says: but didn’t we see such-and-such, and ask such-and-such about it? Apply the whole give-and-take you made there here. Otherwise it wouldn’t have had to tell us the whole path of how we reached the conclusion. Just bring Rabbi Yochanan saying that one is liable for each and every one and prove that Issi can’t be saying there is no distinction among labors if you assume he doesn’t disagree with Rabbi Yochanan. That’s not the point. There is no assumption here that he doesn’t disagree with Rabbi Yochanan—that’s what Tosafot notes, and it’s straightforward. There is no assumption here that he doesn’t disagree with Rabbi Yochanan; rather, from his own wording we make the same inference Rabbi Yochanan made from the Mishnah there. Okay? Okay. Now that’s why we rejected it. And then we get to the idea that there is one labor for which there is no liability—that’s the conclusion; we’ll get there in a moment. Time-out for a second. Regarding distinction—distinction among labors for sin-offerings—what exactly is the point? The Talmud itself hesitates over this issue. Why? Because what does the Torah say? “You shall not do any labor.” That’s what it says. There is a prohibition against doing labor. On the face of it, if that’s what it says and I see in the Mishnah “the primary categories of labor are forty less one,” or I see the list of primary categories of labor, the natural conclusion is that there is no distinction in sin-offerings. Because in order to obligate a sin-offering, this has to be a prohibition in its own right. Now how many prohibitions are written in the Torah regarding labor on the Sabbath? One. “You shall not do any labor.” All the different primary categories of labor are just different realizations of doing labor. What is doing labor? Trapping, selecting, harvesting, plowing.

[Speaker B] But it says, “You shall not do any”—the “any” comes to divide.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So you’re already making interpretive derivations. I’m saying, before the derivations—the Talmud doesn’t make that derivation—but I’m saying, leave the derivations aside for the moment. What’s the background? The background is that there is one prohibition. Once there is one prohibition, it’s one prohibition. I have no source for thirty-nine prohibitions. Now you can’t obligate stoning or a sin-offering or any punishment unless there is a verse in the Torah prohibiting it. We don’t punish unless there was prior warning in the verse. Okay? So basically the Torah contains one prohibition. So if I selected, I would be liable to a sin-offering or stoning. That’s clear. But I’d be liable because selecting counts as doing labor. Where would the practical implication be? If I selected and trapped. Because if I selected and trapped, then on the straightforward view that’s simply violating the prohibition of labor on the Sabbath twice. It’s like trapping and trapping. Right? Negotiation has give and take, like Peres once said. So trapping and selecting might just as well be trapping and trapping. Okay? There’s no difference. Because basically it’s like trapping twice. You just did labor on the Sabbath twice, because the prohibition is doing labor. I don’t care right now whether you selected or trapped. There are just many forms of labor. The example that always comes to mind for me in this context is, say, there’s a prohibition about vows in the Torah, right? “He shall not profane his word.” So if I vow not to eat bread, then I violated the prohibition “he shall not profane his word.” And if I vow not to sit on a chair, then I violated “he shall not profane his word.” So are there now two prohibitions? A prohibition against sitting on a chair if you vowed not to sit on a chair, and a prohibition against eating bread if you vowed not to eat bread? No. It’s the same prohibition. The prohibition is “he shall not profane his word.” Whatever your speech says—that’s where the prohibition of “he shall not profane his word” applies. So clearly there’s no distinction in sin-offerings here. Right? Because it’s the same prohibition. They won’t obligate me in two sin-offerings unless I made two separate errors. Fine, because then it’s within that same prohibition itself.

[Speaker B] And if they’re two different vows, would it still be one sin-offering?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it were unintentional, it would depend on how many errors. Ah, she gave up. We’re talking about a case where there is supposed to be distinction in sin-offerings. That’s when we’re dealing with two different prohibitions. Obviously if I violated the same prohibition twice in two separate errors, I would also bring two sin-offerings. That is not called distinction in sin-offerings. Okay? So I’m saying, on the conceptual level, in terms of the way the thing appears in the Torah, this is one prohibition. They are different realizations of one prohibition. And the fact that you bring me a list of labors doesn’t interest anyone. You just want to define for me what counts as that labor the Torah prohibited. So they tell me: look, it’s this list and its derivatives. That’s all. When they tell me there is distinction in sin-offerings, they’re saying something revolutionary. They’re saying that these thirty-nine labors are not just realizations of one prohibition; it’s as if the Torah contains thirty-nine verses prohibiting labor. One prohibits trapping, the second prohibits selecting, the third prohibits harvesting, the fourth plowing, and so on. Thirty-nine verses. That’s not the same as saying these are different realizations of the same labor. The implication is how many sin-offerings I become liable for—whether there is distinction in sin-offerings.

[Speaker B] But couldn’t you say that if I commit one error regarding selecting and one error regarding trapping, say, I’m liable because there are two errors and not because there are different warnings in the Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—the number of errors is the number of verses you forgot. That’s what “the number of errors” means. So when you forget that selecting is prohibited and when you forget that trapping is prohibited, from the Torah’s perspective you really forgot that labor is prohibited. Because that’s what’s written here. Obviously in practice you forgot two different bits of information. But that isn’t interesting, because in the halakhic classification that is defined as one item of information: labor on the Sabbath. You forgot that it is prohibited to do labor on the Sabbath.

[Speaker B] But I can either forget that labor on the Sabbath is prohibited, or I can forget that selecting counts as labor.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Forgetting that selecting counts as labor isn’t really forgetting. Because that’s prohibited labor. That’s just the Sages’ interpretation; it’s not forgetting a verse. The Sages tell you what labor means—labor means selecting. That doesn’t count as forgetting. Forgetting means forgetting something that the Holy One commanded me. Do you understand? Again, this gets into the complications of the laws of errors, so it’s better not to get into that, but broadly speaking that’s the answer. Okay?

[Speaker C] Can we go back for a second—what’s the practical difference? I didn’t understand, with regard to sin-offerings what’s the difference between them?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is, if we said there is no—

[Speaker C] distinction among labors, then that means you bring one sin-offering?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Okay? Now of course if you forgot that today is the Sabbath, then even if there is distinction in sin-offerings, it’s still only one sin-offering. I’m talking about when you know that today is the Sabbath.

[Speaker C] No, but if I forgot that both selecting and trapping are prohibited?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One sin-offering. Why? Only because we learned distinction in sin-offerings does it come out as two sin-offerings. Ah, you’re talking about distinction? Distinction in sin-offerings.

[Speaker B] It’s the same thing. Distinction among labors means that you bring a sin-offering for each one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Same thing—distinction with regard to sin-offerings and distinction among labors are the same thing. Distinction with regard to sin-offering, yes? The labor. The labors are distinct from each other with regard to sin-offering. That’s distinction with regard to sin-offerings—not “distinction of sin-offerings,” but distinction among labors or distinction with regard to sin-offerings, meaning simply the distinction among labors regarding sin-offerings. Okay. Now the sources brought for distinction in sin-offerings—the inference from the Mishnah is not a source. That’s an important point, so pay attention. The inference from the Mishnah is not a source; it is only evidence that this is how the Sages understood it. But I can still ask: where does it come from, since the Torah contains only one verse, “You shall not do any labor”? Where does it come from? So Ruti brought something out of the context. Okay, but the Talmud makes other derivations.

