Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 1 – Lecture 49

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let me explain that again for a moment. One first way to understand even the Or Sameach itself—there are those who wanted to explain Maimonides this way too—is what Chana just suggested. The difference is not between coercion and threat, but between a natural threat and a human threat. In the first case, the threat is one where a person is threatening me—and then what? What happens in such a situation? In such a situation, if you ask yourself who is responsible for the death of the third person—say, he threatens me so that I will kill someone else: Reuven threatens Shimon so that Shimon will kill Levi. Now Shimon killed Levi. I ask: who killed him? The answer is: Reuven. Because really, the consciousness that made the decision, the one that created the situation and led us there, was Reuven’s consciousness. Shimon would not have killed Levi without that threat. That threat moved Shimon to act. But if I ask myself who it was that made the choice that set the whole situation rolling until Levi’s death—hold on, fine. That would be a practical difference. First of all, that’s one initial suggestion: that the first threat Maimonides is talking about is a human threat. When the threat is a human threat, I have someone on whom to pin the blame. The coerced person is not to blame. So I ask myself, then who is to blame? The person making the threat. Because the one making the threat is a human being, he chose this, he could have refrained from doing it, and he wasn’t coerced—so the blame is on him. And since that’s so, then I’m exempt because he is guilty.

By contrast, in the case of illness, the bacteria didn’t choose to lodge in me and threaten me or endanger me. The human consciousness that made the… wait, one second, one second, one second. The human consciousness that made a choice here is my own human consciousness. True, I did it under threat from bacteria and so on, and maybe I’m not all that blameworthy—but there’s nobody else to blame. In the end, the only one who could have stood firm here was me. I could have said: under no circumstances am I killing him, even if I die—and I decided yes to kill him, so the decision is my decision. In the first case, the one who should have stood firm wasn’t me, it was him. He should never have threatened me in the first place. The second case is a natural threat. In a natural threat, I have no other human consciousness on which to pin the blame. Therefore, the one at fault here is me.

[Speaker G] Maybe it isn’t a natural threat—maybe it’s a divine threat? I see. Maybe it’s not a natural threat but a divine threat? I mean, the Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who brought the illness on him; it’s not a threat…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s not part of the game. We’re looking at it…

[Speaker G] Because then all the more so, it’s like a decree was issued against him from above.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I don’t think those things are relevant to our consideration. We’re talking about a natural threat, whether or not the Holy One, blessed be He, stands behind it. That’s a different discussion. So that’s one way to explain it. But when you read the Or Sameach, it seems to me that’s not what he means. Because if he meant that, he could have said it very simply, and his proofs aren’t proofs—it’s not… he means a different distinction. So let’s read him now through these lenses and see what he does mean.

He basically begins with a distinction between the situations by asking what would happen if I stood firm, didn’t kill him, and therefore died. He asks himself… yes, earlier we looked at the question of what happens if I didn’t stand firm—that is, I did kill him. Whom do we blame? Do we blame the one who threatened me or do we blame me? Right? That was the previous perspective, Chanani. Meaning: I want to see, at the moment when he did kill—meaning he didn’t comply with the requirements of Jewish law, he violated Jewish law—I ask myself whether he is guilty or not, or whether someone else is guilty. That was the previous distinction.

The Or Sameach looks at the other side of the coin. He compares the cases in the situation where I do stand firm. I don’t kill him. Now let’s see what happens. If I don’t kill him, then I die, right? That’s the result. So I die, not Shimon, okay? Now he asks himself: why did Shimon die? Did Shimon die because he didn’t kill Levi? Well, it depends. In the case of the threat—yes. He dies only because he didn’t kill Levi. In the case of illness, he dies because the illness is dangerous. He could have been saved if he had killed Levi, but that’s a possibility of being saved; the threat itself was not created in order for him to kill Levi—it doesn’t arise only if he doesn’t kill Levi. The threat is an existing threat. I can save myself from it if I kill Levi. That’s a legal distinction, of course, not a factual one.

[Speaker D] I understand. What practical difference does that make? Why is this line of reasoning relevant?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait—the Or Sameach himself explains. So that’s how he begins. He starts with that distinction. Let me go back to him; now let’s read what he does with it. “But here, the illness that came upon him came without being caused by anything, only that he can save himself through the blood of so-and-so or through that particular idolatry.” Right—the illness threatens him not because he didn’t kill so-and-so; the illness threatens him because it is a dangerous illness. It’s just that he can save himself if he commits the transgression of murder or idolatry and the like.

If so, says the Or Sameach—and this is it, this is the punch line—“this is a completely incidental desire, by his own will, for his life.” What does that mean? It means that if so, this is a calculation that you made. You made a calculation here. And you preferred your life over his. That’s a decision in every sense. And for that decision, you bear responsibility. Because you… he says, just as every murderer wants to vent his rage or see revenge. What does that mean? Every person who murdered someone had reasons why he did it. One did it to blow off steam, another did it to get his money. So you can’t say that the fact that you have a reason—or maybe even a justified reason—means that this isn’t your action, that you’re not responsible for it. You are responsible for it, and that was the calculation you made, and the calculation you made was to prefer your life over his life. An illegitimate calculation. That’s what the consequences are. You made that calculation, so you are a murderer acting on an illegitimate calculation. And since that’s so, you are liable to death—that’s the claim.

[Speaker I] Thank God. Can I speak for a second?

[Speaker D] But why isn’t the calculation in coercion the same thing?

[Speaker I] I just wanted this morning to catch the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Someone is talking in the background—I can’t tell who it is and I can’t hear.

[Speaker D] But why is the calculation… the calculation in coercion is exactly the same thing too. You preferred life… because there too, you’re facing a situation and you preferred that he die rather than you. Exactly the same thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but there the calculation doesn’t exist. When I decided to murder, there still wasn’t any threat hanging over me at all. The threat is created only if I decide not to murder. That’s the difference between that and illness. He doesn’t really want to kill me; he isn’t threatening me in any way. He’s only trying to force me to kill so-and-so. Meaning, at the moment, there is no threat on me at all. It’s not that I made a calculation based on the circumstances I’m in and reached a decision. The circumstances I’m in do not include a threat. There is no threat on me. Only if I don’t kill so-and-so will danger to me be created, because he doesn’t really want my life; he isn’t threatening me. Why? He isn’t threatening me.

[Speaker D] He’s standing in front of you with a gun to your head and telling you that if you don’t kill him…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That I know. The facts are certainly like that. The question is what legal interpretation I give them. What the Or Sameach is basically saying is: it’s not like an illness, where the illness is in you and will kill you if you do nothing. There, in the end, there really is no threat on you at all—he doesn’t want to kill you. If you don’t kill Levi, then he’ll kill you. Meaning, the circumstances that cause you to kill Levi don’t even exist yet at this stage. They exist only if you don’t kill Levi. There is no threat on you right now, so you can’t say that you made a decision because of circumstances. He made the decision, not you. Because as for you, the circumstances aren’t really supposed to cause you to make that decision—the circumstances don’t yet exist. The threat arises only after you made the decision.

[Speaker D] I have to say, I find that hard to accept. I connect much more with the second argument—that the coercer is responsible, and when there is someone responsible, you don’t punish the second person simply because the responsible party should bear the consequences.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s legitimate; so you can accept the second rationale. I’m just trying to explain what he says.

[Speaker D] The Or Sameach—I just can’t understand… I really can’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll try to sharpen it a bit more—maybe it’ll come out clearer. He goes on to say: “And something similar you will find in the legal decisors in Choshen Mishpat, section 388, in the Shakh, etc., if they coerced him to point out his fellow’s property under duress.” Right—they threaten him so that he will point out someone else’s property under coercion. That’s the law of an informer. So there too, he’s essentially making the same distinction.

