Yoma, Chapter 8 – Lesson 9
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI
Table of Contents
- [1:05:39] Replacing the Lechem Mishneh and versions of the Talmudic text
- [1:08:11] The discussion of the addition—whether it is a continuation of Yom Kippur
- [1:09:17] Kiddush and a person’s acceptance during the addition—Or Zarua versus the later authorities
- [1:10:44] A practical difference in the addition—when it takes effect
- [1:15:35] Eating on the ninth—what Maimonides and the Talmud say
- [1:23:03] Summary and continuation—women and minors on Yom Kippur
- [??:??] Maimonides’ position on the tanna of “etzem etzem” (NONE)
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, last time we began the chapter dealing with the topic of time on Yom Kippur. I said there are four aspects I want to touch on. One of them is the relationship between the obligation by day and the obligation by night, the Talmud’s initial assumption to distinguish between day and night—that I dealt with last time. Toward the end I started with the addition to Yom Kippur, and that’s what I’m going to continue now. After that we’ll talk about eating on the ninth, and at the end I’ll make some philosophical remark about the meaning of time on Yom Kippur. I hope I’ll finish this part today. So, regarding the addition: we saw that there are two ways to understand the law of the addition. One possibility is that it simply extends Yom Kippur a bit earlier and a bit later, although that is excluded from karet and apparently also from the prohibition. And there is another possibility, to understand it as a new obligation: Yom Kippur is Yom Kippur itself, and the obligations in the added time are a new obligation. We saw ramifications of this, for example regarding whether—if we’re talking about the Sabbath—one can recite Kiddush, and whether one must recite Kiddush, during the added time. Regarding women’s obligation, we saw that if it is a continuation of Yom Kippur, then whoever is obligated in Yom Kippur is obviously obligated here as well. So even though in the added time there is only a positive commandment, and it is a time-bound positive commandment, women would still be obligated. If it is a new positive commandment and there is no prohibition, then that would be the place to say that women are exempt, because it is a time-bound positive commandment. I said it could be that this depends on the dispute among the tannaim in our sugya on page 81, because the Talmud brings the tanna of “etzem etzem” on 81a. The Talmud says there that the tanna of “etzem etzem” excludes the addition from karet, and afterward also from the prohibition, and therefore it is clear that there is some prohibition there, because otherwise what would we need to exclude from karet? And therefore the tanna of “etzem etzem” does not accept the derivation from “from evening to evening,” from which the law of the addition is learned. That’s what the Talmud says. And the tanna who disagrees with the tanna of “etzem etzem” learns the law of the addition from the verse “from evening to evening.” And then I said that really it comes out that according to the tanna of “etzem etzem,” the prohibitions of the addition are basically just an extension of Yom Kippur, whatever was not excluded—say, it was excluded from karet but the positive commandment remains, and maybe also the prohibition. In the tanna of “etzem etzem” it says that the prohibition too is excluded, but we’ll see later that there may be a possibility of saying that the prohibition still exists. In any case, it is the same positive commandment, and if there is a prohibition then it is also the same prohibition that exists on Yom Kippur, only it extends a bit earlier and a bit later. In contrast, “from evening to evening shall you rest your Sabbath” leaves room to say that this is a positive commandment, a new positive commandment: Yom Kippur remains on its own, and you need a source to prohibit the added time. Of course that is not necessary; one could say that “from evening to evening shall you rest your Sabbath” means: add a little to Yom Kippur before and after, and then according to that conception too it would be an addition. But if someone understands it as a new obligation, he probably does not learn like the tanna of “etzem etzem.” The reverse is not true; it could be that someone who does not learn like the tanna of “etzem etzem” will still learn that the obligation is not a new one. Okay, so that’s what we discussed last time. Now there is another question that looks similar to that one, but it is not exactly the same thing, and that is the question of the essence of this obligation in the addition. Is the time of the addition itself sacred time, consecrated time, and therefore the prohibitions or the positive commandment or the prohibition—whatever applies there—also take effect in it? Or are we talking only about the prohibitions and not about the festival itself? Meaning, we do not define the time of the addition as sacred time; rather, things that are forbidden on the day must begin to be avoided earlier and stop being avoided a bit later, but the sanctity of the day itself remains confined to Yom Kippur proper and not to the added time. This sounds very similar to the first question. But on further thought you’ll see that it’s not the same thing. In the previous question I asked whether the obligations of the addition are newly created obligations or continuations of the obligations of Yom Kippur. Now, if the sanctity of Yom Kippur itself extends into the addition, then it would seem simply that the prohibitions derived from the sanctity of the day would also extend into the addition. Right? And then that is basically like the conception of the tanna of “etzem etzem.” So ostensibly there is a connection between the two questions. But one could say that what extends into the addition is only the prohibitions—the duty of affliction and the prohibition of labor—and not the sanctity of the day. A practical difference would be Kiddush. Going back to what I said before, I mentioned a practical difference regarding whether one recites Kiddush in the added time. According to the way I’m formulating it now, then even according to the tanna of “etzem etzem” one cannot recite Kiddush during the added time. One cannot, and also need not. Because the addition is not a sacred day; rather, one simply has to begin the prohibitions of labor and affliction a bit earlier, but we are still not in a sacred day that requires sanctification, requiring Kiddush there. Therefore these are different questions. And the practical difference of Kiddush is apparently dependent on the question I raised today, not on the question from the previous lecture. The question is whether we extend into the addition the sanctity of the day, or whether we extend only the prohibitions. The prohibitions, of course, derive from the sanctity of the day—or do we extend only the prohibitions and not the sanctity of the day, in which case Kiddush is irrelevant. The other side is not necessary either. Meaning, even if I say that this is a new positive commandment, not a continuation of the positive commandment that applies on Yom Kippur, one can still ask what this positive commandment means. Does this positive commandment mean adding another sacred occasion—that the addition to Yom Kippur is also a festival, and therefore prohibitions apply there too? Or not, it just means adding prohibitions. Here it seems to me that the second possibility is more likely. Meaning, if it is already something new, why assume that it too is a festival? The simple meaning is that this is something new: one has to add the practices of prohibition, not the sanctity of the day. If it is something new. If it is a continuation of Yom Kippur, then on the contrary, it might even be natural to say that Yom Kippur simply starts a bit earlier and ends a bit later, and therefore so do the prohibitions. But if I say that it is a new obligation, then it is more likely that it concerns only the prohibitions and not the very substance of the day. So there is some connection between the two questions, even though one can separate them. It is not a necessary connection, but there is some affinity, it seems to me. Meaning, there is at least some plausibility in linking these two questions. Now the Rif, in our sugya, brings the law like this—I’ll maybe share it. Here is the language of the Rif: “The rabbis taught: ‘And you shall afflict yourselves on the ninth of the month.’ Could it be on the ninth? Scripture says: ‘in the evening.’ If in the evening, could it be once it gets dark? Scripture says: ‘on the ninth.’ How so? One begins and afflicts oneself while it is still day, for one adds from the profane onto the sacred. I only know before it; from after it, from where do we know? etc.” He continues. “Could one be obligated to add both before and after?” All this is quoted from where? From 81b. Right? That is the tanna who disagrees with the tanna of ‘etzem etzem.’ They ask what he learns from ‘from evening to evening shall you rest’—what does he learn from ‘from evening to evening’? The addition. But now look how the Rif continues: “Could one be liable to karet for the addition? Scripture says: ‘And every soul who does any labor on this very day, I will destroy.’ For the very day itself one is liable to karet, but one is not liable to karet for the addition. Could it be that one is not liable to karet for added labor, but would be liable to karet for added affliction? Scripture says: ‘For every soul that is not afflicted on this very day shall be cut off.’ For the very day itself they are liable to karet, and they are not liable for the added affliction.” That belongs to 81a. And the order is also interesting. Because if he were simply bringing the gemarot in order, I would have expected the second half to be brought first, because it appears on page a, while the first half appears on page b. And the Rif reversed the order and stitched these two gemarot together, when on the face of it they are speaking according to two different tannaim—different and actually disputing one another. What the Rif writes here goes against the Talmud. Right? Because what does the Talmud say? Let me remind you again.