[Speaker B] The Talmud—but linguistically it’s still true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe, I don’t know, it would need thought. But the Talmud brings two sources for it. One source is kindling. I—look at the Talmud in Sanhedrin. I didn’t send you there because I didn’t want you looking at the sin-offering issues. The Talmud in Sanhedrin 62b—there are other places too, but this is one of them. It was taught in a baraita there: “Kindling was singled out as a prohibition,” the words of Rabbi Yosi. “And Rabbi Natan says: it was singled out in order to divide.” What does that mean? In the Torah it says “You shall not do any labor,” and the primary categories of labor themselves are not mentioned. We learn them from the Tabernacle, we learn them from what is considered significant and what is not significant, what is creative and what is not creative—there’s a lot of discussion about that. But the Torah does not say what the prohibited labors are. It says not to do labor. Okay, there are a few labors that are mentioned. I already mentioned this in connection with carrying being a weaker labor. What is mentioned? Carrying is mentioned: “Let no man go out from his place on the Sabbath day.” Kindling is mentioned, right? “You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.” “In plowing and in harvesting you shall rest.” That’s an interesting question. On the plain meaning it refers to the Sabbath; the Talmud interprets it as referring to the Sabbatical year. The Talmud in Moed Katan. But even so, on the plain meaning of the Torah it refers to the Sabbath. Okay?

[Speaker E] The wood gatherer is also mentioned. Can’t hear? The wood gatherer is also mentioned.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With the wood gatherer it isn’t clear what exactly he did.

[Speaker E] Fine, but in any case there too it’s mentioned that gathering is prohibited on the Sabbath. It’s not clear what exactly was wrong in the case of the wood gatherer, but it is also something that was mentioned.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And what result? And carrying is already mentioned anyway.

[Speaker E] Right, so we don’t know—but we do know it’s mentioned and that it refers to something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand, but when I talk about the list of the thirty-nine labors, which of them do I know for sure is explicitly mentioned? Carrying from domain to domain, kindling, and maybe plowing and harvesting if we go by the plain meaning. Okay. Now regarding carrying, the medieval authorities explain that carrying is mentioned because it’s an inferior kind of labor. What?

[Speaker B] How is it mentioned?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Let no man go out from his place on the Sabbath day.” So regarding carrying, the medieval authorities say it’s mentioned because it’s an inferior labor, and that’s why it had to be stated. As for kindling, there’s already a dispute among the tannaim as to why it’s mentioned. Because every labor that is mentioned needs an explanation as to why it’s mentioned, since other labors weren’t mentioned and we know them even without their being mentioned. So the labors that were mentioned need to be explained—why. So for carrying, you explained why: because maybe I wouldn’t have known it if it hadn’t been mentioned, since it’s an inferior labor. What about kindling? So here there are two opinions. According to Rabbi Yosei, kindling was mentioned because it really is an exceptional labor. It is only an ordinary prohibition; one is not liable for stoning, a sin-offering, or karet for it. It’s an ordinary prohibition, like “your animal shall rest,” your donkey, or rabbinic rest on the Sabbath according to the one who says that’s a Torah-level prohibition, and so on. There are Sabbath prohibitions that are only in the category of an ordinary prohibition, a prohibition that does not carry stoning. What?

[Speaker B] Because kindling can also cause damage.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s unrelated. Kindling—if I light a match in my house, I’m not threatening anything.

[Speaker E] So there’s no liability of stoning, but there is a sin-offering?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can’t hear?

[Speaker E] For kindling, according to what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—an ordinary prohibition. No sin-offering, no stoning, and no karet. An ordinary prohibition—lashes. Okay?

[Speaker C] It’s interesting how kindling fire became the labor that represents the Sabbath, the Sabbath prohibitions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not always the case that the thing mentioned is the important thing or the representative thing. There’s a difference between representative and important. What is that like? Like pork.

[Speaker E] Yes, exactly.

[Speaker C] Like pork.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like a kippah. What is a kippah? It’s a custom to wear a kippah. But today it’s the indicator for men, right? It’s the indicator of whether you’re religious or not religious—you wear a kippah. It’s just some marginal issue. Or in conversion—you don’t know this? Someone who murders, that doesn’t threaten his definition as a Jew, but if he eats pork then he’s not observant, he’s not Jewish, it’s not a conversion. Okay. What, does that mean eating pork is more severe than murder? No. It only means that eating pork is more characteristically Jewish than the prohibition of murder. The prohibition of murder is accepted by all human beings. Okay, and so on. In short. So fine, no. Accepted by them as a prohibition—not everybody keeps it, and not all Jews keep it either.

[Speaker B] Except that there is an exception,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re talking—not, the question is

[Speaker B] what people think is forbidden, not what a person does. Once on the Sabbath we were in a hotel, and there were clear instructions to walk.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not the prohibition of murder, Ruti, if he doesn’t—to walk with masks. Fine, okay. It’s not the prohibition of murder, but it also isn’t “you shall not murder,” and it’s inappropriate behavior. Okay. Good, let’s move on. There’s a difference between a fool and a murderer, meaning that still there is—

[Speaker E] So we said that one opinion is that it was singled out because there’s no liability of stoning, only an ordinary prohibition. And the second thought?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So Rabbi Yosei says kindling was singled out to teach that it is only an ordinary prohibition. It’s mentioned in order to say that this labor is exceptional. Rabbi Natan says it was singled out to divide the liabilities. Kindling is a regular labor; one is liable for stoning, a sin-offering, and karet for it like any other labor. So why is it written? To teach me separate liability for sin-offerings, this idea of separate liability for sin-offerings. So one labor was written separately in order to teach me that for each and every labor one incurs a separate punishment, and there is separate liability for sin-offerings. From here Rabbi Natan derives separate liability for sin-offerings. Now the question is: according to Rabbi Yosei, is there also separate liability for sin-offerings? The answer is yes. It isn’t learned from here, but he agrees with the principle of separate liability for sin-offerings. The Talmud there immediately afterward brings the source. The source is “one of these”—there’s a complicated exposition there, I’m not going to go into reading it. The Talmud expounds from “one of these”; one of the expositions—there are six things derived from there—one of them is separate liability for sin-offerings. So the argument between Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Natan is only over the question of where we learn separate liability for sin-offerings from,

[Speaker B] but

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] both agree that there is separate liability for sin-offerings.

[Speaker B] Here

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the Talmud raises the possibility that Issi disagrees with both of them. He claims—he does not accept either source, neither “one of these” nor kindling being singled out in order to divide liabilities. But the Talmud rejects that; it says that can’t be, because in the Mishnah and in Issi’s own words, from what we saw earlier, it’s clear that there is such a thing as separate liability for sin-offerings. And therefore the Talmud—I’m mentioning this because later on I’ll still need this dispute a bit, between Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Natan. And then the Talmud says, “Rather say”—I’m now moving to the Talmud’s conclusion—“rather say: he is not liable for one of them.” So the conclusion is that Issi did not come to say that there is no separate liability for sin-offerings, that if he performs all thirty-nine labors he is liable only once, but rather that there is one of the labors—without going into which one, he doesn’t say which one, at least it isn’t mentioned in this hidden scroll—but there is one of the labors for which one is not liable, one that was singled out as only an ordinary prohibition. Okay? It’s interesting that one of the labors—maybe this connects to Rabbi Yosei, who says kindling was singled out as only an ordinary prohibition—because that labor, which was singled out as an ordinary prohibition so that one is not liable for it, could in fact be kindling itself.

[Speaker E] I haven’t seen anyone make that connection.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In principle that’s a possibility.