And then he says: “But from where did our master derive this?” Let’s try to see. “But from where did our master derive this? It appears that his source is from the Jerusalem Talmud, chapter ‘One may not let stand’ in tractate Avodah Zarah: ‘And one life is not set aside for another life. In the end: a gentile regarding a gentile; a gentile from an Israelite is liable; an Israelite regarding a gentile is exempt.’ And apparently this refers to what was said just before, that one may not heal oneself through bloodshed, and regarding this it says that a gentile regarding a gentile is liable.”

What does that mean? That if a gentile, in order to heal himself, has to kill another gentile, he is liable to death, even though he killed him in order to be healed. But an Israelite regarding a gentile is exempt, according to his law. Why is an Israelite who killed a gentile exempt? Because an Israelite who killed a gentile—even aside from the fact that he was under duress—does not incur the death penalty for killing a gentile. So what comes out of the Jerusalem Talmud is that a threat of illness, or healing, really means each person is punished according to the law that applies to him. The proof is that the gentile is punished according to his law and the Jew is punished according to his law. That is the source for Maimonides that healing is not ordinary coercion, but rather there is punishment for the one who transgressed.

And if an Israelite healed himself through the murder of an Israelite, then he too is liable. And it teaches us an added novelty, that even a gentile is liable, even though he is not commanded regarding sanctification of God’s name, because a Noahide is executed even if he says, “It is permitted” to heal through murder, according to his law. However it may be, it is explicit that when one heals himself in this way, he is punished with the punishment appropriate to him.

So he says: that is the source for Maimonides’ ruling, not for the explanation. The explanation he proposed is an explanation—but Maimonides’ law, regardless of the explanation, stands on this source. That’s why he says at the end: “However it may be, it is explicit that when one heals himself in this way, he is punished with the punishment appropriate to him.” In that Jerusalem Talmud, we see the distinction between coercive situations and illness—that we do see: in cases of illness, there is punishment for the transgression. So that is the source for Maimonides; the distinction is a real distinction.

I want to sharpen a bit more what the significance of this distinction is. Not that the Or Sameach… you can certainly argue with him, but I still want to bring him a bit closer to common sense. Look, there’s an American Jewish philosopher named Robert Nozick. Maybe I once spoke about this—I don’t remember anymore. In ancient times I spoke about it in the context of the difference between positive and negative commandments. He asked: the law forbids extortion. I’m not allowed to extort a person. But to entice him is allowed. Meaning, I say to someone: look, if you do something, you’ll get 100 shekels. If you don’t do it, you won’t get them. That’s obviously permitted, right? A job offer, basically. That’s called enticement. I’m enticing him to do something by offering him 100 shekels if he does it. That’s allowed; he can accept or reject the offer. Right—except for offers you can’t refuse.

In extortion, apparently, it’s a similar situation. I say to him: look, if you don’t do this, I’ll take 100 shekels from you. If you do it, everything will be fine. Okay? Here too, in principle, he can choose not to do it, and then I won’t necessarily take anything from him. I’m just trying to maneuver him into doing something. So I’m saying to him: look, there’s a difference of 100 shekels between the state where you do it and the state where you don’t. But that’s true both in enticement and in extortion. Basically, there’s a gap of 100 shekels between the option of doing and not doing. So he asks: why is enticement permitted and extortion forbidden? What’s the difference between them?

[Speaker G] Here you’re giving him something, and there you’re taking something from him. I see. In enticement you give him something, and in extortion you take something from him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So really the argument is this. True, there is a gap of 100 shekels between the options if you do or don’t do the act. But in one case it’s between zero and one hundred, and in the other case it’s between minus one hundred and zero. Now, the tempter offers him two options: either zero or one hundred. Both options lie within his rights. He is allowed not to give him any money, and he is allowed to give him 100 shekels of his own. Both options are permitted. The extortionist offers him two options, only one of which is permitted. Not giving him any money is permitted—but taking 100 shekels from him is forbidden. And when I place him in a dilemma in which one of the two options is, from my perspective, a criminal option—something I’m not allowed to do—then even though he has the other option, which would keep us within the boundaries of the law, he could do what I demand and I won’t take anything from him and then everything is fine—what’s the problem? The problem is that I compelled him to do it by presenting another option that is unlawful: that if he doesn’t do it, I’ll take his money.

Actually, you can formulate it differently. You can say this: if I offer him enticement, then I give him 100 shekels because he did it. If I offer him extortion, then really the threat exists over him in any case; he can save himself from it if he does something else. Meaning, in the first case he does something in order to gain 100 shekels. In the second case, they are about to take 100 shekels from him, and he can avoid that if he does something. Do you follow me?

[Speaker D] You said that the threat exists in any case. I see. You said that in the case of extortion the threat exists in any case?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, the threat exists in any case?

[Speaker D] Right—you said that in the case of extortion the threat exists in any case?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the case of extortion—no, the threat exists; what do you mean “in any case”? The threat exists, but I can save myself from it if I do it.

[Speaker D] But you said that the Or Sameach says that in the case—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait—before the Or Sameach, before, before, before the Or Sameach. I’m not making a comparison; I’m trying to show the type of reasoning. It’s not identical; it’s not the same thing. What I’m trying to show is that there are situations where there is a threat and I can save myself from it, and there are situations where I make a decision in order to gain. In the case where I make a decision in order to gain, that is my decision. In the case where someone threatens me and I can save myself, that is the decision of the one making the threat. Even though in both cases apparently I’m doing something in order to gain 100 shekels or not lose them—that is, to come out with 100 shekels more in my overall assets—there is still an essential difference. I’m not making a comparison; I’m saying that in seemingly similar situations, sometimes I can define it legally as a case where I’m doing something in order to be saved, but the threat exists over me regardless, and sometimes it’s not like that—the threat arises only if I didn’t do it.

[Speaker D] So one could say that the sick person—the sick person is in the situation of enticement: he’s already sick, he’s going to die, and the whole question is whether he needs to do something. It’s like enticement—whether he can do something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The sick person—the sick person parallels enticement, and the threat parallels extortion.

[Speaker G] The coerced one—

[Speaker D] Exactly, the coerced person parallels extortion.

[Speaker G] So it’s as if the sick person has more free choice than the coerced person.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s basically the claim. So again, the resemblance is not one-to-one, but the distinction is a distinction with a similar logic. I’ll bring you another example. There’s Maimonides—it starts in the Talmud, but Maimonides codifies it as Jewish law this way, at the end of the laws of one who injures and damages: “A ship that was thought likely to break because of the weight of the cargo, and one of them stood up and lightened the load and threw some of it into the sea, is exempt.” Right? Basically there’s a ship overloaded, and that overload threatens to sink the ship. Now someone comes and throws part of the cargo into the sea so the ship will be saved. Is he obligated to pay the owner of the cargo? The answer is that he is exempt. Why? Maimonides says: because the cargo is like a pursuer after them to kill them, and he did a great commandment by throwing it overboard and saving them. What does that mean? This cargo basically has the legal status of a pursuer—it is about to kill all of us. I threw it into the sea and thereby saved us. So if I did it lawfully, I am not required to pay the owner of the cargo. Just as I am allowed to kill a pursuer, I am also allowed to damage a pursuer, so long as I need that in order to save myself.

[Speaker G] So coercion is a pursuer? No—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I hear.