[Speaker B] I’m bringing up the Talmud and I’ll share it with you so you can see it. Here it is. So this is the tanna of “etzem etzem.” “And from where does this tanna derive it? From here,” you see?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the quotation the Rif brought in the second part of his words. Now look at our tanna; I’m moving to page b. It says here as follows: “Granted, Rav Pappa did not say like Rav Acha bar Yaakov,” etc. “But what is the reason Rav Acha bar Yaakov did not say like Rav Pappa? He needs it for that which was taught: ‘And you shall afflict yourselves on the ninth day of the month in the evening, from evening to evening.’” Yes? That is in the case of adding from the profane onto the sacred. Then the Talmud asks—up to here, this is where it ends. And now see what the Talmud asks immediately afterward: “And the tanna of ‘etzem etzem,’ what does he do with this ‘on the ninth of the month’?” What kind of question is that? Rashi explains this too. The tanna of “etzem etzem” excludes the addition from karet and from the prohibition, right? So you see that there is an added period, that there is an obligation of addition. Otherwise, what is there to exclude from karet and from the prohibition? So according to the tanna of “etzem etzem,” there is nothing to learn from the verse “from evening to evening.” He knows the law of the addition even without that verse. So the Talmud asks: then what does the tanna of “etzem etzem” do with this verse? And it answers: he needs it for what Rav Chiya bar Rav of Difti taught. What is that? That one must eat on the ninth. Whoever eats on the ninth, Scripture considers it as if he fasted on the ninth and the tenth. In other words, the tanna of “etzem etzem” does not learn the addition at all from the verse “from evening to evening.” He learns from it the obligation to eat on the ninth. Right? According to the tanna of “etzem etzem,” the law of the addition exists because the Torah needs to exclude the addition from karet. So it comes out that our tanna, for example, maybe according to him there is no obligation at all to eat on the ninth. Because the obligation to eat on the ninth is learned from the verse from which he learns the law of the addition. So according to him, maybe there is no such obligation. So there is a dispute here between these two tannaim: from where the law of the addition is learned, and consequently maybe also a dispute whether there is an obligation to eat on the ninth. Now the Rif brings the derivation of the tanna who learns the addition from “from evening to evening,” and then brings the exclusion by the tanna of “etzem etzem” that the addition is excluded from karet. That is self-contradictory, because the Talmud says there is a dispute between these two tannaim. The Rif understands it as a completion, or as derivations that complete one another. And really, I’ll maybe remind you that when we read this gemara, I commented that the Talmud’s question here is not all that understandable. Because the tanna of “etzem etzem” excludes the addition from karet, but maybe there is still a prohibition there. And here the Talmud learns from “from evening to evening” that there is a positive commandment in the addition. Who says that according to the tanna of “etzem etzem” that is redundant? So I said that according to the tanna of “etzem etzem,” Yom Kippur is basically extended, and therefore it is obvious that whatever was not excluded in the addition continues just as on Yom Kippur, including the positive commandment. They only excluded it from karet, and afterward also excluded it from the prohibition. So what remains is the positive commandment. Therefore there is nothing to learn from the verse “from evening to evening” regarding the positive commandment of the addition, because there is already a positive commandment in the addition. Right? That was my indication that the tanna of “etzem etzem” understands the addition as a continuation of Yom Kippur and not as a new obligation, because otherwise the Talmud’s question here doesn’t even get off the ground. But the Rif says not so. The Rif joins these two opinions together. Aside from that, he apparently had a different version of the Talmudic text, I assume. The Lechem Mishneh brings a different version of the Talmud here, and somehow it seems from the Rif’s words that he had a different version of the Talmud. But for our purposes: whatever we say about the Rif, in any case what comes out from his own words is that according to him there really is a positive commandment regarding the addition, learned from “from evening to evening,” and there is an exclusion of the addition from karet. Notice that the Rif does not bring the exclusion of the addition from the warning, from the prohibition. Only the exclusion from karet. Meaning, the exposition on 81a excludes the addition both from karet and from the prohibition. But when the Rif brings it, he brings only the exclusion from karet, not the exclusion from the prohibition. And again, either he is abbreviating here—meaning he doesn’t bring the whole thing but really intends all of it in the plain sense. It doesn’t seem that way, because what kind of abbreviation is that? You are omitting a very important detail; it is not a detail I know without your writing it. It is unlikely that he just omitted it. So if that too was different in his version, then it could really be that the whole point of the tanna of “etzem etzem” is that there is a prohibition regarding the addition, and it is excluded from karet. And we do not have the exclusion from the prohibition in our text; there is no exclusion from the prohibition, only from karet. And from “from evening to evening shall you rest your Sabbath” we learn the positive commandment, that there is a positive commandment regarding the addition. And if so, then it is not difficult according to the tanna of “etzem etzem” how he learns it from “from evening to evening,” because the tanna of “etzem etzem” knows only of a prohibition in the addition. But he really learns the positive commandment of the addition from here, and then there is no problem. Maybe one can even say more than that: that “from evening to evening shall you rest your Sabbath” teaches that there is an addition. Addition means an expansion of Yom Kippur including the prohibition, the positive commandment, and karet. And now the tanna of “etzem etzem” comes and excludes it from karet, and maybe also from the prohibition; in the Rif the prohibition does not appear, but from karet. In other words, the fact that he excludes it from karet, and the Talmud says he apparently assumes there is some prohibition, because otherwise what is there to exclude from karet—right, he assumes there is some prohibition precisely because of this verse, “from evening to evening.” So there are, of course, a number of possibilities here, and the Rif does not elaborate very much, so it is hard, hard to know exactly what he means. And by the way this has an implication, because according to the Rif it turns out that the tanna of “etzem etzem” may learn the whole addition as a new law, not as a continuation of Yom Kippur. There is no dispute at all. It is a new law. We learn it from “from evening to evening,” we learn that there is a new law of addition, and the exclusion says that for this new law of addition there is no karet. There is only a positive commandment, maybe also a prohibition, but not karet. But the fact remains that needing the verse “from evening to evening” indicates that this is probably a new obligation and not a continuation of ordinary Yom Kippur. And then that changes the picture I described earlier, when I said that according to the tanna of “etzem etzem” it seems that the addition is a continuation of Yom Kippur. According to the Rif, where there is no dispute between the tannaim, that is not certain at all. Now the Ran writes here—and again, he does not bring this inside the Rif, but on the face of it the Ran is explaining the Rif; I assume that is how he understood the Rif as well—so he says as follows: “And women are obligated in this addition, even though the Merciful One excluded it from punishment and warning, and it is therefore a time-bound positive commandment; nevertheless we include them in chapter ‘HaYashen,’” I mentioned that gemara in Sukkah 28, “from the verse ‘the native’—to include native women, who are obligated in affliction.” So first of all, he learns that the Torah excludes the addition from punishment and from warning. In the Rif it says only the exclusion from karet; it does not say exclusion from warning. So if I understand this as an explanation of the Rif too—not that he is just saying it on his own—then he apparently understood in the Rif that when the Rif brings the exclusion from karet, he means from karet and from the prohibition. Maybe even that the exclusion from karet is because there is no prohibition, and then automatically there is no karet, so maybe he does not even need two exclusions. But that is apparently how he understands it.
[Speaker B] What positive commandment remains?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if he says they are excluded from punishment and warning, he is apparently speaking according to the view of the tanna of “etzem etzem,” that the addition was excluded from punishment and warning and the positive commandment remains—but this is the positive commandment of Yom Kippur, not a new positive commandment. The positive commandment of Yom Kippur. So the Ran asks, or notes: “and it is therefore a time-bound positive commandment; nevertheless we include them.” He asks: so why are women obligated? After all, this is a time-bound positive commandment. That is strange. Because if you understand that the positive commandment in the addition is a continuation of the positive commandment of Yom Kippur, then what do you mean, why are women obligated? Whoever is obligated in the positive commandment of Yom Kippur has to begin it a bit earlier and end it a bit later. It is not a new positive commandment. So if women are obligated in the positive commandment of Yom Kippur, they are also obligated in the addition before and after. It appears, seemingly, from the Ran that the Ran understands otherwise. Even though he brings here the exclusion of the tanna of “etzem etzem” from karet and warning, it seems that the positive commandment left in the addition is the positive commandment of Yom Kippur itself. It is not a new positive commandment. But the Ran seems to understand not so. It is a new positive commandment, and therefore there would be reason to exempt women because it is a time-bound positive commandment and it is not the positive commandment of Yom Kippur. Except that there is a scriptural derivation to include the women. But—
[Speaker B] That isn’t correct when you look at the sugya. One second, if you look at the sugya in Sukkah. The gemara in Sukkah 28—you see here? It says as follows: “Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from the sukkah.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine? The Talmud asks: from where are these words derived?
[Speaker B] We don’t see the gemara in Sukkah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Oh, no? Wait, what am I sharing here? Maybe I didn’t share the… I no longer remember what I’m sharing. Oh, here, now. Okay?
