Yoma, Chapter 8 – Lesson 10

This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

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

[28:56] Does an enactment accepted by most of the public become invalid?
[30:14] Democracy in Jewish law – is it possible?
[31:15] Examples of enactments the sages had to impose
[35:19] Is it permitted not to extinguish a fire on the Sabbath in a time of distress?
[39:14] A distinction between constitutive and directive legal systems
[41:34] The importance of a get in dissolving marriage
[44:35] Women’s obligation in commandments – sukkah and Yom Kippur

Full Transcript

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I want to open with a supplement to the previous lecture, which dealt with times—or to the previous lectures, which dealt with the meaning of time on Yom Kippur—and this is the well-known inquiry of the later authorities (Acharonim): how is the obligation to fast on Yom Kippur defined? I already mentioned this. Some understand it as an obligation applying at every single moment, and some understand it as one big obligation over the entire twenty-four-hour period together. Day and night, yes, we already talked about that. And this discussion—the main sources are in Binyan Tzion, in the responsa Binyan Tzion. Wait one second. Moving on—I don’t have the source in front of me right now, but it’s not hard to find; if you want I’ll send it to you. And there’s also in Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla on the section of punishments, in the Book of Commandments of Saadia Gaon. What’s called the Book of Commandments of Saadia Gaon, and jokingly in yeshivot they call it Rabbi Yerucham Perla’s Book of Commandments with Saadia Gaon’s notes. So in the section on punishments, punishment 3, 4, there’s a long discussion there by Rabbi Yerucham Perla with proofs both ways on this question—yes, whether the obligation is on every single moment or whether the obligation is on the unit, on the entire day as a whole. Usually the practical ramification brought in this context is the question of what happens if someone already ate. Say he ate a date-sized amount, meaning enough for satiation or something like that, so that he has essentially already broken the fast—he ate the requisite measure. The question is whether he is still obligated to continue fasting for the rest of the day, or whether it’s lost for him—he’s already lost Yom Kippur. And the claim is that this depends on that inquiry. Meaning, if the obligation is on every single moment, then just because he lost one moment—someone who ate garlic, should he go back and eat garlic again? Meaning, if he lost one moment, why should that exempt him from the later moments that come afterward? He still has to fast during the remaining moments. On the other hand, if I understand that the obligation is on the entire day as one unit, one whole piece, meaning one long obligation, then the moment he ate, he no longer fulfilled it, so it’s lost for him—there’s no point in continuing to fast, he already missed it. Something like this can also be seen regarding the counting of the Omer—well-known things, the dispute between Behag and Tosafot. According to the common understanding of Behag, he sees the commandment of counting the Omer as one continuous commandment over all 49 days, while Tosafot sees it as a commandment for each and every day, a separate commandment each day.

[Speaker B] Is the question about the definition, or about the temporal application? Is the question about the definition of the commandment, or about the temporal application—about when the time takes effect?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the difference?

[Speaker B] No, because it could be that the commandment takes effect at the beginning of the day, and its definition is every moment—that every moment of the day you should be afflicted—or that every moment it renews itself. Counting the Omer is also some kind of definition like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every moment you should be afflicted means that you basically have to fast as one complete unit, every single moment within that unit. I don’t really see the difference in formulation.