[Speaker G] Coercion—the coercion is a pursuer? What? The coercion, the coercion is a pursuer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait—don’t jump ahead. One second. I’m not yet going to the Or Sameach; let’s stay with Maimonides. There’s another Maimonides, and the Raavad asks about it and doesn’t understand—it goes against the Talmud and it’s not similar and all sorts of things like that. Maimonides, in the laws of robbery and lost property, brings a very similar law: “A ship that was traveling at sea and a wave rose up against it to sink it, and they lightened its load, throwing cargo into the sea—they assess according to the cargo weight and not according to wealth,” contrary to changing the sailors’ custom. In such a case they pay the owner of the cargo, but the way the payment is apportioned is according to the amount of cargo each person had on the ship, not according to how rich you are.

[Speaker G] But here the pursuer was the sea, and there the pursuer was the cargo.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, slowly, slowly. First of all, there is apparently a contradiction in Maimonides here. On the one hand he says that when I throw the cargo into the sea to save myself, I’m exempt, right? Here he says no—I have to pay. He explains how they pay, but that’s not important; here I have to pay. The question is what the difference is. The difference is, as Ruti said, that in the first case, what threatens to sink the ship is the cargo—the weight of the cargo—so the cargo has the legal status of a pursuer. I threw it into the sea because it threatened me. In the second case, what threatens to sink the ship is the wave; there’s a storm at sea. So if I throw the cargo overboard, I can save myself. There I pay. Do you see the difference? Now that really is just like Maimonides; it’s the same thing as our discussion.

In this case from the laws of robbery and lost property, it parallels illness. Why? Because there is a storm upon me. The storm threatens to drown me—that’s like the illness. It doesn’t do this so that I will throw the cargo into the sea; that’s irrelevant. It threatens me; there is a threat upon me. I can save myself from it if I throw the cargo into the sea. In the first case, there is no threat upon me at all if I don’t throw the cargo into the sea. The threat to me is because of the weight of the cargo; if I throw it out, then there’s no problem, everything is fine. There is no external, independent threat upon me. Now notice: this distinction is made even though in both cases the threat is not a human threat but a natural one. So here there is no distinction anymore between a human being threatening and a natural threat. But—

[Speaker G] If we compare the case of coercion in our Maimonides with the case of the cargo, then basically the pursuer is the coercer. If he were… the pursuer—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s the cargo.

[Speaker G] Right, but in our case the pursuer is the coercer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean by “our case”?

[Speaker G] Here, what we’re talking about—illness and…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The pursuer is the coercer. But we’re not talking about the coercer right now; we’re not talking about killing the pursuer, so that comparison is not relevant. I’m asking only the question: when is this act my decision, and when is this act forced upon me? The claim is that if a wave is bearing down on you, then the cargo on the ship does not have the status of a pursuer. It is not pursuing me. What is pursuing me is the wave. In the first case, the cargo is what endangers me—it is the pursuer.

[Speaker G] Which is analogous to coercion?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait—if I throw it into the sea, I did what I needed to do; I resolved the threat that was hanging over me, that was presented to me. So in such a case, of course I shouldn’t have to pay. What do you mean—don’t threaten me and then I won’t kill you, I won’t throw you into the sea. So in the case where the wave threatens me, the decision to throw the cargo is considered my decision, not something forced on me—even though I would have died without it, it is not forced on me. Why? Because the threat is the threat of the wave and not of the cargo; the cargo is guilty of nothing here. I threw the cargo into the sea because I couldn’t save myself otherwise; fine, but pay up, because the cargo is guilty of nothing here—that was your decision. By contrast, in the case where the cargo itself threatens me, the decision is not mine; the decision is the cargo’s. The cargo is what created the situation. So it’s not my decision; it was forced on me.

[Speaker G] So the coercer too created the situation—if it were possible to kill him, then one would have to…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I didn’t understand—

[Speaker G] If the coerced person could eliminate the coercer, who is the pursuer—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course. I’m saying again: I’m not making a comparison with killing the coercer. That’s the ordinary law of a pursuer; obviously that’s allowed. Killing the coercer—that’s obvious. I’m talking here about something else: the question is whether the decision is my decision or not. That’s not Maimonides’ discussion here.

Look, for example, even in capital cases there’s a difference. You know that if someone threatens me with a gun in order that I kill so-and-so, I’m not allowed to kill so-and-so, right? I have to die rather than kill so-and-so. Okay? What happens if Reuven is pursuing Shimon? Am I allowed to kill Reuven in order to save Shimon?

[Speaker E] Obviously yes—that’s the law of a pursuer.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the law of a pursuer, right, certainly yes. What’s the difference? In both cases I’m not allowed to prefer one life over another—“what makes you think your blood is redder?” What do they say to me? Reuven threatens Shimon to kill Levi. Now Shimon asks himself whether to kill Levi or die himself. The Talmud says to him: your blood is no redder than Levi’s blood. We don’t make comparisons between human blood, the redness of human blood. You can’t prefer one over the other. But in the law of a pursuer, that is exactly what I do. I prefer the life of the pursued over the life of the pursuer.

[Speaker G] Because you’re killing the one who preferred his own blood over Levi’s blood. I didn’t understand? When you killed… if Shimon kills Reuven, who is pursuing Levi, he is killing a person who preferred his own blood over Levi’s blood.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine—but still, I’m preferring one person’s blood over another’s. What’s the difference? The difference is the same difference as with the cargo. When you are a pursuer, the law of a pursuer applies to you—you are guilty. Since you are guilty, you are the one who created the situation. My decision to kill you is not my decision; it is your decision—bear the consequences. But if they threaten me so that I kill Levi, then my decision to kill Levi is my decision, not the threatener’s. And I’m not allowed to do that.

Here I’m speaking not about punishment but about the very permission to perform the act. Okay? This distinction is a distinction very similar to this Maimonides, except that Maimonides is speaking about cargo threatening me—property threatening me—and not blood threatening me. But the distinction is the same distinction. Does the law of a pursuer apply or not? Okay? In the case of an external threat—that I should kill so-and-so, otherwise they will kill me—there is basically a law of a pursuer here. Or in other words, the one who created the situation is the pursuer. But not because he is guilty, as Hani said earlier. Even if he were inanimate cargo, I would still say that he created the situation and he has to bear the consequences. So I’m saying: this is not the same distinction as between a living person and a natural thing. The distinction lies in the situation. Did you create the threatening situation here—“you” meaning not a person, but some external factor that created the threatening situation—or is this basically my decision? That is the division.

Fine—if you accept it, you accept it; if not, not. Those are two possibilities for explaining Maimonides. By the way, there are a few more, but I won’t go into them further. Fine. That was the first chapter. As for the second part, as I said, I want to touch on public considerations. And here I want to say a few things. Public considerations can basically be divided into… several types.

The first type is a statistical consideration. What does that mean? There is a glowing piece of metal in the public domain—you saw the Talmud on page 42. A glowing piece of metal in the public domain—one is permitted to extinguish it. There is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) what exactly was permitted there—according to most opinions, a rabbinic prohibition, but there is a view among the Geonim, the Behag and another Geonic position, that they permitted even Torah-level prohibitions. And everyone wonders why. This is not danger to life in the direct sense that would permit…

[Speaker J] Can I ask something about the previous topic?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Briefly, okay.

[Speaker J] If there’s a situation where someone is sick with a disease dangerous to me and wants to infect me—is it permitted for me to prevent that, to kill him? According to the… yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he’s a pursuer—if he wants to, even if not intentionally, but he is about to infect you—I think even then it is permitted to kill him. Thank you. That’s the law; that’s the law of a minor pursuer.

[Speaker E] Rabbi, good thing COVID is behind us then. A little…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m talking about direct dangers, not broad statistics—that’s not related at all. I’m saying, but in a moment, after I talk about public considerations. In the private case, you need there to be a direct and clear threat, not something that statistically could harm in some way. That’s not called the law of a pursuer.