[Speaker B] So the Talmud—the Mishnah says, “Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from the sukkah.” From where are these words derived?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud says: “The rabbis taught: ‘native’ means native; ‘the native’ excludes women; ‘all’ includes minors.” The master said: “‘The native’ excludes women.” Does that imply that “native,” without the definite article, includes both women and men? Yet it was taught: “‘The native’ includes native women, who are obligated in affliction.” Meaning, “the native” does not come to exclude women, but to include women. But what is being discussed here? The addition is not being discussed here. It is the positive commandment of Yom Kippur itself, right? It has nothing to do with the addition; it is the affliction of Yom Kippur. And “the native” comes to include women in the affliction of Yom Kippur. After that there is “man or woman”—yes, later the gemara brings: “Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah.” So here it seems to be an inclusion of women. But later, on page b, the Talmud says: “Yom Kippur is derived from Rav Yehudah in the name of Rav; it is necessary only for the added affliction.” I might have thought that since the Merciful One excluded added affliction from punishment and warning, women are not obligated in it at all—therefore it teaches us what? That “the native,” which comes to include women on Yom Kippur, is not to include women in Yom Kippur itself, but to include women in the addition to Yom Kippur. So here it is already talking about the addition. Okay? And then in the end it really comes out that “the native” includes women in the addition to Yom Kippur. That is to say—
[Speaker B] Now the question is why. And what does “time-bound positive commandment” mean? Seemingly, a time-bound positive commandment—if it is a continuation of the positive commandment of Yom Kippur, then just as they are obligated in the positive commandment of Yom Kippur, they would be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obligated in the addition as well. What’s the difference? So that’s why it seems specifically from that gemara there that the positive commandment of the addition is a new positive commandment, and therefore it is an ordinary time-bound positive commandment from which women should have been exempt, were it not for the words “the native.” Okay? Then indeed, if I return to the Ran, it comes out that also in the Ran, when he brings that derivation from “the native,” he brings it according to the conclusion that it is talking about the addition—that although the Torah exempted them from punishment and warning, and therefore it is a time-bound positive commandment, nevertheless they obligate them. So the Ran is apparently taking from that gemara there that the addition is a new obligation, and therefore women should have been exempt; only there is a scriptural derivation that nevertheless they are obligated. And that is indeed how he also learns it in the Rif.
[Speaker C] So now really “the native” is a derivation of “if it is not needed for the matter itself,” because it is written regarding Yom Kippur, but really applies to the addition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. According to that conception, since “the native” is written regarding Yom Kippur and not the addition to Yom Kippur, then it is indeed “if it is not needed for the matter itself.” At the beginning of the gemara there in Sukkah, no. At the beginning of the gemara there they really apply it to Yom Kippur itself. But according to the conclusion, that it is talking about the addition, then it is seemingly “if it is not needed for the matter itself.” If we say that the addition is a continuation of the positive commandment of Yom Kippur, then maybe not. Because what they really want to say is that in the positive commandment of Yom Kippur itself there is also the aspect of the addition. So in Yom Kippur itself women would be obligated because there is also the punishment, the karet—“Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah.” But there was an initial assumption that even though it is the very same positive commandment, since in the addition it does not come with a prohibition and karet, women would be exempt. Therefore it teaches us that they continue to be obligated because it is the same positive commandment. Then the derivation is not “if it is not needed for the matter itself,” but a derivation for the matter itself. Okay? So that is exactly what it depends on. The question is whether the addition is a new obligation or whether the addition is a continuation of the obligations that exist on Yom Kippur itself. Now there are several commentators—Rabbeinu Manoach on Maimonides and the Riaz, who is brought here in Shiltei HaGibborim—they write that the positive commandment of the addition is in order to be careful not to transgress a doubtful prohibition during twilight. Meaning, one needs to add to Yom Kippur so as not to get into the concern that we will desecrate the twilight period of Yom Kippur. There is logic to this if we especially learn the addition from what Rabbi Akiva learns from the Sabbatical year. Because regarding the Sabbatical year, the gemara says that the addition to the Sabbatical year—the reason it is forbidden to do labor then—is because it could be that things I plant, for example, during the added period will take root during the Sabbatical year itself. Meaning, because this affects the Sabbatical year itself, things are therefore forbidden to me in the added period. So it could be that the definition on Yom Kippur will be either along the lines of Rabbeinu Manoach and the Riaz—that it is for fear that one may come to violate the doubtful period of twilight—or perhaps even more than that: one needs to afflict oneself during the added period so that from the moment Yom Kippur begins one is already afflicted. Then it is really parallel to the Sabbatical year. Because we talked about the fact that being afflicted does not mean merely not eating. Rather, you have to be afflicted. Now if you begin not eating at the beginning of Yom Kippur, then during the first moments of Yom Kippur you have not fulfilled the commandment of affliction. You are not afflicted; you are just not eating. So you need to stop eating already beforehand, so that when Yom Kippur begins you are already beginning it in a state of affliction. Then it really parallels the addition to the Sabbatical year. Because there too, in the addition to the Sabbatical year, you do not plant in the added period so that it not take root during the Sabbatical year itself, and in fact this is not a separate prohibition. It simply tells you how to observe the prohibitions of the Sabbatical year itself. Meaning, if you do not observe the added period, you have not violated the prohibition of addition; rather, the seed took root during the Sabbatical year itself, and you simply desecrated the Sabbatical year itself. So if I compare the addition to Yom Kippur to… Now according to this, it is very reasonable that women would be obligated even if it is a separate positive commandment. Why? Because everyone obligated in the prohibitions of Yom Kippur is also obligated in the addition, since the whole purpose of the addition is to guard against desecrating Yom Kippur itself. Something like this we find in a very well-known Nachmanides in Kiddushin 34. The gemara there brings several examples of time-bound positive commandments from which women are exempt, and it brings examples of positive commandments that are not time-bound. And the examples it gives are returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird, building a parapet, a parapet, and one or two more examples. All the medieval authorities there ask—Tosafot and Nachmanides and everyone asks—what poor examples the Talmud chose. And that is not accidental, because all the examples there, except maybe one, are of this sort: examples that have a prohibition as well as a positive commandment. All of them. In returning a lost object there is also “you may not ignore”; in sending away the mother bird; in a parapet there is also “you shall not place blood in your house.” In all these commandments there is also a prohibition. So what kind of example is this—if it were time-bound, women would be exempt? After all, even if it were time-bound, women would still be obligated because of the prohibition involved. So why does the Talmud specifically bring these examples as examples of commandments that are not time-bound and therefore women are obligated? In those examples, even if they were time-bound, women would be obligated. So Nachmanides—and Tosafot also elaborates there—Nachmanides, by the way, this is the Tosafot I mentioned when we discussed the relationship between a prohibition and a positive commandment, Tosafot with Rabbeinu Yosef of the Land of Israel, and what we discussed there regarding terumat me’ah. In any case, Nachmanides there says a very interesting novelty, and later authorities like to make a whole fuss out of it. He argues that there are positive commandments in the Torah whose point is to make sure you fulfill the prohibition. Wait, sorry. There are prohibitions whose point is that you fulfill the positive commandment. For example, he argues that regarding a parapet, the prohibition “you shall not place blood in your house” really comes to ensure that you fulfill the positive commandment “and you shall make a parapet for your roof.” Now if that positive commandment were time-bound, then women would be exempt from it, so automatically they would also be exempt from the prohibition. Why? Because the whole point of the prohibition is to make sure you fulfill the positive commandment. But someone who is exempt from the positive commandment has no reason also to be subject to the prohibition. That is basically his claim. And then they bring more examples for this idea, for example regarding charity. The Maharil Diskin, as I recall, writes regarding charity: there is a question why in charity one only has to spend up to one-fifth of one’s wealth, after all there is also the prohibition “do not harden your hand,” and for a prohibition a person has to spend all his wealth. So the Maharil Diskin argues that the prohibition in charity is meant to reinforce fulfillment of the positive commandment. But for the positive commandment one need not spend more than one-fifth of one’s wealth. So consequently for the prohibition too one need not spend more than one-fifth of one’s wealth, because if one is required to spend more than a fifth, then the positive commandment is not imposed on him. From the perspective of the positive commandment, he need not do it. So why impose the prohibition on him, if the whole purpose of the prohibition is to make sure he fulfills the positive commandment? But the positive commandment does not require him to spend more than one-fifth, and therefore for the prohibition too he will not have to spend more than one-fifth.