[Speaker B] Issi or Rabbi Yosei?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They were colleagues. Ah, the Talmud says that Issi was a colleague of Rabbi Yosei’s son. He used to go around with Rabbi Yosei’s son in Tzippori. Ah, wow, that’s interesting. So that’s really—so from there he basically drew the—this is very interesting. And then kindling was singled out as only an ordinary prohibition, and if so then kindling is exactly the thing.

[Speaker D] We read Issi, but we don’t know what the labor is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to Rashi that’s definitely not correct.

[Speaker D] How do I know?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rashi and Tosafot—how do I know that according to Rashi and Tosafot it’s not correct?

[Speaker D] Because they say

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that he is not liable to stoning, but he is liable for a sin-offering, right? And the Ran also adds that he is also liable for karet, because karet always goes together with a sin-offering, right? Now if kindling was singled out as only an ordinary prohibition, “ordinary prohibition” means there is also no sin-offering and no karet. It’s a prohibition punishable by lashes.

[Speaker D] Okay. On the other hand, it seems there that since he doesn’t mention the labor, he doesn’t know what his labor is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or he didn’t mention it, I don’t know. The conclusion of the hidden scroll that reached us—Issi is no longer here, I have no idea. It could be that there were later developments, corruptions.

[Speaker D] That he meant a specific labor but they don’t remember, yes, there was a tradition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, according to Rabbenu Tam, who says there is also exemption from a sin-offering—you saw that in Sefer HaYashar?—who says there is exemption from a sin-offering, it could be—now that I think about it—it could be that kindling is the labor that Isi meant. The Talmud itself says that regarding the others there is still doubt. The Talmud leaves it unresolved. If I’m right, then there’s no doubt—then it’s kindling. Meaning, you can already see in the Talmud that there is no identification between Rabbi Yosei’s statement that kindling was singled out as only an ordinary prohibition and Isi. That’s interesting—why. Seemingly that would have been a very natural solution, especially since he was a colleague of Rabbi Yosei’s son. I don’t know. In any case, Rabbi Yosei?

[Speaker B] No, Rabbi

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yosei HaGelili, I think, is someone else; that’s not Rabbi Yosei.

[Speaker B] HaGelili, I think,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] although he too was from the Galilee—he was from Tzippori. But I don’t think so. Rabbi Yosei HaGelili is called Rabbi Yosei HaGelili. He’s called Rabbi Yosei, not Rabbi—

[Speaker D] Yosei.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They’re both called Rabbi Yosei apparently, the way people say it. I have no idea, by the way, how they know that—whether it’s Yosei and not Yosef, I don’t know.

[Speaker E] From the Oral Torah, it was passed down by tradition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Like the hidden scroll.

[Speaker E] There isn’t only the Written Torah; the vocalization was passed down to us orally.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the oral tradition that I received, it’s Rabbi Yosei. Scholars and more modern people are careful to say Rabbi Yosai; maybe Sephardim too, I think. They say Rabbi Yosai. But I don’t know—where I come from, in the yeshivot, everywhere it was Rabbi Yosei. Okay. I don’t know, I have no idea how they arrived at that; you’d have to ask the scholars.

[Speaker B] In any case, that’s a problem, because then basically there is one labor that they actually don’t agree about from the outset?

[Speaker D] Why is that a problem?

[Speaker B] Because then the religious court can be led into error?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doubt, right. We’ll get to that, we’ll get to that. It raises doubt, it casts all the other labors into doubt, obviously. That’s an important question here; we’ll talk about it in a moment. The Talmud says: “And this is what it teaches us—that among those there are some about which we are not in doubt.” After we learned what Isi says, we now go back—after all, why did we bring Isi? To explain what the novelty is in the baraita. What’s the novelty in the baraita? That carrying from domain to domain is not one of the labors about which we are uncertain.

[Speaker B] Okay?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I pointed you to it on the page; I told you, notice the wording. It is not among the labor—rather, it belongs to the labors regarding which we are not in doubt.

[Speaker E] Meaning

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it seems there are several such labors, not just one. That carrying also belongs to the group of labors regarding which we are not in doubt.

[Speaker E] Those for which it’s clear that one is liable for a sin-offering.

[Speaker B] Exactly. Wait, one at a time. Those for which there is no doubt—there is doubt about which ones have doubt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After all, Isi said there is one labor for which one is not liable. He didn’t say which one. So now all thirty-nine labors are in doubt—maybe each one, perhaps, is the labor Isi was talking about. So the Talmud says the baraita comes to tell us that carrying is not the labor Isi was talking about. That leaves another thirty-eight. But from the wording of the Talmud it seems there are others too that are not doubtful, because carrying is one of those regarding which we are not in doubt.

[Speaker B] About which Isi definitely was not speaking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. About which he was not speaking. Yes. About which there is no doubt that one is liable.

[Speaker B] Fine, but then in any case there’s no doubt.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About all the rest we have doubt whether he was speaking about them or not. There are labors about which it is clear to us that he was not speaking.

[Speaker B] No, those labors he wasn’t speaking about are labors for which it’s clear that one is liable. Right, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so that’s what the Talmud is basically saying. Now, as a first comment—time is getting away from me—a first comment regarding the understanding of the prohibition of labor on the Sabbath in general. So here again, without getting into the sources because I didn’t want to complicate things for you, regarding the definition of the prohibition of labor there are two suggestions among the medieval authorities. It’s customary to connect this to Tosafot Rid and Rashi on 138, Tosafot Rid and Rashi in the chapter Kelal Gadol, but the definitions are as follows. According to Tosafot Rid, the thirty-nine primary categories of labor are thirty-nine different prohibitions. It’s as though there were thirty-nine verses written. True, it comes out of exegesis, or—but at the end of the day there are thirty-nine separate prohibitions written here. That’s all. They are really prohibitions that do not speak to one another at all.