[Speaker B] Good that you came down toward us. So here it is—the glowing piece of metal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. So let’s go back for a moment to the public calculation. So according to the Behag and the Geonim, regarding the glowing piece of metal, one may violate a Torah-level prohibition. The question is why. The simple view is—and I referred you to an article by Hanan Ariel, my student, because this is basically the kind of considerations he discusses there, and when I accompanied the writing I also told him to emphasize this distinction.

He himself brings there a story about Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu. An army officer came to him, and the army procedure was that after a soldier comes down from guard duty and still has a magazine inserted in the weapon, an officer has to unload the weapon for him. Only an officer can remove the magazine from the weapon. What happens then is that the magazine must be removed, and one must check whether a bullet accidentally remained in the chamber. Because otherwise, if a bullet remained in the chamber, it could discharge and kill someone. How do you do that? By day, you put in a finger and check and make sure there’s no bullet in the chamber. At night, you turn on a flashlight. What happens when guard duty ends on the Sabbath? Is the officer allowed to turn on a flashlight in order to check the chamber?

Now the risk in such a case is negligible. Because there is almost no chance that a bullet remained in the chamber. Nobody cocks the rifle in such a way that without cocking it a bullet enters. Second, you can also check with your finger at night, feel around and see. And third, even if a bullet did remain there, what are the chances that it will discharge, and even if it does, who says it will hit anyone or go in the direction of a person? The chance is negligible. There is no permission in the laws of the Sabbath to turn on a flashlight in such a situation. I wouldn’t permit even a rabbinic prohibition for something like this. But—the question is what it means to turn on a flashlight. Yet Rabbi Eliyahu permitted it. And why? He says like this: if you had come to me as a private individual, I would tell you it is forbidden. Again, I’m reconstructing—I didn’t hear the story directly, I only heard it through Hanan Ariel—but this is what I would have told him in short. I don’t know exactly what Rabbi Eliyahu told him.

If you come to me as a private individual, the chance that you will be harmed is negligible, the chance that someone else will be harmed is negligible, and that does not justify Sabbath desecration. But now, when I am issuing a ruling—and in Rabbi Eliyahu’s position, as Chief Rabbi, and he had the standing of a recognized halakhic decisor—the expectation is that this will effectively become a ruling for all religious officers. And if I forbid all religious officers to turn on a flashlight, then out of I don’t know how many thousands and thousands and thousands of cases of checking chambers on Sabbath nights on all IDF bases over all the years by all the officers—that’s a great many cases—even if the risk is only one in ten thousand that someone will be harmed, after ten thousand cases, in expected value, one person will be harmed. And since the ruling is a public ruling, I issue a ruling that all ten thousand officers may do it, even though only one of them will probably actually end up causing harm. All of that is basically a statistical calculation. What does that mean? There really is no difference here between public and individual; the public is just many individuals. What for one individual is a chance of one in ten thousand, for which we don’t desecrate the Sabbath—if you have ten thousand people, then certainly for that we do desecrate the Sabbath. Okay.

[Speaker E] It’s like—and there’s an additional risk there. I heard several answers of that type, that it’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s another discussion, but let’s leave it aside for now. Leave it aside for now. Right now I want to focus on this because I’m using this example only for a specific purpose. So that—that is a statistical consideration.

I’ll give another example. Say there are missiles; there’s a missile siren from Gaza. Okay? It always amuses me to go into the safe room. The chance that I’ll be hit is zero. There’s no chance of getting hit; it’s nonsense. It’s just psychological fear. The chance of getting hurt when you go down to the road is much higher. So it’s obvious that there’s nothing dangerous here, nothing frightening here—it’s nonsense. And certainly missiles from Iraq—there’s really nothing to talk about there, because there you at least had a siren for a certain area. So in that area, maybe you’re in a slightly more dangerous zone. But Iraqi missiles falling over the whole country—there was a siren throughout the whole country. What are the odds that it falls on me? I’m not talking about a chemical missile; I’m talking about a ballistic missile, right? So what are the odds that it falls on me? Nothing. It has no significance.

On the other hand, if all people were as dismissive as I am and didn’t go into the safe room, then there’s a decent chance that one of them would get hit by one of the missiles in one of the places. After many times, one person will get hit. So what should be done? The instruction has to be that everyone goes into the safe room. Even though if I were to ask the officer, the head of Home Front Command—if I asked him personally, and he answered me only in secret—I’d say to him: tell me, is it worth going into the safe room? He would have to tell me: forget it, it’s nonsense. But the moment he gives a public instruction, that public instruction is for millions of people, and if the chance is one in a million of being hit, and there are millions of people, then a few people will be hit.

[Speaker D] I want to ask for a moment: where do you draw the line statistically? At what point, percentage-wise, does it start being dangerous? Because, you know, statistically they say—fine, very nice that you claim you won’t get hurt, the chance is negligible—but in the end someone does get hurt, and from the point of view of the person who gets hurt, it’s not 0.00-something; it’s yes or no. So statistics is something very theoretical.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s demagoguery. Statistics is the most concrete and least theoretical thing there is. When we go down to the road, we have a higher chance of being hurt. Do you go down or not?

[Speaker D] I do go down, but that’s already out of necessity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do you go down only in a case of necessity, when you absolutely have to drive to work or something, or also to visit friends, to go out?

[Speaker D] First of all, people do limit themselves nowadays. There are many people who reduce travel. And second, that’s already a question of lifestyle. But in war—if they told you now not to leave the safe room for ten years, then you would leave; but the second time you have to run to the safe room, you’ll run.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hani, I know these distinctions too, and I’m only trying to show you that statistics is something very concrete and we all use it all the time. And I use it also in the context of war. Now if someone else doesn’t want to, good health to him. But you can’t tell me that statistical considerations aren’t something one can act on. That’s nonsense. Obviously, if in the end I get hurt, I’ll be very sorry that I did it. But the chance that I get hurt is negligible, and I take it. That’s all. That’s what we do all the time.

[Speaker G] But if you get hurt, will we be able to go outside? There was a rabbi whom they asked now during the war what to do with children sleeping at night—whether to wake them up and take them down to the building’s shelter. So he said: the chance is so negligible, don’t wake the children.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, of course. Meaning, in a place where there’s a dilemma—the practical implication, in a place where there’s a dilemma whether to go down—there is a cost to going down, so don’t go down. Absolutely not. Someone asked me on the website: there is a COVID patient—

[Speaker G] Yes, so the head of Home Front Command called—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that rabbi.

[Speaker G] I can’t hear. The head of Home Front Command—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can’t hear you well, I don’t know. The hearing is not—

[Speaker G] The commander of Home Front Command called that rabbi and said to him: this time the sirens are really targeted to a certain area. There’s a dilemma.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leave the nonsense aside. In short, the chance that you’ll be harmed is negligible.

[Speaker H] The area at which—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The area to which the siren is directed is an area containing thousands of apartments, thousands of houses, so the chance that you’ll be harmed is negligible. And even if it’s targeted and not over the entire country, it doesn’t matter. This is a level of risk we take all the time. It’s a level of risk we take all the time.

I just want to say something—wait—you raised this earlier, yes. The practical implication, for example: what happens if someone asked me on the website what happens if there is a COVID patient? Should he go down to the shelter, and then there is a risk that he will infect others? Again, COVID infection too is not all that dangerous, especially now that most are vaccinated. But suppose we are talking about a case where they were not vaccinated and the risk was a bit more significant—I told him: obviously don’t go down. Obviously don’t go down. Because all your going down does is add your tiny contribution to the overall statistics. And if there is a concrete, specific risk with respect to you, then of course that overrides it. When there is no other consideration, then everyone has to go down, because we all ought to behave in that way so that there won’t be one person who gets hurt. But for the one-in-a-million risk that I will be hurt, to take on something that itself has a one-in-a-thousand risk of causing harm—that makes no sense. So yes, it has implications. Statistics—you have to work with both your head and your gut, in short, even when you’re afraid.