[Speaker E] Yes, but here you don’t need that novelty, that the whole purpose of the prohibition is only to reinforce the positive commandment, because regardless of that, it’s obvious that the scope of the prohibition applies only where you are obligated in the commandment of charity. Otherwise it isn’t “do not harden” toward your brother. Because the fact that a person doesn’t give all his money to someone else is not “do not harden”; it’s that he is not giving him charity. It’s defined by the Torah’s obligation of charity.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying two things. You’re saying, regarding “do not harden your hand,” that not giving more than one-fifth is not called hardening one’s hand. Yes. If so, then you are indeed right. Then one really does not need the Maharil Diskin’s answer.
[Speaker E] Yes, that’s what I’m saying.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that is precisely what the Maharil Diskin says—not so. The Maharil Diskin argues that the issue is not that it is not called hardening one’s hand, but that the whole content of the prohibition is to ensure that you fulfill the commandment of charity.
[Speaker E] Yes, but logically that doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem right that if a person refrains from giving someone ten agorot, he transgresses a prohibition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll tell you. The difference is that if the definition is hardening one’s hand, that is not necessarily tied to the one-fifth rule of a positive commandment. It could be that the concept of one-fifth is defined by the question of what one is required to invest in a positive commandment in general, not only in charity. Okay? So that is defined as one-fifth. But regarding the prohibition, if it is not connected to the positive commandment of charity but only to what is called hardening one’s hand, maybe the definition is two-fifths or half a fifth. So what is the connection? The Maharil Diskin argues that there is a connection to the positive commandment. So he understands that the one-fifth is not a definition of hardening one’s hand, but rather the positive commandment—the prohibition is meant to ensure that you fulfill the positive commandment. Of course, there are those who say what you are saying. But that is a different answer. What the Maharil Diskin says follows this Nachmanides, and he also resolves it there. Likewise, the Magen Avraham writes—we may get to it—regarding feeding minors. Feeding minors on Yom Kippur. We already saw this in the Ran in the previous lecture—or the one before, I don’t remember—that the Ran asks why it is permitted to feed minors on Yom Kippur. After all, “you shall not eat” means “you shall not feed.” It is forbidden to feed minors prohibited food directly. This is, by the way, a Torah prohibition according to almost all views. If you feed it to them directly—not if you simply do not stop them. But if you directly feed a minor prohibited food, you have transgressed a Torah prohibition. So the Magen Avraham asks: how is it permitted to feed a minor directly? He says that because on Yom Kippur the fast is a positive commandment, for a positive-commandment prohibition there is no rule of “you shall not eat, you shall not feed.” There is no prohibition of directly causing someone to violate a positive-commandment prohibition. And of course the question is: but there is also a prohibition. Not only according to Maimonides, who says this explicitly. We saw that this is an explicit Mishnah, because the Mishnah says there is a sin-offering. Right? Deliberately there is karet, and unintentionally a sin-offering. A sin-offering is for a prohibition; karet can come on a positive commandment. But for a sin-offering there must also be a prohibition. So what does that mean? After all there is also a prohibition, so what does it help me that for the positive commandment there is no prohibition of direct feeding? The claim is that here too, like Nachmanides says, the prohibition comes to support the positive commandment. The essence of Yom Kippur is the affliction, which is the positive commandment to afflict oneself, and we saw that this is what is written explicitly in the Torah—to afflict oneself, the positive commandment. The prohibition comes to support the positive commandment. We learn it from karet, and we saw there that this is why it is not written explicitly, because that is not really the main point; the main point is the positive commandment of affliction. Since the prohibition comes to support the positive commandment, there will therefore be no prohibition against feeding minors directly, because if they are not violating the positive commandment then the prohibition will also not apply to them. If from the standpoint of the positive commandment it is permitted to feed them directly, then the prohibition too—yes, this is the same use of that Nachmanides I brought here. In a similar vein, I want to say in our context too that the positive commandment of the addition—if indeed the definition is that its purpose is really to ensure proper observance of Yom Kippur, whether so that we not stumble in the doubtful twilight prohibitions, or so that we be in a state of affliction in the first moments of Yom Kippur itself—then it is very reasonable that women would be obligated in this positive commandment. Because the point of this positive commandment is to ensure that one not fail regarding Yom Kippur. Whoever is obligated in Yom Kippur will also be obligated in this positive commandment whose purpose is caution regarding the prohibition of Yom Kippur itself. The Tosafot Rosh here writes something seemingly similar, but it is not really similar. He writes as follows: “From here we learn that one adds from the profane onto the sacred,” on our gemara on page b. “And this addition must be before twilight,” which really does remind one of the conception I mentioned earlier from Rabbeinu Manoach, that the purpose of the addition is to ensure that we do not stumble in the doubtful prohibitions of twilight. This is a Torah-level fence, yes? The Avnei Nezer investigates whether there are Torah-level fences or not. Here it seems to me there are conceptions of a Torah-level fence in Rabbeinu Manoach and the Riaz. I don’t remember if he brings this, but here there are such conceptions. But in Tosafot Rosh it is only superficially so. He says one must add before twilight, “for twilight is of doubtful night status.” What does that mean? That if it were during twilight itself, one would not need the law of addition, because one would have to be stringent because of Torah-level doubt stringency. So why do I need a verse to teach me the prohibition of addition? Of course that is only according to the view that for a Torah-level doubt one must be stringent by Torah law. Because according to Maimonides, that for a Torah-level doubt one is stringent only rabbinically, then one needs the prohibition of addition in order to tell me that here the prohibition is by Torah law and not rabbinic. More than that: according to Maimonides, it is not at all likely that this is the basis of the prohibition. Because if the prohibition of addition is in order that we not stumble in the doubtful twilight prohibitions, but the doubtful twilight prohibitions are rabbinic, how can the Torah impose a Torah-level positive commandment whose purpose is to prevent stumbling in a rabbinic prohibition? So according to Maimonides this is altogether impossible. But Tosafot Rosh apparently assumes that for a Torah-level doubt one is stringent by Torah law, and then he says that one must add before twilight because during twilight… But the Rosh does not say what Rabbeinu Manoach and the Riaz say. He does not say that this is the basis of the law of addition, in order to avoid the prohibitions of twilight, that this is a Torah-level fence. Rather, what he says is that if the addition could have been done during twilight itself, it would be redundant. Because twilight is forbidden due to Torah-level doubt stringency. But he does not enter into the rationale of the verse; he does not go into the question whether the addition comes to prevent failure during twilight. That is another discussion. Therefore it may be similar to the Riaz, but it is really not the same thing. Then the Tosafot Rosh continues and says: “And there is no set measure for this addition, only that one adds a little before twilight.”
[Speaker B] Why? Because he says that really you have to add something beyond… twilight itself is forbidden because of doubt. Add a bit beyond that. There is no set measure. Okay?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to the one who says that the addition is intended to avoid the doubtful prohibition in twilight, it also makes sense that there is no set measure for the addition, right? As long as you do it before twilight, you ensure that there is a moment from which onward you are no longer transgressing, and then you’re fine. Because then you won’t stumble during twilight. And in that sense Tosafot Rosh says this too. But still, that can be said even according to his own view. And when he says there is no measure for the addition, it is not because the whole purpose is to ensure that you do not stumble in doubtful prohibitions, but simply because—there is no measure for this thing; we did not find a measure for this thing. That’s all. Okay? Therefore it seems to me that in Tosafot Rosh it is not written—or at least it is not necessary to explain him like the Riaz. But in truth, according to both of these approaches, the fact that there is no measure for the addition is actually a little difficult from the gemara in Beitzah. The gemara in Beitzah 30 brings the following. It discusses there the principle: better that they remain inadvertent sinners rather than become deliberate sinners. What does it say there? That one does not rebuke people who are transgressing if they won’t accept it from me, because it is better to leave them as inadvertent sinners and not turn them into deliberate sinners, which is a more serious prohibition. So it is preferable not to rebuke them. The Talmud says—bringing some example—women who drew water in their jugs and went and sat at the entrance of the alley with them, yes, they carried this water to the entrance of the alley, and “we said nothing to them and did not rebuke them; rather, leave Israel alone—better that they remain inadvertent sinners and not become deliberate sinners.” Here too, “leave Israel alone—better that they remain inadvertent sinners and not become deliberate sinners,” in the context there in the gemara. The Talmud says: “And this applies only to rabbinic matters, but not to Torah matters.” In a Torah prohibition, you have to alert everyone even if you know he will not listen to you. With a rabbinic prohibition you can let it pass. Why, by the way? What is the difference? Do you know what the difference is between a Torah prohibition and a rabbinic prohibition?
[Speaker E] Rabbinic is simply a fence.