[Speaker C] Where is this Tosafot Rid? Where is it found?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] 138. You’ll see it in the summary — it’ll appear there. I just don’t want to get into it here and get tangled up in it. According to Rashi, it’s one prohibition, and the labors are like distinct entities. Again, it doesn’t matter — the division for sin-offerings is a technical detail in the division for sin-offerings, but it’s one prohibition. The division for sin-offerings doesn’t stem from the fact that these are separate prohibitions; there are other rules about division for sin-offerings. Even when it’s the same prohibition, if the entities are distinct, that too creates a division for sin-offerings. Okay? So Rashi says that the different labors are like distinct entities. What does that mean? That really it is one prohibition. Therefore it is common among later authorities to say — and this is really just general background, worth knowing, which is why I decided to linger on this topic, because it’s a collection of remarks that are good to know as general knowledge — it is commonly said that between Rashi and Tosafot Rid there is a dispute about how to understand the thirty-nine primary categories of labor on the Sabbath. According to Tosafot Rid, there are thirty-nine different prohibitions. What does that actually mean? It means, say, that we learn the labors from the Tabernacle. If we learn the labors from the Tabernacle, that means that the presence of a labor in the Tabernacle is an indication that it is forbidden to do it on the Sabbath. It doesn’t mean they have something in common; it is simply the way the Torah teaches us that these thirty-nine things are forbidden on the Sabbath. Why? Each one for a different reason, unrelated — they don’t share anything in common. In Rashi, the natural explanation is that what is forbidden is creating on the Sabbath. Creating on the Sabbath. Now these are the thirty-nine primary categories of the basic modes of creation. Okay? And that means there is one idea here. It just has different implementations — exactly what I said at the beginning of the class — but there is one idea here. Where does this make a difference? If you remember, we talked about carrying out as an inferior labor. I asked: why is carrying out an inferior labor? One possibility was that there is no significant creation there. You just take something and move it from place to place. You didn’t create anything. That fits Rashi. Because according to Rashi, the foundation of the prohibitions of the Sabbath is the prohibition against creating. And if carrying out doesn’t create, then it is an inferior labor. According to Tosafot Rid, you have to understand why carrying out is an inferior labor even though there is no element of creation here. There are thirty-nine things that are forbidden to do; those are the ones that were in the Tabernacle, and they are forbidden to do. As it happens, those are exactly the ones that were in the Tabernacle — I don’t know why — but they do not have some common element that can be defined as a general prohibition of which these are merely implementations. And if so, there is no a priori reason to assume that carrying out is specifically an inferior labor. Then you have to get into everything the medieval authorities (Rishonim) say: that it has problematic definitions, because you are allowed to carry as much as you want within a private domain, but it is forbidden to carry from a private domain to a public domain. Meaning, there are sort of internal contradictions in the definitions of the labor. The problem is not that there is no creation here; rather, there are other reasons why it is an inferior labor. Okay? These are exactly the two possibilities we saw there, and they connect here as well. But still, in Tosafot Rid, what is he saying — that what was decided is arbitrary? After all, they also went by the Tabernacle. He says nothing; he says these are thirty-nine different prohibitions, like forbidden fat and blood, like two entirely different prohibitions. Now I ask myself: what does that mean? So I say that in Rashi it is fairly clear that there is a common foundation, and that is creation, and the labors done in the Tabernacle are skilled labor, it is Bezalel who knew how to create, he was a creator. So therefore the prohibition on the Sabbath is to create, and consequently it is also clear that carrying out is an inferior labor because it does not create. In Tosafot Rid, at least the possibility opens up — and it seems to me it may even be the natural one — that there truly is nothing in common. These are thirty-nine different prohibitions. They have nothing in common. The Tabernacle is only the indication, only the way the Torah conveys to us what is forbidden to do on the Sabbath. Look at what was in the Tabernacle — that is what I forbid you to do on the Sabbath. That’s all; it’s just a way of telling us. It is not really the reason why it is forbidden, not that they share a common denominator. Therefore carrying out is an inferior labor not because it is not creative, because creativity is not the issue. It is an inferior labor for other technical reasons that we discussed there. Where, for example, could this have practical implications? There is a strange phenomenon about which I also wrote in several places in the past. You know that in the primary categories of damages, for example, we learn from a common denominator. There is a derivative learned from one primary category, and there is a derivative learned from two primary categories together, and that is called the common denominator. What does the common denominator mean? Say I learn some derivative from pit and fire together. Pit and fire are primary categories of damages, okay? So I look at what the common denominator is between pit and fire, what they share. That it is your property and its safeguarding is your responsibility. So too the derivative — if it is your property and its safeguarding is your responsibility, even though it is not similar separately to pit and separately to fire, it is similar only to the common denominator shared by both, and so it too is forbidden, or it too obligates payment. Okay? Now with the labors of the Sabbath, for some reason — and I have not seen anyone address this — I asked several great Torah scholars, no one addressed it, and I also did not find a good explanation for it, I did not hear a good explanation for it — there is no common denominator anywhere in all the writings of the Sages, among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), among the later authorities (Acharonim); you will not find a derivative in the labors of the Sabbath that is a derivative of two different primary categories. It is always that a derivative is a derivative of one primary category, not of two. It can be that one primary category has more than one derivative, but never is there a derivative that belongs to two primary categories together. And could it be that this strengthens the approach of Tosafot Rid? Right. I think Tosafot Rid can definitely provide a basis for this phenomenon. Because if there is a dimension of creativity here, then there is a common denominator for any two labors that are creative. So a derivative that is creative but not entirely similar to any of the primary categories would also be forbidden, because I learned from the common denominator of the primary categories that something sufficiently creative will be forbidden. For example, electricity. Today we do not know what to compare it to; there are debates whether to compare it, and to what to compare it. If I see that the use of electricity is no less creative than all the labors mentioned in the Mishnah, maybe I do not need to look for a primary category of which it would be a derivative. According to Rashi. Yes — that is their common denominator, that it is sufficiently creative. Now in the time of the Sages there was no electricity, because they did not have such a thing. We do, and I see that it is sufficiently creative, so it is forbidden, without saying whether it is a derivative of building, kindling, or I don’t know what. It doesn’t matter; it is not a derivative of any of them. But it is sufficiently creative. According to Tosafot Rid, you cannot do such a thing, because according to Tosafot Rid there are thirty-nine things that were forbidden, thirty-nine different prohibitions. If you cannot tie it to one of those thirty-nine, from where would you learn to forbid it? I could say the exact opposite: because in the case of damages, with pit and the other categories, I could find here and there a common denominator, while here there is only one common denominator for all of them, and because of that I cannot find the common denominator between… But why between two? Why shouldn’t there be a common denominator between two? At least between two, if not between all thirty-nine? Because there is a common denominator among all the labors, so there is no possibility… Why? Why not? They all have the same… No, but you see a creativity of labor where its creativity is a creation made up of selecting plus plowing; it has an element of selecting and an element of plowing, and you understand that this is sufficiently creative. You can learn it from the common denominator. In damages too, the common denominator is not only among the four primary categories. In damages, the common denominator of the four primary categories of damages is that it is your property and its safeguarding is your responsibility. And they make a common denominator out of two, not out of four — from ox, pit, and fire. Just take the common denominator of two labors, fine. Right. But these are different kinds of creativity. True, the root is creativity, but there are different kinds of creativity, and one root alone does not enter into the definition of creativity. By the