Anyway, back to our topic. So that is the statistical consideration. His article was devoted to… he argued that there is an obligation to travel by public transportation and that one should forbid travel by private cars because of the danger of traffic accidents. He came up with the claim that every year hundreds of people die in traffic accidents. And if everyone traveled by public transportation, that would go down almost to zero. Maybe not literally, but almost. It would go down almost to zero. So that would save the lives of hundreds of people a year. And for the sake of comfort—you’ll take public transportation; it’ll take you a little longer, it’ll be a little more cumbersome—but that’s just comfort. Hundreds of people every year. More than COVID, much more than COVID when you calculate over time.

[Speaker G] More than terrorism.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Much more than terrorism too, of course. In all of COVID how many died? Seven hundred? Something like that? In two years. In two years seven hundred people died.

[Speaker G] Six thousand something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Six thousand five hundred.

[Speaker D] Six thousand five hundred or so. Nine thousand four hundred by now—let’s not round down.

[Speaker G] Four hundred? Here in Israel? Yes, yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, okay. For some reason I had seven hundred stuck in my head.

[Speaker D] It’s six thousand four hundred. This isn’t Denmark, not Sweden—Israel.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Six thousand four hundred people died in Israel? Yes. Ah, is that what you’re saying? I wasn’t keeping track. So I was on a completely different order of magnitude. Fine, anyway, it doesn’t matter.

[Speaker D] But there weren’t traffic accidents during COVID.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but for our purposes: statistical considerations are very significant considerations. But that’s only one side of the coin. There is a transition from individual considerations to public considerations that is not connected to statistics. And people don’t notice this. That is the point that all the references I sent you are basically trying to sharpen. And I sent several different references dealing with different aspects, so I want to bring some order here.

The first distinction is the following. Let’s talk about the statistical consideration itself. Now I ask: Rabbi Eliyahu asked himself what instruction to give the officers—whether to turn on the flashlight on the Sabbath or not. So he reached the conclusion, from a statistical consideration, that one has to instruct them to turn on the flashlight. I understand. Now I am an officer in the IDF, a religious officer in the IDF. I ask myself whether to obey the instruction—not what instruction to give. In this case there is no statistical consideration at all. There is absolutely no reason in the world for me to desecrate the Sabbath. Because the chance that if I do not turn on the flashlight I will cause any harm at all is simply zero. True, at a probability of one in ten thousand, if there are ten thousand cases one person will be harmed. But now I’m talking about my personal consideration, not Rabbi Eliyahu’s consideration, who is speaking to all the officers.

[Speaker C] But—

[Speaker G] What about the categorical imperative, that this is Torah-level?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’ll get to that in just a moment. So the claim, really my claim, is that when I look at this from the perspective of the officer, not from the perspective of the one giving the order, and from the perspective of the private individual—if I ask myself now whether to go into the safe room. Not whether I, as the commander of Home Front Command, should issue an order for everyone to go into safe rooms. Of course I should. But now I’m asking myself, as a private citizen, should I go into the safe room? Why in the world would I? There’s absolutely no reason. The chance that I’ll get hurt is negligible. You can go on sleeping peacefully. Except that this is where the categorical imperative comes in. The categorical imperative basically says this: you have to act in such a way that you would want your action to become a general law. What does that mean? A lot of people misunderstand the categorical imperative. I didn’t refer you to my columns that deal directly with the categorical imperative. There are such columns too. And there I try to sharpen the point that a great many people don’t understand. People interpret the categorical imperative in a statistical way, and that’s wrong. The categorical imperative has nothing to do with a statistical interpretation. What do I mean? At least not directly. Think, for example, about the question: why not… why go vote in elections? Okay? Contemporary questions. Why go vote in elections? After all, the fact that my vote…

[Speaker G] And why do they steal your votes? And why do they steal your votes? I can’t hear. And why do they steal your votes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no one is stealing anything, stop with that tremolo already. The claim is that my vote, when I go to elections, has no effect in any way. No effect. The only case would be if a party got a number of votes equal to an exact number of seats minus one, and then my vote gives it the extra seat. Then I change the situation. In every other case—notice—it’s not that my influence is small; I have no influence. Zero. I went to vote for nothing. I wasted fifteen minutes of my time, or half an hour of my time, for absolutely no reason. The only chance that I’ll have any influence—and even then, let’s say I influence one seat for one party, some slightly different distribution—is one in forty thousand. A one-in-forty-thousand chance is a joke. Nobody does anything for a one-in-forty-thousand chance of affecting something. So my son keeps insisting that he’s not going to vote in elections, because it doesn’t affect anything at all. Beyond that, of course, it doesn’t affect anything anyway because everyone does the same thing—but that’s another discussion. But the point is that even if I believe it matters which party wins and how much power each party has, there’s no chance my vote will make a difference. So why go? So in arguments with him—and I’ve already had millions of arguments with him, with all kinds of people, and with his brothers too, I’ve suffered through this, it’s coming out of my ears—people constantly tell him: wait, but what will happen if everyone does what you do? So he says to them: fools of the world, I’m not going to vote, but I’m not telling anyone else that I’m not going to vote. Other people make their own calculations. Either they’ll go vote or they won’t. But whether they go or don’t, my decision concerns only my vote. I have no effect on others; I’ll hide it, I won’t even tell them I didn’t vote, so even if I had some magical influence on other people, it wouldn’t matter. So now the question is only about me, that’s all. Now of course everyone in the public can make this calculation, but the decision I make has no effect whatsoever on the decisions of other people. So ‘what will happen if everyone does what you do’ is an irrelevant argument. That is basically the statistical argument. He answers them: ladies and gentlemen, the statistical argument is good for election propaganda—when they say, go vote, go make an impact. That’s true, because they’re in Rabbi Eliyahu’s position—they need to tell everyone to go vote because that’s the general instruction. But I, as a private citizen who is considering whether to obey that instruction, obviously the answer is no. There’s no logic to it, absolutely no reason in the world to waste even a minute on it. It has no effect whatsoever. That’s what he argued.

[Speaker G] But that’s like what Maimonides says, that a person should always see himself as if his action is the one that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, the one that tips the world this way or that way. You need… fine, but okay, you’re not the only wise person.

[Speaker D] There are lots of wise people like you who would say that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so all the wise people like me—none of that helps. If they don’t go vote, they won’t go regardless of what I decide. And if they do go vote, then they went even if I didn’t. So what difference does what I did make? But you’re not making your

[Speaker D] calculations by yourself, you’re…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be that everyone will do as I do, that’s true, but they’re not doing it because I’m doing it. So my decision has no effect. It could be that no one will vote, and that has nothing to do with whether I voted or not. Therefore it’s an irrelevant argument.

[Speaker D] If they’re doing it from the same considerations that you…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, from the same considerations.

[Speaker D] And therefore if everyone thinks that’s the proper consideration, then everyone…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but if everyone thinks that’s the proper consideration and I go vote—will that help anything? It won’t help at all.

[Speaker D] But if everyone knows that it’s not a proper consideration because of the categorical imperative, then it will help.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, and then I’ll stay home. All the suckers of the categorical imperative will go vote, and I’ll stay home. And nothing happened; I didn’t affect anything.