[Speaker C] It isn’t rebellion; only when deliberate is he rebelling against the words of the Sages.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is the Netivot in סימן רל”ד, the Netivot says there that if one violates a rabbinic prohibition unintentionally, then one does not need to repent. Why? He brings proof for this. He says that an unintentional violation of a rabbinic prohibition is not a prohibition at all. An unintentional violation of a Torah prohibition is a lighter prohibition, and one must repent, but an unintentional violation of a rabbinic prohibition is not a prohibition at all. And his proof is a Talmudic text in Eruvin, where the Talmud says that if a person sees his rabbi violating a rabbinic prohibition, then he lets him go ahead and only afterward asks him politely: “Didn’t you teach us, Rabbi, that such-and-such is forbidden?”—in order to find out. But with a Torah prohibition, you have to stop him before he commits the prohibition and say, “Wait, wait, you taught us that such a thing is forbidden.” So the Netivot says: what’s the difference? What, is a rabbinic prohibition permitted? He says: since his rabbi is doing it unintentionally, then if you leave him alone and do not warn him, he will violate it unintentionally, and an unintentional rabbinic prohibition is not a prohibition, so there is no problem. But a Torah prohibition, even unintentionally, is still a prohibition. So with a Torah prohibition you must stop him. Now, what is the basis of this distinction? The basis of the distinction is that rabbinic prohibitions in themselves are not problematic acts. Say you eat poultry with milk—poultry with milk is rabbinic. If it were itself a problematic act, the Torah would have forbidden it. The Torah does not forbid it. So it is not a problematic act. Rather, the Sages made some kind of distancing measure so that you would not come to eat meat with milk. But why is it actually forbidden for me to eat poultry with milk? Because of the obligation to obey the Sages. I am obligated to obey the Sages. And if I don’t know that the Sages forbade it, then there is no disobedience here. Exactly. After all, the whole problem here is only the dimension of obedience involved. But with a Torah prohibition, the prohibition is the very act of eating meat with milk. Even if I did it unintentionally, I committed a prohibition, only it is a lighter prohibition. At the end of the day, I ate meat with milk in reality. But with poultry and milk, the fact that I ate it in reality is no problem at all. The whole problem is only that I did not listen to the voice of the Sages. But if I did not know that they commanded it, then that is not called rebelling against the Sages, and therefore it is permitted. More or less, that is the accepted explanation of this Netivot, and there are others—the Penei Yehoshua and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman on Shev Shema’teta also write the same thing in Shema’teta 1 and elsewhere. In any case, for our purposes too, what the Talmud says here is basically very similar. Just as we leave our rabbi in the status of unintentional rather than intentional, so too with an ordinary person. You see that he is violating a rabbinic prohibition unintentionally. Of course, in principle you are supposed to prevent him—even with a rabbinic prohibition. But if you see that he is acting unintentionally, then really it is not—and you know he will not listen to you—then it is foolish to comment to him. If you do not comment to him, then he did not commit any prohibition at all. An unintentional rabbinic prohibition is not a prohibition at all. And if you comment to him and you know he will not listen, you have turned him into someone acting intentionally. A rabbinic prohibition committed intentionally is indeed a prohibition. So do not comment—that is what the Talmud says. Then the Talmud retracts. It says: “That is not so. There is no difference between Torah law and rabbinic law—we do not tell them anything.” Even with a Torah prohibition, we do not say anything to them. Meaning, the basis is not because unintentionally it is not a prohibition. The basis is because acting unintentionally is lighter than acting intentionally. And not because acting unintentionally is not a prohibition, because unintentional violation in Torah law is certainly a prohibition. Rather, because unintentionally is lighter than intentionally, and therefore it is preferable for us to leave them with an unintentional prohibition rather than have them violate an intentional prohibition. And what is the Talmud’s proof? “For the added time of Yom Kippur is Torah law,” as we see in our passage. “And they ate and drank until dark, and we did not say anything to them.” So the proof is from the added time before Yom Kippur, which is a Torah prohibition, and women would eat and drink until dark and they were not rebuked. Why? Better that they remain unintentional sinners rather than become intentional sinners, even when it is a Torah prohibition. That is the proof. Now, what does this mean? By the way, this law appears in the Rema in 608. The Rema brings this law, that if women eat during the added time before Yom Kippur, one does not comment to them, because it is better that they remain unintentional than become intentional. But he qualifies it and says that with a prohibition explicitly written in the Torah, one does comment to them in any case, even to someone who will not listen. Here, since the prohibition is not written explicitly in the Torah but is derived by interpretation, we remain silent, so one does not comment to them even though it is a Torah prohibition. Okay. Fine, that is just an aside. In any case, for our purposes, apparently this creates a difficulty for what the Tosafot HaRosh and Rabbenu Manoach and all the others write. Why? Because if in truth the law of the added time has no minimum measure, then when exactly do you want to comment to those women? One second after they added beyond the doubtful time? After all, during twilight itself they did not do this, because otherwise we certainly would have commented to them, right? A Torah-level doubt is treated stringently. So that is certain—the prohibition of Yom Kippur is explicitly written in the Torah. And during twilight we certainly would comment to them. So what must it be? It was earlier. How much earlier?
[Speaker D] Even one second is enough. If—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After all, one second is enough to fulfill the requirement of the added time, so in practice it is enough for me to observe the Torah-level doubt stringently in twilight, because you can never be that exact, and you will always add a second. And with the women too, it is quite clear that we are not talking about them eating right up to the very second twilight begins. If that were the case, it would already be an actual Torah-level doubt requiring stringency because of Yom Kippur itself. Rather, it must have been a bit earlier. So if it was a bit earlier, that means there is some minimum measure to the law of the added time. And in fact afterward I saw that the Rashba in a responsum indeed proves from this very Talmudic passage that the law of the added time has a minimum measure. He raises this question there. He notes a contradiction: in one place it says this applies only to rabbinic law and not Torah law, but in the Talmud in Beitzah that we just read it says that it applies to Torah law as well. So he says: that case in the chapter HaSho’el concerns something known and explicit to be Torah law, where the transgressor is a complete wicked person, and we strike him and flog him and pull his hair. But added time is not explicitly written in the verse; rather, we derive it interpretively from “from evening to evening,” and so on. And if you say: if so, they already added a moment whenever they stop before dark, and with that they have fulfilled added time—Rashba says: no, from there we learn that added time has a minimum measure. Meaning, perforce, from that Talmudic passage it follows that added time has a minimum measure; it is not just any amount at all, as Tosafot HaRosh says. And Tosafot in Beitzah on page 30, on that same passage, says this: “It implies that there is a measure for the added time of Yom Kippur, since one must stop while it is still day, for certainly they were not actually eating until dark, for that would be a Torah prohibition. Even so, it says: better that Israel remain unintentional rather than become intentional. And the precise amount of the added time was not clarified, and therefore one must be careful to stop while it is still day.” That is very strange. If the measure of the added time was not clarified, then what does that mean? That you have to stop while it is still day—but how long before dark? Maybe the added time is two hours. How much must be added? Tosafot does not say. So look at the Ran here as well. He also writes that there is no minimum measure, but he writes it this way: “In this vein Nachmanides wrote that this time is from the beginning of sunset, meaning from the time the sun is no longer seen on the earth until twilight—this is the time for the added period. During this time, which is three and a quarter mil, if one wants to make all of it added time, he may do so; if he wants to make part of it added time, he may do so, provided that he adds some amount of time that is certainly weekday onto holy time.” So the Ran says there is no measure, like Tosafot HaRosh, but he solves for us the problem of Tosafot and the Rashba. Because Tosafot and the Rashba, who say there is a measure, make you ask yourself: okay, but still, just to be safe—they say there is a measure, so because of doubt you have to add before. But what does that help? How much should I add? I do not know—maybe five hours, maybe one hour. It could always be that I did not add enough if there is a measure and I do not know what it is. So here he says as follows: Nachmanides says that added time runs from the beginning of sunset until twilight. That is the time window of the added period. But one need not add all of that time; rather, that is the period within which one can add. How much must be added? However much you want—there is no measure—but that is the time frame in which adding is relevant. Now if I return to Tosafot and ask how much to add in order to fulfill the doubtful obligation according to the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who say there is a measure for added time, then presumably from the beginning of sunset. Better not to eat from the beginning of sunset, because then clearly I have covered all the possibilities of the added time. That is the maximum it could be in this matter. Rabbi Zevin, in Moadim BaHalakhah, brings some view—I saw there—that suggests that the measure is the time of digestion, the measure of the added time. What is the idea? The idea is that if you add a digestion period, then once you ate and stopped a digestion period before Yom Kippur, when you enter Yom Kippur you are already afflicted. This is the view I mentioned above, that the law of the added time is basically meant to ensure that already in the first moments of Yom Kippur I am afflicted. Because if I ate before a digestion period—before the digestion period—then clearly once the digestion period passes, when I enter Yom Kippur I am already afflicted. And this is basically—