way, there is one exception — I told you, it’s together. Yes, the common denominator — no, not the common denominator, that is the point. Because you are making a synthesis; I am talking about an intersection, not a union. You are talking about a union, because one union I did find among the derivatives on the Sabbath, according to the approach of Rabbi Menashe of Ilya, brought in the Mishnah in Ohalot: one who spits on the Sabbath, spits four cubits in the public domain on the Sabbath, okay? That is a derivative of winnowing and carrying four cubits in the public domain. Winnowing and that. Wow. No, he mentions nothing else; there are no plants there. The fact that he carried it four cubits means that it is really like throwing four cubits in the public domain, but since the wind took it, then it is not by my force, so I need winnowing to teach me that even something done with the help of the wind — ah, actually we discussed this. Yes. So you actually mentioned this whole story, and also Rabbi Menashe of Ilya. No, that you didn’t mention. No. Okay, what is the problem with saying there is a common denominator? Notice: this is not a common denominator, it is a synthesis, a union, not an intersection. I take one component from winnowing — namely that the wind is involved — and one component from throwing, when I say that it passes four cubits in the public domain, connect them together, make a synthesis, and create a new labor here. A common denominator is something else: if there were something shared by winnowing and throwing; whereas here I am taking the different sides and connecting them. But when I make an intersection, the common denominator reveals that this and that are creativity. Exactly, okay? Fine, but that really is a remark. Why is the side of ox not simply that it is your property and its safeguarding is your responsibility? Again. Why ox? Why not derive it from fire and pit? Because that is precisely the point: it is your property and its safeguarding is your responsibility — but of what kind? There are kinds of “your property and its safeguarding is your responsibility,” and the practical difference is only in their specific laws, in exemptions. The practical difference is only in exemptions. The very obligation could have been learned from all of them. It is only for their specific laws — that is the Talmud in Bava Kamma 5. The practical difference of which primary category you assign it to is only for their specific laws, exemption. If you learn it from pit, then there will be an exemption for vessels; if you learn it from fire, there will be an exemption for hidden items. The very obligation you can learn from all of them. Okay, so that is regarding understanding the prohibition on the Sabbath, and therefore it sheds different light on the division for sin-offerings. The division for sin-offerings is really the question whether I view this as thirty-nine different prohibitions — that is how it seems according to Tosafot Rid — or whether it is some kind of technical distinction only for the laws of the sin-offering, like Rashi, but really there is one general prohibition here of doing labor, or of creating, or something like that. Okay. Now, in the background here is the prohibition against writing down the Oral Torah. The Talmud in Gittin 60b brings there that just as it is forbidden to say by heart things that are written, it is forbidden to write down the Oral Torah. Okay? And here we find a hidden scroll. I mentioned earlier the historical background — a hidden scroll from the period before it was permitted to write the Oral Torah. And the question is: how does this work? So Rashi here writes that this is writing of the sort that he used so he would not forget; Rashi writes this here. In Maharatz Chayot — I referred you to Maharatz Chayot, right? Maharatz Chayot here expands a bit more on this matter, and he shows that people actually did write things even in the earlier period so as not to forget, and he brings various proofs for this. But Rashi writes that this is an individual opinion that we did not hear before. There is a sense that what they wrote was because they were concerned that it was not the agreed opinion. It didn’t receive an official stamp. No — if you hear something, if you hear something that not everyone knows, it is a lone opinion, not necessarily an unaccepted opinion, but a lone opinion that people do not know, then you write it down for yourself so you won’t forget. Ah, because what we learned from the kindergarten teacher doesn’t get forgotten. What everyone knows — if you forget it, they’ll tell you. But if suddenly someone arrived at some special tradition that nobody knows about, then I immediately write it down so I won’t forget. Or an interpretation. Yes. That does not mean it is not Jewish law. Yes. Okay, it could be that there is a mixture here of two explanations, because this whole rule is known as something in its own right, and this whole topic that a hidden scroll is often laws that were concealed from the ignoramuses, or out of fear of violence. In the context of a hidden scroll it is not mentioned — there is “it is the law, but one does not instruct so.” No, it is not mentioned in the context of a hidden scroll. Maybe in the scroll of genealogies — I think in Kiddushin Maharatz Chayot mentioned it, I think. The scroll of genealogies is something else; I am talking about writing words of… So this prohibition against writing — this prohibition against writing, even before Rabbi permitted it — it turns out that at least Isi, and I think I found a hidden scroll in the academy of Rabbi Chiya. It seems this was a phenomenon; it was not one person who allowed himself this thing. So how did he permit himself to write down the Oral Torah? Even before Rabbi’s permission — even just so as not to forget — apparently it was forbidden. What? They were always writing? No — what do you mean, they were writing? They weren’t writing. Where? No, they did not close the Mishnah, no, not like the Talmud. No, no, they did not write. A tradition passed on orally. A tradition passed on orally; they did not write. Before us it is written because Rabbi decided to write it. It was not written; it was passed on orally. But all that time, privately for themselves, they did write? Who says? It was forbidden! Apparently it was forbidden. That is only apparently. Okay, but apparently because of what we are learning now. But on the face of it, it was forbidden to write. Wait — one at a time, one second. In Rabbi Meir’s Torah they found it written, as though “He made for them garments of skin” with an ayin, or “light” with an aleph — no, that they found written. Okay. What are you saying, Ruti? All along, whenever it was the Torah of an individual, meaning something not said in the study hall publicly… Right — I really think what Ruti is suggesting here, what Ruti is suggesting here, I think that really is the root of the matter. Basically, the Rabbi of Brisk on Temurah elaborates on this issue, though in those Brisker definitions, without explaining. I think what lies behind what he says is that there is some principle not to write down the Oral Torah, because the moment you write something down, it acquires some kind of fixed, canonical status such that one cannot dispute it, one cannot interpret it — it becomes something hard to work with. You cannot apply it in different circumstances, to different people; it turns into Written Torah. Therefore there was a point in not writing the Oral Torah, because the Oral Torah has to remain flexible, fruitful and multiplying, as the Talmud says, and applied in varying circumstances in a way that suits the relevant circumstances each time. What does that mean? It means that what is forbidden is making books of Oral Torah. Not that it is forbidden to write down some halakhah if you want to remember it, but to make, like we have today, volumes of Talmud — books of Oral Torah — that is what was forbidden. Now look. Maybe because the Oral Torah was finally written at the end of the Tannaitic period, maybe because of that it was forbidden for the Amoraim to write? Because you are saying it is connected to canonization. By the way, there really was a major dispute around Maimonides and around the Shulchan Arukh, what is called the controversy over codification and canonization. Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh tried to create a kind of canonical code so that anyone who wants to know the Jewish law can look there and know the law. And most of the sages of their times came out against them, came out against them. No — we do not believe in codes and canonical texts. It is always struggles over canonization. I heard this also about Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah. It was always like that: somebody wants to create a fixation, somebody wants to create something, and people rise up against him. Couldn’t it just be because of some innovation? No, but here there is a principled dispute; it is not just because it is an innovation. I am deliberately bringing this up because this principled dispute over whether it is forbidden to write or yes to print or no, and all kinds of things that existed over the course of… That is why I say: one has to be careful, because one has to be careful with generalizations. I agree that there is some conservative instinct in halakhic thinking, in religious society, and so on. That does not mean that every time a dispute arises it is only that. Sometimes a dispute arises for real reasons. In this specific case, for example, if I had to give my opinion, I would be with those who opposed writing — that is, I would oppose the writing. Because I think the writing caused enormous damage. Again, I do not know how to judge what we would have forgotten without it — maybe nothing would have remained — but I understand why it was forbidden to write. Meaning, this