[Speaker D] But they won’t do it, just like you don’t do

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it. A person doesn’t live in a bubble. So if they won’t do it, then what good will it do if I go vote? They won’t do it anyway. What difference does it make that I voted? My decisions don’t affect the decisions of others. There’s nothing to be done, you can’t attack this from any direction. There is no statistical justification for going to vote. By the way, same thing with tax evasion. I’m considering whether to evade a thousand shekels in taxes. If the state treasury is missing a thousand shekels, that has zero effect. Not a small effect—zero. Zero effect. Absolutely no effect. There won’t be one tiniest action by the tiniest person that changes because a thousand is missing. In the computers there’ll be some digit written somewhere, a decimal point, one digit after the point, maybe there’ll be an eight there instead of a nine. Nobody cares and nobody will do anything with that.

[Speaker D] But the categorical imperative is really telling you whether the act you’re doing is moral or not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t refer to the social consequence. I’ve gotten to the categorical imperative, I’m getting there, I’m on the way there. We’ve read it. Yes, that’s why I’m saying, I’m on the way there, I just want to explain it.

[Speaker E] There was a midrash like that, that in Sodom each person would steal less than an olive’s bulk. What? Each person would steal less than an olive’s bulk.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Less than a perutah, maybe.

[Speaker E] Or less than a perutah, could be, yes. And then basically it added up.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, so the point is this. No, but if each person steals less than a perutah, then that’s a cumulative effect. And cumulative effect already relates to the articles about Parfit and Ikagan there—that’s the last two references I gave. That’s another situation, which I’m not talking about yet. There are situations of cumulative effect. Fine. I’m not talking right now about something cumulative. I’m talking right now about a situation in which I make a decision for myself, and it has no effect on others. It could be that they too will make a similar decision, but independently of what I do.

[Speaker E] Meaning that someone who steals less than a perutah also isn’t liable for anything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. Yes. So the point is that in such a situation there is really no statistical argument that can persuade me to vote, or not to evade taxes, or a thousand other things you might want. So what is there? The only thing that can be a decisive argument here—and my son doesn’t accept this, but it’s the only argument you can raise against him—is the categorical imperative. And the categorical imperative says something very similar to the claims raised here earlier, but it isn’t; it’s fundamentally different from them. And it says this: when you’re deliberating whether or not to take a certain step, you’re really supposed to conduct a hypothetical experiment. What would happen if everyone did as I do? Again, notice: this is hypothetical. I’m not claiming that if I do it, everyone will do it—that won’t happen. Whether I do it or not has no effect on anyone. I’m asking a question: suppose everyone did as I do—not that this is actually what I expect to happen, but let’s imagine a situation. If, when everyone does as I do, that seems to me a worse world, not a world I would want, then that means such an act is not morally proper, and therefore I’m forbidden to do it. And notice, this is not a consequentialist consideration. The consideration is not that if you do it then everyone will do it and then it’ll be very bad. Because in terms of outcomes, that’s not true here—there is no outcome. The consequentialist consideration here is simply wrong; it’s a mistake. What I do doesn’t affect others. But this is a moral consideration, not a consequentialist one. And Kant offers this as a moral criterion, and he says that if I were to do this—if everyone were to do as I do, sorry—the world would be a worse world; that’s an indication that such an action is immoral. And therefore I’m forbidden to do it regardless of whether it will have bad consequences or not. That’s his claim. Now, this claim is not a statistical claim—that’s what I devote several columns to explaining. It is not a statistical claim. I’m not really claiming that there will be some bad state of affairs. The reasoning is non-consequentialist. Meaning, even if the situation won’t change at all, you are forbidden to perform immoral actions, and you should perform moral actions. That’s the Kantian claim. If you accept it, then you need to vote in elections and you’re forbidden to evade taxes. If you don’t accept it, then

[Speaker G] there really is no point in doing it. And you also have to wear masks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I can’t hear.

[Speaker G] And you also have to wear masks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wear masks, okay. So the point…

[Speaker G] Until June 15.

[Speaker D] We have a story in our community—someone told me this, and it’s already a story of many years that I’m amazed by every time. He told me that he doesn’t rely on the sale permit on Passover at the grocery store, or in general in stores, and therefore at the grocery store he doesn’t buy products that were sold to a non-Jew on Passover. And I’m always amazed by that, because fine, he’s being stringent, but if the whole community were stringent like him, we wouldn’t have a grocery store in the community.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only would we not have a grocery store in the community—I’ll say more than that. That’s one of the examples I brought in my article on the categorical imperative. Both regarding the sale permit and the sale of leavened food. What happens in such a situation? We permit, let’s say in the sale of leavened food, we permit a store to sell leavened food. A private individual—we don’t sell actual leavened food, but for a store we even permit selling actual leavened food. Why? Because it stands to suffer a substantial loss. It has a large stock and a substantial loss. In a case of substantial loss, we allow the sale of actual leavened food. Now I ask: suppose all of us were stringent and didn’t buy from the store the actual leavened food that it sold to a non-Jew—

[Speaker E] then it wouldn’t have a substantial loss?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Its permission to sell actual leavened food is emptied of all content, because if no one buys from it, what did it gain by selling the actual leavened food? What I want to claim, beyond the question that the grocery store would go bankrupt and we’d regret that, I want to make a stronger claim: the permission granted to it to sell actual leavened food includes within it permission for us to buy from it, because otherwise the permission has no meaning. You can’t say that it has permission to sell but we don’t have permission to buy—that’s ridiculous. So that means that if you accept that it has permission to sell, you must accept that you have permission to buy, because otherwise the permission it was given isn’t really any permission at all. You’re effectively saying to it: de facto, you’re forbidden to sell actual leavened food. That’s really what you’re telling it. But you agree that it’s allowed. And I claim—not that the person I argued with is immoral—he’s inconsistent. There’s an internal contradiction in what he says.

[Speaker D] But then you’re also in trouble here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s what I’m saying. The claim is that he’s inconsistent, and what lies behind this is exactly the categorical imperative. What do I mean? So he says to me—what does he say to me? I wrote the article on the categorical imperative following an argument in Tzohar about the sale permit during the Sabbatical year. And there there were two rabbis, both of whom accepted the sale permit, but one of them said: yes, but it is preferable to favor produce from the court-administered distribution over the sale permit. And the other basically tried to argue with him, and then the first one says: look, but the fact that I’m stringent and take produce from the court-administered distribution—there are plenty of people in the public who will buy produce under the sale permit, no one will lose out. This is a subtler argument than the permission on Passover. Because here he is basically saying that the grocery store owner won’t go bankrupt; there are enough people who will buy from him the leavened food he sold, but I want to be stringent and not buy. Here you can no longer argue against him that the store owner will go bankrupt. Right? And I argue against him from the categorical imperative. I argue against him that such a stringency—such that if everyone did it, even you would agree it shouldn’t be done—then you too are forbidden to do it even if not everyone is doing it. That’s what I want to claim. In other words, you may be more stringent than what is accepted by others; it may even be proper to be more stringent than others, if you’re a God-fearing person, if you’re a person of higher spiritual stature, then be more stringent than others. But where your stringency is of this particular kind—where if everyone were as righteous as you, it would be impossible to do it, and you too would understand that it can’t be done—then you’re forbidden to do it even if you do it alone. That’s the categorical imperative. But what