[Speaker C] What about departure—at the departure of Yom Kippur? What about the law of added time at the end according to this approach?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Apparently according to this approach, the added time at the end really is a different law. It is not the same law as the added time at the beginning. “From evening to evening”—there is a difference between the first evening and the second evening. It really is forced; it could be—I no longer remember—perhaps that is exactly the question Rabbi Zevin asks there, because in the end he rejects it. No, I don’t remember anymore why he rejects it exactly; maybe because of this. I’m only saying that there is a certain logic to it, because if we derive it from the law—that is, let’s put it this way: if we are talking about added time whose source is the added time of the Sabbatical year, then there is a lot of logic in defining it this way, as I said above, right? Because the added time of the Sabbatical year is defined so that the seed not take root during the Sabbatical year itself. Meaning, the added time is not an independent law; it is part of how we preserve the Sabbatical year itself. So with Yom Kippur too, it is like that. And in fact, with the added time of the Sabbatical year there is no added time at the end of the Sabbatical year. But our Talmudic passage, which derives the law of added time from the verse “from evening to evening,” and derives an evening at the beginning and an evening at the end, evidently does not learn it that way. And therefore the question from the fact that there is added time also at the end of Yom Kippur is not really a question. That approach goes according to Rabbi Akiva, who derives it from the added time of the Sabbatical year, and he really would say that there is no added time at the end of Yom Kippur. But our Tanna, who derives it from “from evening to evening,” understands that there is a law of added time both before and after, and then it could also be that he does not understand it in that way at all—in truth it is not a fixed measure. Now there is another interesting point here. If it is really so according to the conception I mentioned earlier, then it follows that the added time applies only to affliction and not to labor. Right? Because with affliction, if I have no food in my stomach then I am considered afflicted. If I merely refrain from eating, that is not called being afflicted, but with labor obviously I do not need to refrain from labor beforehand so that at the first moment, when I am not doing labor, I will be called resting. Therefore, according to this conception, it seems that the law of added time applies only to affliction and not to labor. In our passage, where it is “from evening to evening,” it seems—as I said—that it applies both at the beginning and at the end, and therefore it is not likely that this is the explanation, so there would be room to say that it applies both to affliction and to labor. And especially according to the Tanna of “the very day,” because he excludes the added time both from the warning and from karet, both for affliction and for labor. And the Talmud says that according to that Tanna it is obvious that there is a law of added time, because otherwise why would it need to exclude it from karet and from the warning? So we see that there is a law of added time both for labor and for affliction. Okay, so in our passage, both the Tanna of “the very day” and the Tanna who disagrees with him apparently hold that the added time applies both to labor and to affliction.
[Speaker B] And that brings me to Maimonides, because Maimonides writes as follows: just as labor is prohibited on it—wait, I didn’t share this with you—chapter 1, law 6,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Just as labor is prohibited on it, both by day and by night, so affliction is prohibited both by day and by night, and one must add from the weekday onto the holy at its beginning and at its end, as it says: ‘And you shall afflict your souls on the ninth of the month in the evening’—that is, begin fasting and afflicting yourselves from the evening of the ninth, close to the tenth. And similarly at the end, one lingers in his affliction a little into the night of the eleventh, close to the tenth, as it says: ‘From evening to evening shall you rest your Sabbath.’” By the way, it seems from Maimonides that there is no set measure—“one lingers a little”—he does not write exactly how many hours. So in any case, from Maimonides it sounds like the added time applies only to affliction. Right? He says: just as labor is prohibited both by day and by night, so affliction is prohibited both by day and by night, and one must add from the weekday onto the holy at its beginning and at its end, as it says “and you shall afflict your souls,” that is, begin fasting and afflicting yourselves from the evening of the ninth close to the tenth. What about doing labor? He does not mention it. And in fact the commentators here infer this—both the Maggid Mishneh and the Lechem Mishneh infer that according to Maimonides, the added time applies only to affliction and not to labor. And there is a lengthy discussion here; I won’t go into it. There is a long discussion in the Maggid Mishneh and the Lechem Mishneh. The question is what textual version of the Talmud Maimonides had. In the end they suggest that Maimonides learns the law of added time only regarding affliction—this is the Maggid Mishneh that is photographed here. Maybe let’s look at it anyway. There are really two things in Maimonides: one, that the law of added time applies only to affliction; two, Maimonides does not bring the law of added time for either the Sabbath or a Jewish holiday, only for Yom Kippur. Now he says: from our Rabbi’s words it appears that the Torah-mandated addition exists only for affliction, but not for labor, not on Yom Kippur and not on Sabbaths. Now notice: if there is no added labor-prohibition on Sabbaths, then on Sabbaths there is no added time at all, because affliction is irrelevant on Sabbaths. “And this is why he wrote: begin fasting and afflicting yourselves,” and this is why he made no mention at all in his laws of Sabbath of Torah-mandated added time. And in the chapter Yom HaKippurim it appears that the matter is a dispute among Tannaim, for there there is one who interpreted: one might have thought that one is warned concerning added labor; therefore Scripture says, ‘And any labor you shall not do on this very day’—for the essence of the day he is warned, but he is not warned concerning added labor. So according to the Tanna of ‘the very day,’ he derives the law of added time from the exclusion expounded regarding karet and warning on Yom Kippur. It is clear that according to him the law of added time applies only on Yom Kippur. On the other hand, according to him it seems that it also applies to labor, but only to Yom Kippur. And in another baraita it was taught there: ‘And you shall afflict your souls’—from here we learn that one adds from weekday onto holy time, and so on. From where do we know for festivals? It says ‘rest,’ ‘rest.’ From where do we know for Sabbaths? The verse says ‘your Sabbaths.’ From here you learn that wherever ‘resting’ is said, one adds from weekday onto holy time. So what do we see? That there is a law of added time not only on Yom Kippur but also on the other days. That is another dispute between the Tanna of ‘the very day’ and the Tanna who disagrees with him: whether there is a law of added time also on Sabbaths and festivals or only on Yom Kippur. Now here there is something strange, because the Maggid Mishneh claims that it all goes together: that whoever says the added time was stated only regarding Yom Kippur also says that the added time was stated only regarding affliction and not labor. Therefore on Sabbaths and festivals the law of added time does not apply. Meaning, Maimonides’ statement that it applies only to affliction, and Maimonides’ statement that it applies only to Yom Kippur and not the other days—those are two sides of the same coin. Since the whole law of added time applies only to the affliction of Yom Kippur. There is no law of added time for labor prohibitions anywhere—not on Yom Kippur and not anywhere else. But that does not fit with our Talmudic passage, because in our passage it fits with neither Tanna. The Tanna on page 81b learns that there is a law of added time also on Sabbaths and festivals. Then it could be that it applies only to labor, I don’t know, but it does apply on Sabbaths and festivals. In fact he derives it from ‘from evening to evening shall you rest your Sabbath,’ so regarding resting, and one might have said perhaps resting from labor and not from affliction, as on Sabbaths and festivals. But the Tanna of ‘the very day’ learns it regarding affliction—sorry, he learns it because we exclude the added time from karet and from the negative commandment. That implies there is a prohibition, and that is only on Yom Kippur. But we exclude from karet and from the negative commandment both for labor and for affliction. So Maimonides fits neither the Tanna on page 81b, because there it also applies to Sabbaths and festivals, nor the Tanna on page 81a, because that Tanna says it applies both to affliction and to labor. And Maimonides says it applies only to affliction and only on Yom Kippur. So that is unlike anyone. Therefore this Maggid Mishneh is difficult. By the way, I’m not sure that the inference from Maimonides is correct. Because what Maimonides writes—look here at the wording: “And one must add from the weekday onto the holy at its beginning and at its end, as it says: ‘And you shall afflict your souls on the ninth of the month in the evening.’ That is, begin fasting and afflicting yourselves from the evening of the ninth close to the tenth.” Fasting and afflicting yourselves—and not doing labor as well, that is what he means. The point is: add from the weekday onto the holy. Whatever you do on Yom Kippur, do also during the added time—both labor and affliction.