is a prohibition with a lot of logic behind it. Look at what happens here with Isi. Isi wrote the hidden scroll. Here, let’s talk about him himself. He wrote a hidden scroll. What do we read? Ah, so apparently there is no division for sin-offerings. Well, that confuses the… Wait, but there are other places where you see that there is division for sin-offerings. Ah, so he must mean to say that there is one labor for which one is not liable. Which labor is that? Now I have doubts; now I have some Written Torah, I can’t deny it, I don’t know what to do with it. Interpretations begin. Forget it — give me the material in its fluid form; I will understand what is right and what is not right, and I will discuss it. The Oral Torah too has many disputes. I didn’t understand? There is a problem, but I discuss them freely. I am not fixed to texts; I do not have to start polemics because of all kinds of things that got corrupted in the texts, one way or another. Fine, the material gets transmitted and people learn it. We see this with our own eyes, after all — today everything is written down. And because everything is written down, we see the damage… Again, there are benefits in it; I do not know what would have happened. What? So you are in favor of writing? I am saying I am in favor of writing today because it is already a given; there is nothing to do. But in that principled dispute, whether to write or not to write, were it not for the fear of forgetting, it is completely clear why not to write. This is not some textual decree or mere conservatism; there is a very serious consideration here why not to write. Now why am I saying this? Okay, therefore in the end they did permit writing because of forgetting, but there is a price; we have to understand that. The fact that they wrote has a heavy price. We are paying it today. Suddenly people turn the Talmud into something sacred. What is sacred about the Talmud? If they translate it into English, is it less sacred? Why? What, suddenly there is sanctity in the wording? Now kabbalists start doing letter skips in the Talmud. What letter skips in the Talmud? This is just some text that someone decided to write in spoken Aramaic, that’s all. That is exactly what happens when you turn something into a canon. And the point is — look what that really means. Right. Clearly, exactly — that was what the controversy was about. But all these things were also added as developments of thought. If he had said it orally, it would have developed thought even more. The fact that he wrote it limits it. It narrowed it, right. It is like when someone asks you: did you read the book? And you say: I saw the movie. Okay — did you read Isi bar Yehuda’s hidden scroll? No, no, I saw the movie. Anyway, so what comes out of all this is that the prohibition is a prohibition against writing books that will become canon. But if you write yourself a reminder of some halakhah or some reasoning so that you will not forget, there is no problem with that at all. Now look at the wording of the Talmud. Rabbi Yehudah bar Nachmani expounded in Gittin — I’ll share this for a moment. Rabbi Yehudah bar Nachmani, the interpreter of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, expounded: it is written, “Write these words for yourself,” and it is written, “According to these words” — yes? Written and oral. How so? Things that are written you are not permitted to say orally; things that are oral you are not permitted to say in writing. What does it mean, “to say in writing”? You are not permitted to write. “To say in writing.” It is talking about a text that comes to say something, a text directed to the public domain, a text that itself now becomes an object of Torah. If you write yourself a little note, that little note says nothing. You will not be exacting with it, you will not give importance to that text because it is written; you know — you yourself wrote it, you will not turn it into a canon. When you write yourself a reminder. Therefore the plain logic says that clearly people wrote reminders for themselves. This is not a prohibition against writing; it is a prohibition against saying in writing, a prohibition against turning a book into a canon. Look at Maimonides — I brought Maimonides here: “Things that are written, I told you in writing; you are not permitted to transmit them to Israel orally,” and the reverse as well, “to transmit to Israel in writing things that are oral.” Okay, look at Maimonides in the introduction to Mishneh Torah: “From the days of Moses our teacher until our holy Rabbi, no composition was produced from which one taught publicly in the Oral Torah. Rather, in every generation, the head of the court or the prophet of that generation would write for himself a memorandum of the traditions he heard from his teachers, and he would teach publicly by word of mouth.” It says explicitly in Maimonides that people did write in that period. And more than that — one second — it also says that the prohibition is not to write a composition from which one teaches the masses; that is the prohibition, not to write yourself a reminder. On the contrary, people did write reminders. Wait — and the fact that they read from the Torah, Ezra the Scribe read, right? That is Written Torah, and they read it. So what about the first part? Why is it forbidden to say orally things that are written? Again. So why is it forbidden to say orally things that are written? It is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). There is a Tur in section 45, I think; he brings there, he discusses there the question of how we recite the sacrificial passages orally every morning in prayer. “Things that are written you are not permitted to say orally.” So there are two opinions there. One opinion is that it is because perhaps you will forget, perhaps you will get confused and not say it correctly. So for things that are fluent on our lips and there is no concern that we will get confused, then one can also say them orally. There is another opinion there — I do not remember — there are two opinions on this matter. Okay. And whether yes or no. What again? Yes, fine, you said therefore, okay, that is something. No, in the passage from Maimonides at the end, in the measures. Okay, yes, everything. He read all the tavs to me as hets. I took it from a text that was not typed. Is it Torah-level? In the simple reading, they derive it from verses, so apparently it is Torah-level. Even though this prohibition does not appear in the count of the commandments. It is some Torah-level principle, not a prohibition in the formal sense — like half a measure; that also does not appear in the count of the commandments. There are these broad Torah-level principles. They are not counted in the count of the commandments. He is the head of the Sanhedrin, I assume that this is… But notice that the point really is: if this were simply a prohibition against writing the Oral Torah — a prohibition of writing — I would expect it to be a counted prohibition. As we also see according to the definition I am giving here, it is not; it is only the manner of relating to Torah. There is no point in writing it as a formal prohibition; it is not a specific prohibition, not that it is forbidden to write. Rather, the point is: they tell you, leave the Oral Torah oral — that is how the Oral Torah ought to look. Therefore it is not a formal prohibition; there are no technical definitions of when you violate the prohibition and when you do not. Rather, it is a general instruction saying how you are supposed to relate to Torah. And this is not for others but for yourself. For example, Rabbi Soloveitchik would never teach the same tractate in the same way he had taught it in another year. Even with yourself, you can change. Yes, but regarding yourself — even if you write your own summary, I for example write my own summary, and still there is not a class I give in exactly the same way as I gave it the previous time, because you do not assign canonization to what you yourself wrote. So even if you wrote it, you do not feel enslaved to what you wrote; therefore the concern is not there. It does not matter as long as these are things you are writing. Therefore it seems to me simply that all these hairsplittings are unnecessary. It seems to me quite clear that the prohibition against writing is not a technical prohibition against writing, not a formal prohibition on writing the Oral Torah, but rather a prohibition against creating books of Oral Torah. Maybe the idea of the Oral Torah wanted people to learn from one another in a way of feeling and general sense. That is the price. Like the price of fixed prayers, like the price of many things. And from the book itself you can learn subtleties that he wrote and spoke about. So you are saying it is preferable to write unclearly. Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner writes that all the forced interpretations and “something is missing here and this is what it should say” of the Mishnah — why is it like that? What, Rabbi did not know how to write like a normal person? It was so that you would still need someone to teach you the Mishnah, and not learn from the Mishnah itself, so that it should not become completely like Written Torah. Therefore perhaps the difference between Rabbi Steinsaltz and ArtScroll is that ArtScroll really puts it into your head, while Rabbi Steinsaltz leaves it open. Okay, yes, that is the same idea. Fine, back to our matter: regarding the question of that one labor Isi is speaking about — from what is the exemption? So Rashi writes: only from stoning, right? And Tosafot also specifies and brings proofs for this, that it is only exempt from stoning, but for a sin-offering one is liable. To tell the truth, in the Talmud itself — or maybe before that — the Ran in his novellae here, I referred you to the Ran, right? The Ran in his novellae here writes that it is also exempt from karet, exempt from karet. Meaning the exemption is not only from stoning; for a sin-offering there is no exemption, and also no exemption from karet, because karet and sin-offering always go together. That is his claim. It is not so simple, because Rabbeinu Tam in Sefer HaYashar says that one is exempt also from karet and also from stoning. So basically he exempts from both, karet and stoning. He says: regarding liability for a sin-offering, we do not find it; but karet and stoning — he links them, perhaps because of the similarity that both are severe punishments. I do not know why he… The question is: how can there be a sin-offering without karet? To me that is not such a terrible difficulty; I am not so worked up about that question. I think we saw at the beginning of the year — one second, Nechama in the middle here — on that page, that there is a possibility, right, there is a possibility for intentional violation but not for a sin-offering if he remembered in the middle. I understand. We spoke about removing bread from the oven — if he remembered in the middle, then if it was unintentional there is no sin-offering, but if it was intentional there is stoning. For not removing it, maybe? Yes, yes, because there would be no sin-offering because he was intentional, not because he did not commit the transgression, but because a sin-offering is brought only for an unintentional act and not for an intentional one. No, if at first he was unintentional and afterward he remembered. Fine, but if afterward he remembered, then there is a rule in the laws of sin-offerings that you need to have been unintentional all the way through in order to bring the sin-offering. These are the different approaches as to what exactly he is exempt from. Okay. Now the point is that on that page there is more — that is Rabbeinu Tam saying he is exempt also from karet, right? Now, the… Rabbeinu Chananel on 97b, on the hidden scroll — and what does he say? That he is exempt also from the sin-offering, right? That is what comes out from Rabbeinu Chananel. Do you see Rabbeinu Chananel? I highlighted it here: “A hidden scroll in which it was written: the primary categories of labor are forty less one; if one did all of them in one lapse of awareness, he is liable only for one of them,” meaning he is liable only for thirty-eight sin-offerings, for one of them is exempt. What is he assuming? That the exemption is also from the sin-offering — a third approach. Rabbeinu Tam says the exemption is both from stoning and from karet, but the sin-offering remains. Tosafot and Rashi say only from stoning, and the Ran says not from karet. And Rabbeinu Chananel is a third approach, saying that one is exempt even from the sin-offering. And in truth, when you look at the Talmud itself, at the beginning, it is clear that Isi was talking about sin-offerings. Since it says “liable for one” — liable for what? A sin-offering or stoning? Clearly a sin-offering. Why? Because if once… Exactly, both Rashi and Tosafot point this out — Rashi on 92 and Tosafot here — there are not two stonings, so there is no point in saying that one is liable for only one stoning. Therefore at the beginning, when we understood Isi, it was clear that Isi was talking about liability for a sin-offering, not something else. Therefore, apparently, I would expect that even in the final conclusion, when you changed the interpretation of Isi and now you say that it is regarding the division — sorry, that Isi is speaking about division for sin-offerings and you have… sorry, not division for sin-offerings, but that he is speaking about one labor for which one is not liable, right? So there too, apparently, I would expect him to be speaking about the sin-offering. If what it says is “liable,” what does “liable” mean — liable for a sin-offering or liable for stoning? According to all the other medieval authorities except Rabbeinu Chananel, at the beginning “liable” means liable for a sin-offering; in the final conclusion “liable” means liable for stoning, that there is one for which one is not liable for stoning. According to Rabbeinu Chananel, it is perfectly fine: at the beginning it is talking about a sin-offering, and at the end it is also talking about a sin-offering. In that sense Rabbeinu Chananel is better than they are — except that there are all the proofs Tosafot brings showing that in fact they are difficult against the approach of Rabbeinu Chananel. The proofs Tosafot brings show — and there is no time to get into them right now — that the exemption really is from stoning, but for the sin-offering it still remains; karet is not entering now. But wait — so according to Tosafot and Rashi the exemption is only from stoning, and according to the Ran? According to the Ran it is also from karet. Sorry — no, he says that sin-offering and karet always go together. Wait, sorry, one second — no, according to the Ran, according to the Ran it is only from stoning, and the Ran explains Rashi and Tosafot: Rashi and Tosafot write stoning; the Ran says only from stoning, because karet goes with sin-offering, and sin-offering always goes with karet. Even though I might have said that Tosafot and Rashi mean both karet and stoning, like it appears in the Talmud, the Ran explains them not that way, and his reasoning is that karet always goes with sin-offering, sin-offering always goes with karet. But now Rabbeinu Tam comes and says no — you are exempt also from karet; only the sin-offering remains. And now you can go back to Rashi and Tosafot and say maybe they learn like Rabbeinu Tam, so there is no longer any necessity that they learn like the Ran, because they do not say it explicitly. Okay? Rabbeinu Tam or Rabbeinu Chananel? I can’t hear. Rabbeinu Chananel or Rabbeinu Tam? Rabbeinu Tam. Rabbeinu Tam says there is exemption both from stoning and from karet, not from the sin-offering, but from both stoning and karet. He disagrees with the Ran on the point that the sin-offering always comes with karet. Okay? Now after there is such an approach of Rabbeinu Tam — and he probably also knows how to manage with the Talmudic passages — one can think that Rashi and Tosafot learned this way too. They spoke about stoning; I do not know what they said about karet. The Ran says by logic it is obvious that they were not speaking about karet, but according to Rabbeinu Tam it may be that they were, so I do not know. So the two approaches, you can call them the Ran and Rabbeinu Tam; leave Rashi and Tosafot aside, because they can go either way. A third approach is Rabbeinu Chananel, who says that one is also exempt from the sin-offering. Okay? And then it really does mean, according to Rabbeinu Chananel, what I said earlier: there certainly was room to identify this with Rabbi Yosi’s position that kindling came out merely as a prohibition, because then indeed there is no sin-offering, no stoning, and no karet; the labor Isi was talking about is kindling. Okay? Now, now what happens here is: what is the practical law? In the simple reading of our Talmud, it seems to be brought as practical law, without dissent, the words of Isi. What is the practical difference? There are major practical differences. But as practical law, if this is some lone innovation that was not repeated, and no one disputes it, and the baraita comes to say it — the baraita also relates to it — meaning it appears that in the anonymous layer of the Talmud and among all the Tannaim they relate to it, or at least do not dispute it. So even if there is an individual opinion, if we have not found anyone who disputes it, then it is not just an individual opinion and that is the practical law — we have found many laws that are individual opinions and no one disputes them. Which law are we talking about? Which law do you mean when you say practical law? But what law — that one is liable only… Wait, now I am asking: what does it mean, practical law like him or not like him? What is the practical difference? After all, Isi merely says that for one of the labors one is not liable for stoning or karet or sin-offering, all the things we discussed earlier. So exactly — the practical difference is what happens regarding all the labors. Because we do not know which labor it is, after all, so if I did the labor of selecting, you cannot stone me now according to Isi. How do you know? Maybe that is the labor about which it says there is no stoning. And according to Rabbeinu Chananel, I cannot even bring a sin-offering, because who… How do you know? Maybe that is the labor with no sin-offering. Now regarding a sin-offering, maybe I would bring the sin-offering out of doubt. And then there is the question of doubtful non-sacred slaughter in the Temple courtyard; one can discuss that. Because the sin-offering comes to atone for me, it is not a punishment. I want atonement, so because of the doubt I will bring a sin-offering. And the question is whether one can bring a doubtful sin-offering for a doubt. No — a guilt-offering is brought for a doubtful prohibition. Here there is certainly a prohibition; the only doubt is whether I am liable for a sin-offering on it, and that is a major question whether such a sin-offering can be brought. But maybe yes. But regarding stoning, clearly if there is doubt whether I am liable for stoning or not, one does not stone him. Any tiniest doubt exempts him. There is also a doubtful warning. Two witnesses come and warn me: listen, you are doing a transgression and you will become liable for stoning. Who says? Maybe this is the labor of Isi for which there is no stoning. A doubtful warning. But clearly that answer does not make sense, because we ourselves learned in the Talmud that there are possibilities of stoning. If this were true, they would never stone for Sabbath violations. So why did we deal with the sugya of removing bread from the oven, whether