[Speaker G] happens, what happens when Rabbi Kook said to use the sale permit and the Hazon Ish demanded a different way? What happens then?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can’t say, what does that mean, what happens? The Hazon Ish argued that one need not use the sale permit at all—that’s a completely different debate. I brought a discussion between two rabbis who both support the sale permit. One of them just says: yes, I support the sale permit, but I’ll be stringent, and it’s preferable to buy specifically from the court-administered distribution. If you oppose the sale permit, that’s a different discussion; you think the world would be better without the sale permit. Fine, one can debate that, but that’s the Hazon Ish’s position. But I’m speaking with someone who says: I agree—without the sale permit the world would be in trouble—but I personally can afford to be stringent, or a group I belong to can afford to be stringent, because there will be those who buy under the sale permit, no one loses out, and everything is fine. And I kept feeling that the rabbi arguing with him didn’t have the right words to explain what he meant, because the other one kept answering him: what do you want? No one loses anything. The sale permit will exist, there’ll be someone to buy from him, and I’ll also come out righteous. So what’s bad? Who lost from this? So my claim is: no one lost on the consequentialist plane. But this isn’t a consequentialist consideration. Kant’s categorical imperative has nothing to do with consequences. It basically says that if your act cannot be turned into a general law, that’s an indication that the act is improper even if it does not become a general law, even if you perform it yourself, alone. And therefore the claim—and this is a major novelty in the halakhic or meta-halakhic conception—is that if you want to be more stringent than the public, blessings upon you. But only with a stringency that you would be willing to accept if everyone did it too. True, they’re not doing it, no problem. But if you’re building on the fact that others won’t adopt this stringency because it’s impossible for everyone to do so, then you’re forbidden to do it. For example, I know many kollel men who don’t carry on the Sabbath. And when they go out walking with the children, their wives carry the children. That simply can’t be. You’re not allowed to do that. Because you are basing this whole thing on someone else not being stringent as you are, so that stringency is worthless. And again, not because one shouldn’t be more stringent than public standards—certainly it’s proper. That’s not the point. This is the categorical imperative. And the important point I wanted to sharpen here is that the categorical imperative is not a consequentialist consideration. It’s not because the result will be such-and-such. The beautiful thing is—in my column 122, which I didn’t refer you to—the beautiful thing is that I show that this non-consequentialist consideration is the only consideration that can actually produce results. And that completes this strange circuit of the categorical imperative. Because in the end, as Hani said earlier and as all of you said, in the end everyone is smart and everyone will make the calculation that their individual finger doesn’t matter, and everyone will stay home. But each of us agrees that if everyone stays home, that’s a problem. It’s true that my vote doesn’t matter. But if everyone stays home, that’s a problem. So what happens here? I educate people: there is a categorical imperative, act not for the sake of results. But in the end that very education is what will bring about the results. So in a paradoxical way, precisely if you decide to act non-consequentially, that’s the only way to achieve—to achieve results. If you act consequentially, you won’t achieve the results. And there I made an analogy to the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory.

[Speaker D] Exactly, to the prisoner’s dilemma, it’s simply game theory.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can see there—it really is the same logical structure. Exactly the same thing. Basically it’s a coalition. The prisoner’s dilemma says that in a coalition you’ll gain more than if each person optimizes for himself. And that’s exactly the categorical imperative. If all of us behave as a coalition, with a joint decision that is less good from the standpoint of each one of us, we will all reach a better state. Okay, and that’s an interesting point, by the way, the similarity to the prisoner’s dilemma. I once saw some article whose title talked about this. I don’t know whether it pointed this out or not, but it’s an interesting effect. Someone ought to talk about this; I assume people have, I just don’t know. Anyway, that’s the additional channel. Meaning, we have the statistical consideration on the public plane, and we have the categorical consideration on the public plane. The categorical consideration, unlike the statistical one, is not consequentialist. That’s an important point. I’ll give you an example. In a hospital, for instance, let’s say I’m deciding whether to take a patient’s temperature with a digital thermometer. Fine? Now if I don’t do it, nothing will happen. This patient is not dangerously ill; whether he has a temperature or not is not critical, but there is a protocol: every patient’s temperature is checked every morning in the hospital. That’s the protocol. Okay? Now I’m an observant doctor, I don’t want to desecrate the Sabbath, and I know there’s no life-threatening situation here, nothing will happen. So whether he has a fever or not, it’ll be 37.8, it doesn’t matter, no one’s life is in danger. Should I measure the temperature? According to the statistical consideration, no. Again, if I’m the hospital director who sets the procedures, the instruction is that everyone checks everyone’s temperature, like Rabbi Elyashiv. But now I’m speaking from the perspective of the individual doctor—should he obey that instruction? The answer is no; according to the statistical consideration, certainly not. No one is endangered, so what permission is there to desecrate the Sabbath? The question is whether the categorical imperative in this case should move me to desecrate the Sabbath after all. And I claim yes. I claim yes. In other words, because of the categorical imperative: I would not want everyone to make my calculation, because one of the doctors in this situation will encounter a patient whom he misses because he didn’t take his temperature. That happens one in a thousand. But if a thousand doctors in a thousand cases all do this, then several patients will indeed be harmed. And therefore it has to be done. What’s the chance it will happen in my case? One in ten thousand—not enough to justify desecrating the Sabbath in my individual decision. But the categorical imperative says yes. And that’s an important point, because you’ll almost never hear halakhic decisors say this. The decisors generally only bring the statistical considerations. They always say: what will happen if everyone does what you do? So the answer, as my son answered, is: but not everyone is doing what I do, and my own decision I’m not revealing to anyone. No one has an answer to that. The only answer here is the categorical imperative. Therefore I claim that the categorical imperative is a very important halakhic tool, not just a moral one. And the decisors are not aware of it. And there are many, many decisors who intuitively have this, but they’re searching: wait, but where is the consequential life-threatening factor here? Who exactly is at risk in the end? And they can’t justify their intuition because they can’t point to the risks. So what do they do? Either in the end they prohibit it because there’s no choice, or they invent something that makes no sense at all, some ridiculous consideration in order somehow to present this as a life-threatening case—like ‘lest his mind become deranged’ or all kinds of ridiculous claims of that sort, which of course have zero likelihood; one does not desecrate the Sabbath for that. I think the point they really mean to say is the categorical imperative. They just don’t have it in their conceptual arsenal, so that justification doesn’t appear. But it’s there. It lies behind the intuitions of very many decisors. And it is a very important parameter in public conduct that does not exist on the private plane. And the third thing, which I’ll really do briefly on the public plane, is my article on ‘you shall not be afraid.’ My article on ‘you shall not be afraid’ basically expands the concept of life-saving when we are talking about the public. And this goes even further than the categorical imperative, so it really is stage after stage. The first stage is the statistical one. The statistical stage is really just like a private case, because in the end we get to an individual who dies. So the permission is just regular life-saving permission; it’s just that when there’s a public, there are many people, so statistics do their work. So there is no significance to the fact that this is a public. In the categorical imperative, it’s already more subtle, because in the categorical imperative, in terms of outcomes no one will die. And still I claim that one should desecrate the Sabbath in order to do this act because there is a categorical imperative, because if everyone did this then someone would die. But not everyone will actually do it. True, but if everyone did… The third stage goes even further. I want to claim that even if the categorical imperative reaches the conclusion that no one will die, even if everyone does as I do, there are still situations where the very fact that we are speaking about a public justifies desecrating the Sabbath. What do I mean? The example with which I opened there is ‘you shall not be afraid of any man’—regarding a judge. A judge has an obligation to render true justice, right? ‘Judge your fellow with righteousness.’ What happens when one of the litigants threatens him? He tells him: if you rule against me, I’ll take all your money, I’ll kill your son, I’ll kill you. What do you do in such a situation? The Talmud says: ‘you shall not be afraid of any man’—could it mean even if I kill your son? Could it mean even if I take your money? Scripture says: ‘you shall not be afraid of any man.’ You are obligated to judge.

[Speaker E] But he’s slaughtering himself here in judgment.

[Speaker G] Why

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] does the Talmud

[Speaker G] not say: could it even mean that you yourself will die?