[Speaker C] But at the end, in the end he writes, “and at the end one lingers in his affliction.” At the end he emphasizes affliction.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He emphasizes affliction at the beginning too: “that is, begin fasting and afflicting yourselves from the evening of the ninth.” I am only claiming that this is just standard phrasing. When he says this is Yom Kippur, he means: begin the laws of Yom Kippur earlier. What are the laws of Yom Kippur? Fasting and affliction. But clearly he also means labor. Because otherwise the wording here is a bit problematic. “Just as labor is prohibited on it by day and by night, so affliction is prohibited by day and by night.” Right, so far labor and affliction are the same. “And one must add from the weekday onto the holy at its beginning and at its end, as it says: ‘And you shall afflict your souls on the ninth of the month in the evening.’” Up to this point it is clear that it applies both to labor and to affliction. Suddenly he says: “that is, begin fasting and afflicting yourselves from the evening of the ninth.” That is not a clarification—now he is adding a qualification: but know that this is only for fasting and not for labor. He does not say “but know that”; rather he says “that is,” he is explaining. So there is definitely room to say that this “that is” is simply shorthand. He means: begin all the laws of Yom Kippur earlier—for example, fasting and affliction, refraining from labor, and so on. And similarly at the end of the day. And if I am right about this, then Maimonides rules like the Tanna of ‘the very day.’ He is basically saying that it applies only on Yom Kippur, and therefore he brings it only regarding Yom Kippur, because he does not rule like the second Tanna. And therefore, on the other hand, it fits the Tanna of ‘the very day,’ because it applies both to labor and to affliction. And the fact that he writes here only about affliction is just standard phrasing. The laws of Yom Kippur—when you want to mention the laws of Yom Kippur, you say fasting and affliction, because those are the characteristic laws that mark Yom Kippur. He means all the laws of Yom Kippur. More than that, it somewhat seems from here as well that Maimonides probably understands the added time as an extension of Yom Kippur itself. Meaning, continue what you do on Yom Kippur a little forward and a little backward. It is not presented here as some new prohibition or new positive commandment. I’m not sure—maybe he is talking only about the practical halakhah. Practically, one must begin a bit earlier and finish a bit later. Whether it is a separate source or not, I don’t know. But the way he writes it, when he inserts it into “just as labor is prohibited by day and by night, so affliction is prohibited by day and by night, and one must add from weekday onto holy time”—“add” makes it sound as though the same matter is extending further. Okay. The Lechem Mishneh goes on at length; I won’t get into it here. The Lechem Mishneh goes on at length and proposes different textual versions of the Talmud. He raises questions on Maimonides, on this Maggid Mishneh, that there is a contradiction in it—it does not fit any of the Tannaim. He makes a whole reshuffling of the Talmud there and brings different versions and also reconciles the Rif that we read earlier, but I’ll leave that for you to look at in your own time. I still want to get through a few more comments about the added time, and maybe we’ll manage something else too—I see I’ve taken too much time.
[Speaker B] Okay, first of all I want to make a few comments. Maimonides—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If Maimonides really understands—if Maimonides really rules like the Tanna of ‘the very day,’ and therefore the added time applies only on Yom Kippur, but probably applies both to labor and to affliction, and the Lechem Mishneh and the Maggid Mishneh are not correct—if what I am saying is correct—then Maimonides aligns with the Talmud in its simple sense. You only need to understand that when he said affliction, he meant it as an example; he meant all the laws of Yom Kippur. Then he follows the Tanna of ‘the very day.’ Now according to this it should come out that according to Maimonides—meaning, according to this, of course—what does the Tanna of ‘the very day’ do with ‘from evening to evening’? He derives from it the obligation to eat on the ninth. But Maimonides does not bring that obligation. He does not mention in the laws of the cessation of the tenth that there is a commandment to eat on the ninth. And that is a bit difficult, because if he says that in our Talmudic passage the Tanna of ‘the very day’ and the second Tanna disagree, and he rules like the Tanna of ‘the very day,’ and this has practical halakhic implications as we just saw—this is really a halakhic dispute, not just what they expound—then if so, he should have brought the obligation to eat on the ninth. And on the contrary, according to Maimonides’ approach that there is a dispute among Tannaim here, one could have said that for someone who does not bring the obligation to eat on the ninth, it is not difficult from the Talmud, because he probably rules like the second Tanna, not like the Tanna of ‘the very day.’ And this is a dispute, a halakhic dispute. But Maimonides, who rules like the Tanna of ‘the very day,’ should indeed have brought this law. Why does he not bring it? Another point that needs discussion is what about the other afflictions during the added time. In Maimonides it is somewhat apparent that just as the prohibitions of affliction and labor apply by day and by night, so too with the added time, and he does not distinguish. So he says: “to fast and afflict yourselves.” What does “to fast and afflict yourselves” mean? Simply speaking, it means all the afflictions. Meaning, the law of added time includes all the afflictions, not only eating and drinking. And again, that leans more in the direction of seeing the added time as an extension of Yom Kippur, not as a new law. If it were a new law, I would expect there to be a source for each of these prohibitions separately, just as on Yom Kippur itself there is a source for each of these prohibitions separately. But if it is an extension of Yom Kippur itself, then what one is told is to extend Yom Kippur before and after—all that exists on Yom Kippur, except for what was excluded: karet and perhaps also the negative commandment—but it is a continuation of Yom Kippur itself. The later authorities also discuss whether a person must personally accept the added time upon himself, or whether the added time takes effect on him regardless. So the Or Zarua—the later authorities write, for example the Chelkat Yoav in Orach Chaim 30 discusses this. He brings proof from the Ritva: the Ritva requires kiddush and prayer during the added time. I mentioned this in the previous class. Because he sees the added time as a continuation of the day, therefore one can make kiddush during the added time. Not only is it a continuation of the day, but there is also sanctity to the day of the added time; it is not just a continuation of the prohibitions, right? And then he says that apparently this Ritva assumes that one needs the person’s acceptance. What is the proof? Because kiddush is itself his acceptance of the added time, therefore one must make kiddush during the added time. I’m not one hundred percent sure that this proof is good. It could be that one does not need the person’s acceptance and the added time exists anyway, and one needs to recite kiddush as soon as Yom Kippur begins—one needs to recite kiddush. That does not mean that the kiddush is itself the acceptance, as he wants to claim. On the Sabbath too, I recite kiddush after I have already accepted the Sabbath. So I am not sure this is such a good proof from the Ritva. In any case, he and other later authorities write that the early authorities—sorry, the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—disagreed about this: the Ritva and the Or Zarua versus the Shitah Mekubetzet and Tosafot. What happens, for example, according to the Or Zarua, who says one must accept it—what happens if he did not accept it? If he did not accept the added time upon himself, then apparently he has neglected the positive commandment of the added time, but labor and the afflictions are nevertheless permitted. If he performs labor or violates the afflictions, he has not violated a prohibition, because he did not accept the added time, and without that there is no added time. Some wrote that the acceptance of the community helps for him as well and therefore obligates him; if he is on a deserted island, that might be a practical difference. Okay? There is another discussion about whether there is a prohibition on every single labor during the added time. Every labor and every labor he performs during the added time—is there a prohibition, assuming that labor too is forbidden and not only affliction? If the issue is that you must add onto Yom Kippur itself, this added time onto Yom Kippur, it could be that all the labor you do there is irrelevant; in practical terms, what you violated is that you did not add from weekday onto holy time, not that you violated each and every labor separately. There are many more discussions here—again, one can perhaps bring proofs from nuances of wording in the medieval authorities, but it is all speculative, so one can discuss it this way or that, but I do not think there are good proofs in either direction. Some discussed whether one can accept upon himself only part of the prohibitions during the added time. It seems to me this would depend on the first question I asked. Is the added time an extension of the day itself, and the prohibitions only follow from that, or is it only an extension of the prohibitions while the day itself is not intrinsically a sanctified day? If it is an extension of the day and the prohibitions follow from that, then there is no room to divide among the prohibitions—if you extended the day, then all the prohibitions apply to you. But if it is an extension of the prohibitions and it requires acceptance, say like the Or Zarua who says it requires acceptance, then what I accepted, I accepted; what I did not accept, I did not accept. It could be that I violated something by not accepting upon myself the added time for all the prohibitions, but as long as I did not accept them, and I then violated those prohibitions, I did not violate anything because they are not forbidden to me. In truth, this needs some discussion according to the views that say one does not need personal acceptance for the added time, and let us assume there are views that say the added time has no minimum duration—like the Rosh and the Ran, against what we saw in Tosafot and the Rashba. Then what practical difference does the law of added time have at all? It has no practical difference whatsoever. Because if one does not need the person’s acceptance, and during the doubtful twilight itself certainly I will not do anything, and one second before that I also won’t do anything, because you cannot know a single second exactly, then one always fulfills the law of added time. If one needs to accept it upon oneself, then there is a practical difference: one must accept the added time upon oneself one second before Yom Kippur, or a little before Yom Kippur, so that it is clear that I did something additional beyond the doubtful period of twilight. But if one does not need to accept it upon oneself—I am combining views here—if one does not need to accept it and there is no set duration for the law of added time, then there is really no practical difference at all; you always fulfill the law of added time. It seems to me that the only practical difference that could remain is that someone who violates the twilight period, who desecrates Yom Kippur during twilight, has not only violated a doubtful prohibition, he has also neglected the positive commandment of added time. That is the practical difference of the law of added time: that he violates two prohibitions, that’s all. Or if you want, someone who fulfills this commandment fulfills two commandments—not exactly two commandments, but he both refrains from a doubtful Yom Kippur prohibition and fulfills the commandment to add added time.