he should be stoned or not? After all, it is doubtful, and therefore one does not stone. Fine, so I discuss it. Therefore it is certain that this is not the practical law regarding stoning. Right, it could be that in principle I am discussing the liability of stoning in itself, and afterward I only have a doubt whether there is liability for stoning in that specific labor. That is a different discussion, so I would not apply it. But there is certainly room for the halakhic discussion itself. Why not? It is not practical because of… like today. Today I have no religious court that stones, right? Yet I study sugyot today dealing with the laws of stoning; I cannot apply it. There is no religious court that does that. It doesn’t matter — study and receive reward. I study the sugya. So there too, same thing. You are right that I would expect decisors, especially Maimonides, to state as practical law that stoning is really a hypothetical matter. We do not stone for the labors of the Sabbath. Really, because of doubt, in practice we do not stone. Now the Shulchan Arukh, Rif, all the later decisors — that is not a difficulty, because they do not discuss what they did when there was a court. They discuss laws relevant to the present time, and in the present time, in any case, no one is stoned. But Maimonides rules on all kinds of laws. Even laws for messianic times, laws practiced in the Temple era, laws of holy things and sacrifices and the laws of stonings and burnings and everything. From Maimonides I would expect this to be brought. Maimonides does not bring it; he writes as a simple matter that for every labor, if one transgressed intentionally, he is liable for stoning, period. He does not add a note saying: but we have a doubt, and therefore in practice we do not stone. From there this really is a proof. Because Maimonides is a law book and he rules practical law; he should have brought it. That is proof that Maimonides does not rule this as practical law. And the question is why. Why does he not rule it as practical law? After all, this is an agreed opinion; no one disputes it. I do not know; I did not find another source. Why is the source the Talmud? Which source? What you just brought now. What? Ah, in Sanhedrin — slowly, slowly. So apparently it is not clear why Maimonides does not rule this as practical law. Essentially, aside from… I did not get into the Talmud on 92, but you saw it. There there are gathering sheaves, and carrying four cubits in the public domain, and what is the third there? Detaching. Detaching, yes. So those are the three labors for which also there may be no doubt, each Amora according to his own view. But notice, there too there is a dispute among the Amoraim. So we are still in doubt; even regarding them we are in doubt. The only labor that is really not in doubt, in the final analysis, is only carrying out. Because it says in our sugya that this is not doubtful. Right? Because those three labors — true, there is one Amora who says that one of them is not doubtful, but the other two say otherwise. So in the end, from our perspective, those three are also doubtful. It is interesting because when the Talmud here says that carrying out is among those regarding which we are not in doubt, that implies there is such a group. In practice, in the final analysis, there is no such group; only carrying out is… But carrying four cubits in the public domain — isn’t that like carrying out? What? I didn’t understand. No, that is a certain derivative of carrying out. So with regard to it there is no question. But about carrying out there is. Okay? So I am saying: the point is that in practice, only carrying out actually belongs to the group regarding which there is no doubt at all. As for the other labors — well, it depends. The three mentioned on page 92 — there is one Amoraic opinion on each one that it is not doubtful, but if we did not decide the dispute among those three Amoraim, then from our perspective those three are also doubtful. Then it turns out that really only for carrying out could one be stoned. None of this is mentioned in Maimonides. Oh, so that — no, no, that is unfamiliar to me. It is not mentioned. Now the Talmud — I won’t go into 93 because our time is about to run out — there really is the Talmud in Sanhedrin. The Mishnah there says: one who desecrates the Sabbath by doing a thing for which its intentional violation incurs karet and its unintentional violation incurs a sin-offering. There they list all those liable to stoning; that is the topic of the Mishnayot there in Sanhedrin, and afterward the Mishnayot specify, right? That is a Mishnah on 53. And there they bring all those who are stoned. And in this Mishnah, this is a detail about one who desecrates the Sabbath by doing a thing whose intentional violation incurs karet and whose unintentional violation incurs a sin-offering. So the Talmud there says: this implies that there is something that is a desecration of the Sabbath, yet one is liable neither to a sin-offering for its unintentional violation nor to karet for its intentional violation. Exactly, right. “One who desecrates the Sabbath by doing this kind of thing.” That implies there is also Sabbath desecration that is not this kind of thing. What is that? The Talmud says: boundaries according to Rabbi Akiva, or kindling according to Rabbi Yosi. What about Isi ben Yehuda? There is another labor like that. It is not counted among them. So that is apparently proof that the Talmud here rules not like Isi. Or perhaps even the Mishnah goes not like Isi. And that could be the source for Maimonides not ruling like him. Because Tosafot here, on the spot, addresses this, right? Tosafot here says they did not bring Isi. But maybe he goes like Rabbeinu Chananel. Wait one second — I am just about to comment on Rabbeinu Chananel. Yes? So he says: “For if Isi — not to say that everyone liable for a sin-offering for an unintentional act is liable to death for an intentional act. For Isi, who said in the first chapter of Shabbat: the primary categories of labor are forty less one…” This is Tosafot, yes? Tosafot there in Sanhedrin. And Tosafot holds that the Talmud there does not dispute Isi. Right? Because he is troubled by why they did not mention Isi. So he says: no, because according to Isi it is only exemption from stoning. You see, incidentally, that he learns like the Ran. It is only exemption from stoning. Fine? And we are looking for something exempt both from karet and from stoning. So the claim is that Tosafot really does not see a contradiction here with Isi. But according to Rabbeinu Chananel, clearly there is a contradiction here. Because according to Isi there is something for which clearly one is liable neither to a sin-offering for its unintentional violation nor to death for its intentional violation. If I interpret Isi as saying that this is an exemption from a sin-offering, then really I am saying that he does hold there is division among the labors, and the simple reason for the exemption is because of the doubt regarding the sin-offerings, and therefore he brings only one. I didn’t understand — again, I didn’t understand. We said at the beginning that according to Isi we could claim he says there is no division among the labors, and therefore he brings only one sin-offering. And that was rejected. And that was rejected. But I could also say that because, if he claims there is one labor for which there is exemption from a sin-offering, that is the reason why only one sin-offering is brought, because all the sin-offerings are in fact doubtful, and therefore he has to bring only one. Because there are… and then because all are doubtful, so really he is saying there is division. No, but if you did all the labors, all thirty-nine, you should have to bring thirty-eight sin-offerings, not one. But I have thirty-eight under doubt. No, no, all of them are under doubt. If you did all thirty-nine together, there is no doubt at all. If you did each of the others separately, then you have a doubt, because maybe it is the one Isi spoke about. But if you did all thirty-nine, then clearly you are liable for thirty-eight sin-offerings. Why do I care which one is the exempt one? Yes. Therefore that does not work; there is no doubt at all if you did all the labors. You cannot combine the two interpretations in the Talmud. In any event, for our purposes: the Pri Megadim — I referred you there in the general introduction — explains Maimonides by saying that Maimonides rules not like Isi because of this sugya in Sanhedrin. Among other things. Because this sugya in Sanhedrin is the source that disputes Isi. Okay? And then it really comes out that Isi is not the practical law, and we have no doubt about all the labors, and everything is fine. Again I say: if I connect Isi with Rabbi Yosi, that kindling came out merely as a prohibition, then in practice this question in Sanhedrin also does not arise. Because they brought Rabbi Yosi, which is exactly Isi. So there is no question why they did not bring Isi. There is no doubt, no doubt. Yes, but still, even without Rabbeinu Chananel, you could still say they should have remarked on Isi. It is not such a strong difficulty, but there still would have been room to say that maybe we see from the anonymous Talmud that it disagrees. Okay, I’ll stop here. Fine, thank you very much. Goodbye. So I’m up to here. No, Thursday in any case is on Zoom. Because only Tuesdays are in question. And as for next Tuesday as well, I’ll still check into this and see what is happening, because in my opinion it still doesn’t seem very likely that we’ll arrive. Yes. Again, those who can’t, can’t. Those who can’t, can’t. But whoever can is supposed to come on Tuesdays. Now once there are some who can’t. So it will also have to be on Zoom. Therefore this whole story here — medical or something, I know? Okay. Fine, okay, goodbye.