[Speaker E] Wait, wait. As a matter of Jewish law, in the end didn’t they allow that judge to recuse himself from the case?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, one second. I’m not going into all the details here; whoever wants can read the article, I referred you to it. There are various disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and the later authorities (Acharonim). Most of them do not obligate him in a case of life-threatening danger; there are a few who obligate him in a case of possible life-threatening danger. But in a case of definite life-threatening danger there may be one such opinion that obligates him to do it; according to most opinions, no. But the simple meaning of the Sifra is speaking about a life-threatening situation. Now let’s say even if it’s only possible life-threatening danger. Even in possible life-threatening danger one still has to explain: so what if it’s possible life-threatening danger? Where do we find a difference between possible and definite? Everywhere that permission was given, it was also given in cases of possible life-threatening danger—we saw that in the first class. If they do not permit in a case of possible danger, then they won’t permit in a definite one either; that would be ‘be killed rather than transgress.’ Where is there a difference between possible life-threatening danger and definite life-threatening danger? Where does that distinction come from? So I wanted to make the following claim—I’ll do it very briefly. You know there was the story in the Mitla Pass, with Raful there, that they parachuted into the Mitla and ran into an Egyptian ambush. The Egyptians were dug in there and covered, camouflaged, no one knew where they were, and it was impossible to move. And in order to deal with them, they had to discover where they were located, so they had to find a volunteer who would drive in a jeep so that the Egyptians would shoot at him, and then they’d see where the shots were coming from, the firing positions. And there was Yehuda Ken-Dror who volunteered for this, there was a driver who volunteered for this. He drove, and it was a suicide mission—it was obvious that he would die, obvious, okay? He drove in the jeep, they shot at him, and that’s how they discovered the Egyptians’ positions and somehow managed to deal with them. According to standard IDF ethics, you cannot give an order to a soldier to do such a thing. You don’t have the authority; a commander has no authority to order a soldier to commit suicide. But all of us could die, including that soldier himself. Fine. But still, you cannot order a soldier to commit suicide. But I can order a soldier to charge into battle, and there too, of course, people die. Possible life-threatening danger—I’m allowed, right? Definite life-threatening danger—I’m not allowed. There is the difference between possible and definite. And what’s the idea? In one word—this really requires a whole lecture—but in one word. The difference is that Jewish law relates to a person as if he wears two hats. One hat is his role as a private individual, and the second hat is as an organ in the general organism, a citizen of society, an individual within society. Fascism subordinates the private aspect to the collective aspect. The private individual is grease on the wheels of the revolution, right? Basically the collective stands above all. Individualism subordinates the collective to the individual. Jewish law sees these two aspects as two aspects each of which stands on its own, and they are independent; neither is subordinated to the other. And now the claim is this: if you demand that I go on a suicide mission—let’s say a case of possible life-threatening danger, to charge—by what right do you demand this of me? Because of the categorical imperative; society divided up the roles. We are all in danger—if we don’t win the war, we’ll all die, right? So what do we do? We divide roles. Everyone from age eighteen to twenty-one is drafted into the army, each in his turn, and that’s how we distribute the risk, the burden. Each person in turn is supposed to bear the risks involved in war and in military service. And therefore I can demand that you charge into battle, because by doing so you save the life of the collective, of which you yourself are also a part. And when it’s my turn, I too will charge into battle—it’s a kind of social contract between us. But that means that you are charging into battle in order to save the collective. In a place where they demand that you commit suicide—that is, certain death—it basically means that we do not recognize you at all as a private individual. You are completely subordinated to the collective, and that cannot be done. A person also has an individual hat, and he has independent standing; he does not have to give all of himself over to the public. He does have to enter into possible danger, because otherwise we all die; we have to take risks so that all of us remain alive. There’s no choice. Some of us have to take risks. But to commit suicide so that everyone else remains alive—that is basically to erase the individual aspect before the collective aspect. That is something Jewish law does not allow, and neither does IDF ethics. And the same thing with a judge. When you demand of him that he judge even while under threat—why? Because if he does not judge properly, society falls apart. Without an effective legal system there is no functioning society. And for that he has to enter into possible life-threatening danger, maybe not definite danger. Why? Because he is also a private individual; he is not only the bearer of a public office. And as a private individual I am not willing to erase his individuality in favor of his belonging to the collective. But possible life-threatening danger, like a soldier—he has to bear the consequences. But notice there is a difference here, because the soldier gives up his life in possible life-threatening danger for the very life of the collective—we will all die. The judge gives up his life for the proper functioning of society, not for actual life-saving. No one will die, except that there will be no effective legal system.

[Speaker G] That can also end up becoming actual life-threatening danger.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait. So the decisors usually, when they explain this, of course immediately move to the consequentialist consideration. It could somehow lead to future life-threatening danger in one way or another. I don’t think something like that justifies putting a person into possible life-threatening danger, and in my opinion those decisors don’t really think so either. Rather, they have an intuition that they lack the tools to express, so they always go to consequences. Again, the same thing. And I claim that the proper functioning of a society is life-saving—not because someone will die. Even without someone dying, it is life-saving. It is life-saving for the public organism. The public organism will not function, and it too is an organism, it too is a living body. If this living body does not function, then it dies. The collective, the public, dies, and all we have left is a collection of individuals. That is life-saving. That’s what Leibowitz said, for example, regarding operating the state’s foreign service on the Sabbath. No one will die. But a modern state cannot function if it is closed on the Sabbath; there is no one to contact. So he argues that this alone is sufficient permission to allow desecration of the Sabbath. Because a public must function properly, not because of the result of future life-threatening danger, but because public functioning is itself life-saving. Now this can be extended—for example, is a police officer allowed to desecrate the Sabbath because I complain about noise from the neighbors on Friday night? I claim yes.

[Speaker D] Now if a person who is going on a suicide mission in battle knows this is the last battle, and if they lose it the State of Israel loses the war—is he allowed to commit suicide?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s Maimonides in the Laws of Terumot—sorry, Maimonides in chapter 5, law 5, which I skipped. The Kesef Mishneh—I referred you to it on the page and said I didn’t have time to go into it.

[Speaker D] What does he say about it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides—it takes a bit of discussion to understand this.

[Speaker D] Because I can understand that if it’s something private…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If gentiles besiege a city—the Jerusalem Talmud in Terumot is Maimonides’ source—if gentiles besiege a city and say, hand over one of you, and if not we’ll kill all of you including that one, is it permissible to hand him over?

[Speaker G] No, it’s forbidden.

[Speaker D] It’s not a question of handing him over; the question is whether he himself is allowed to give up his life, not others—can he volunteer, is he allowed to?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it is permitted to hand him over—first of all the question is whether it is permitted to hand him over.

[Speaker E] If they say a specific person, then in the Jerusalem Talmud it says no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the Kesef Mishneh is puzzled by this and leaves it unresolved. He offers some answer that doesn’t hold water, but the difficulty is a serious one; everyone asks it. The whole idea is that I cannot save myself through the life of my fellow, but here if I don’t hand him over then all of us will die, including him. He too will die. So he’s going to die anyway—so at least let us be saved. So why is it forbidden to hand him over? Fine, but look in the article I referred you to.

[Speaker G] By the way, regarding judges and ‘you shall not be afraid,’ there’s a problem in the Negev with Bedouin crime, where they threaten judges if they impose punishments on them, and therefore they established a fixed sentence that the judge doesn’t have to decide on, and then they can’t threaten him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By the way, some commentators really do say that a judge can take risks because society protects him; he isn’t in the same danger as a private person. Okay. All right, we’ll stop here. This was more or less just to give some sort of bird’s-eye picture of the topic, in a somewhat more systematic way. Okay, goodbye.

[Speaker G] Thank you very much, Sabbath peace, thank you very much.