[Speaker C] And apparently maybe one could say a practical difference where they permitted certain things—perhaps rabbinic prohibitions during twilight—so if—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If there is added time, then they would become forbidden.
[Speaker C] They permitted things—rabbinic prohibitions during twilight. Yes, so maybe if there is added time then it would be Torah-forbidden, but that doesn’t answer for Torah law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is the practical difference—added time is a Torah law. What practical difference comes from that? Fine. Now regarding—I’ll try to get through a bit more—regarding eating on the ninth. Here there really isn’t much, just a few comments, some of them well known. According to the conclusion of our Talmudic passage, apparently this is a dispute among Tannaim. According to the Tanna of ‘the very day,’ there is an obligation to eat on the ninth. According to our Tanna, there is no source for this. “From evening to evening” is the law of added time, not eating on the ninth. So apparently there is no such law. And as I already mentioned, Maimonides omits this law. It does not appear in the laws of Yom Kippur. Apparently that is because he rules not like the Tanna of ‘the very day.’ But we saw that he does rule like the Tanna of ‘the very day.’ So there is some problem here. On the other hand, Maimonides in the laws of vows does mention this matter, incidentally. It does not appear in the laws of Yom Kippur, but in the laws of vows he does mention it. Let me share it with you. Chapter 3, law 9, he writes as follows: “One who vows to fast on the Sabbath or on a festival is obligated to fast, for vows take effect even on matters of commandment, as we explained. Therefore, one who vows to fast every Sunday or every Monday all his life, and that day happens to be a festival or the eve of Yom Kippur, he is obligated to fast. Needless to say, the same applies to the New Moon. If it happens to be Hanukkah or Purim, his vow is deferred because of those days, since the prohibition of fasting on them is by rabbinic enactment, they require reinforcement, and his vow is deferred because of the decree of the Sages.” So in passing he mentions the eve of Yom Kippur and treats it as a vow regarding a matter of commandment. Someone who swore to fast on the eve of Yom Kippur—there is an obligation to eat, like on the New Moon, like on the Sabbath, like on a festival. And nevertheless he says the oath takes effect because one who vows—or perhaps because this is specifically an oath rather than a vow—which does take effect on a matter of commandment. So we see that according to Maimonides, eating on the eve of Yom Kippur is a commandment. So why does he not bring it in the laws of Yom Kippur? So Arukh HaShulchan wrote that Maimonides treats this law as a custom—to increase the meal. Even in the wording of the Talmud it says that one who eats on the ninth, Scripture considers him as if he had fasted on the ninth and the tenth. That sounds a bit like a recommendation, a special virtue, a nice idea—it does not sound like strict law. And it may well be that what our Talmud says is not a law to eat on the ninth. The verse teaches that there is such an idea, and therefore Maimonides does not bring it in Yom Kippur, because it is not one of the laws of Yom Kippur, but rather there is such an idea. And one should also note that there is a novelty here in the laws of oaths, because Maimonides says that for the purposes of oaths, this is considered an oath concerning a matter of commandment, and it takes effect. And when he writes that it takes effect, then it is not so dramatic. It takes effect—or it is trivial that it takes effect—because this is really only an idea, not an actual commandment. Yes, but Maimonides includes it in the list of such oaths, where you swear concerning a matter of commandment—whether it is an actual commandment or just an important observance—then it takes effect. And the one exceptional case is Hanukkah and Purim, where the prohibition on fasting is rabbinic, because there the Sages gave more reinforcement to their words than to Torah law. But in something that is a Torah prohibition—or a Torah obligation, sorry—or an important observance, there the oath does take effect. And one should note that there is really no clear proof in Maimonides that this is a matter of commandment. He brings it in the list. The matters of commandment that appear here—festival and Sabbath—are certainly matters of commandment. The eve of Yom Kippur he includes in this list because one might perhaps have thought that even on this the oath would not take effect, because after all there is some religious significance—even significance learned from a verse—to eating. And one who swears about that perhaps cannot swear, because one must swear only regarding optional matters. About a matter of commandment one cannot swear. And it may be that since this belongs to the category of what is fitting and unfitting, it is not just some neutral observance, one might have thought perhaps that the oath would not take effect on it; and he teaches us that it does take effect. That is what Arukh HaShulchan argues. And then indeed it comes out that there is no such prohibition, but that resolves what I said earlier. Why? Because Maimonides really does rule like the Tanna of ‘the very day,’ and Maimonides does indeed learn the matter of eating on the ninth from the verse “from evening to evening,” but he learns from it that it is fitting to eat, not that there is a commandment to eat. And therefore he does not bring this law in the laws of Yom Kippur but only in this context of an oath concerning a matter of commandment. There are well-known comments—I saw someone say that there was a thought that if someone vowed to fast on the eve of Yom Kippur, this would not take effect. Why? Because if it did take effect, then he would fast on the ninth, and then he would not be able to fast on the tenth. Meaning, the problem is not that he is fasting against the commandment to eat on the ninth, but rather—then there would be no need to infer from Maimonides that there is a commandment to eat on the ninth. Fine, that seems forced to me. The Meiri too, in Berakhot page 8, writes that eating on the eve of Yom Kippur is a preparation for a commandment. You eat so that you will be able to fast on Yom Kippur; it is a kind of preparatory act for a commandment. And Ha’amek She’elah also notes that in the wording of the She’iltot, She’ilta 167, it says as follows: “Whoever eats on the ninth and fasts on the tenth, Scripture considers it as if he had fasted on the ninth and the tenth.” That wording is interesting, because in our Talmud it says: “Whoever eats and drinks on the ninth, Scripture considers it as if he had fasted on the ninth and the tenth.” He adds: “and fasts on the tenth.” Why does he add that? Because perhaps he understands it as a preparation for the commandment. Only if you fast on the tenth does it become clear retroactively that the eating on the ninth was a commandment, because it enabled you to fast on the tenth. Without it, you would not have managed to fast on the tenth. Then it follows that there is no real commandment to eat on the ninth; it is a preparation so that you can fast on the tenth. But actually that is a bit difficult, because the Talmud says quite simply that if you have a doubt, you must fast two days.
[Speaker B] We saw that Talmudic passage in the differences between Yom Kippur and Sabbath, that with a doubt on Yom Kippur, a doubt about the day is treated stringently, while on Tisha B’Av leniently.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A practical difference would be whether there is a commandment to eat on the eve of Yom Kippur for someone who will not fast on Yom Kippur because he is ill. If it is merely a preparation for a commandment, then there is no such commandment. There is a well-known responsum of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, and other later authorities discuss this matter—whether it is a preparation for a commandment or an independent commandment. Rabbi Chaim, as is well known, was particular all day long to chew all kinds of candies and seeds and things like that just in order to fulfill the commandment of eating. He understood it as a regular commandment of eating: whatever you eat gets credited to you as a commandment. But if it is only a preparation for a commandment, then that makes no sense. If it is only a preparation, then you need to eat in such a way as to be able to fast on the tenth, but there is no point in eating as much as you can throughout the whole ninth day. So these are practical differences that already appear in Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s responsum and other discussions of that sort. Fine, I’ll stop here regarding the obligation to eat on the ninth. I still have one more subsection I need to do in our context, namely the question whether Yom Kippur time is made up of distinct parts or not, so I’ll devote the beginning of the next class to that, and then we’ll continue with what I told you about women and minors. Look at the passage on page 82 in our tractate and the passage in Sukkah page 28, from which I also read part today. The obligation of women on Yom Kippur and the obligation of minors is in the Mishnah on page 82 and the Talmud there. Okay.
[Speaker D] Thank you very much.
[Speaker B] Thank you, Shabbat shalom.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] See you, Shabbat shalom.
[Speaker D] Shabbat shalom.