[Speaker B] Either in the temporal application or in the definition. Okay, if there’s no difference then I’m a bit stuck in understanding it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, there too, in the dispute between Behag and Tosafot, they connect it to the law of a minor who came of age between the two Passovers—not between the two Passovers, that’s Maimonides—a minor who came of age in the middle of counting the Omer. A minor who comes of age in the middle of counting the Omer—the question is whether he can continue counting or whether it’s lost for him, because he didn’t fulfill the first part, since he was a minor and not yet obligated. And the question is whether he can continue counting with a blessing, or whether he is obligated by Torah law to continue counting, or whether it’s lost for him. If he didn’t do all 49 days, then according to Behag he can’t continue counting, and according to Tosafot he can. Exactly the same structure. Here I want to argue that that distinction… that implication is not necessary. So it’s not necessarily a practical ramification between these two views, and I’m even inclined to think that it isn’t a practical ramification between these two views. I’ll start maybe with Behag and Tosafot on counting the Omer, because there I have two—there are two possible mistakes for someone who ties the dispute to this inquiry. First of all, the claim is that if a minor comes of age in the middle of counting the Omer, then of course he can continue counting with a blessing, at least by virtue of the law of education. Who said that the law of education ends when he comes of age? The law of education applies all the time; it’s just that usually when he comes of age, he becomes obligated in commandments like an adult, he’s already obligated in his own right, so the law of education loses its significance—it gets swallowed up in his regular obligation. But if there’s some commandment in which, as an adult, he still isn’t obligated, then the law of education could definitely remain. Why should the law of education stop at age thirteen? The law of education means the father has to make sure his son gets used to and learns to keep commandments. We’ll talk about that more in the next lecture when we discuss minors. So I don’t see any reason to assume that after he grows two pubic hairs or reaches age thirteen, the law of education stops. And if he continues on the basis of education, then by virtue of education he can count with a blessing. He can continue counting with a blessing even after coming of age; it’s just true that all of that would be only by virtue of education. Meaning, it wouldn’t be a Torah-level commandment, but a rabbinic one, because the law of education is rabbinic, not Torah-level. But that’s one direction. Rabbi Ben Zion Abba Shaul, I think, writes this. But there’s another direction that in my view is no less reasonable, and that is that… meaning, that he should continue by virtue of education seems obvious to me. Meaning, as a matter of Jewish law it’s clear to me that he should continue counting with a blessing—that’s completely clear. A minor who comes of age in the middle of counting the Omer continues counting with a blessing, there’s no doubt about that. The question is what he is doing—whether he is doing a rabbinic commandment; I tend to think he is also doing a Torah-level commandment. Why? And even according to Behag. Why? Because the question—maybe this is what you meant before, Avi, I’m not sure that’s what you meant, we’ll see—when I discuss whether the commandment is a commandment over the whole day or a commandment at every single moment, usually people understand the discussion as being about the parameters of the commandment. How is the commandment defined—is it over the whole day, or is it over every moment? Or regarding counting the Omer, is the commandment over all 49 days, or each day separately? But I can also claim that the question is what the concept of counting means—not what the commandment of counting the Omer is. What is the concept of counting in general, apart from Jewish law for the moment? What does it mean to count? Is saying “today is the thirteenth day of the Omer” considered counting that day? Or does counting mean arranging the days one after another? That is what counting means. In order to count, you need several things that you count one after the other. If you understand that the concept of counting requires continuity—meaning, there’s no such thing as counting one day. Counting one day is nonsense. Counting one day counts as counting only if it comes within the framework of counting several days. Then what comes out is that Behag is not claiming that the definition of the commandment is one commandment. The commandment is to count. The only question is what counts as counting. Does counting mean arranging 49 days one after another? If so, then you have to count all the days. Counting one of the days would not be a commandment, but not because you didn’t fulfill the commandment—rather because you didn’t count. It simply isn’t called counting. Okay? If that’s the case, if that’s Behag’s view, then a minor who counted by virtue of education until he reached the thirteenth day of the Omer, and on the thirteenth day he grew two hairs, now continues counting with a blessing on a Torah level, not merely a rabbinic one. Why? Because until now too, he counted. So the counting of the fourteenth day definitely counts as counting, because he also counted the first thirteen. True, he counted them only by virtue of the rabbinic law of education, but he still performed the concept of counting—he performed the act of counting. And if he counted the first thirteen days, then there is no impediment to continuing to count the fourteenth, fifteenth, up to forty-nine. Therefore, if Behag is speaking not about the definition of the commandment—the commandment is to count 49 days—but about the definition of the concept of counting, what the word “counting” means in the dictionary, not from the standpoint of “the commandment requires you to count”—what is counting? That’s not determined by the Torah. Go out and see what people do—what counts as counting. Does counting mean arranging the days one after another? If so, then you need to count all 49 days. But on the other hand, it’s enough that I counted them in practice, factually. It doesn’t have to be that I did it as a commandment on a Torah level. If I counted the first thirteen days, then the counting of the fourteenth day is counting. It places it after the first thirteen days. What difference does it make that during the first thirteen I was not one who was commanded and performed? And then according to that, I can continue counting with a blessing on a Torah level—not can, must continue counting with a blessing on a Torah level for the rest of the days. By the way, according to this it could also be that in Tosafot, who says each day is a commandment in itself, I don’t know whether that is the definition of the commandment or maybe also just the definition of counting. Each counting is considered a separate counting. The commandment may still be one commandment, to count all the days. I don’t know. But his definition of the concept of counting is one day. This is somewhat related to the question of what type of counting this is. Usually mathematicians distinguish between two roles of numbers. There are cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers. Usually this distinction is made regarding infinite numbers, between infinite quantities and infinite numbers. But I think philosophically this difference also exists in finite numbers. For example, when I… you know, here and there I’ve maybe turned this into only a side point, because it’s an interesting point in many contexts, so I’ll expand on it a bit. Look, once I heard someone giving a talk in a synagogue on Friday night about the laws of the Sabbath, and he was discussing why Rabbi Moshe Feinstein—I think—says that it is permitted to measure a fever on the Sabbath. If I remember correctly, I think it was Rabbi Moshe Feinstein who said this; I’m not one hundred percent sure, but that’s how I remember it. In any case, he brought an opinion that one may measure temperature on the Sabbath.

[Speaker E] But with an analog thermometer, right? Not digital.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, an analog thermometer.

[Speaker E] Is there a reason not to, by the way? What? Is there a reason that it wouldn’t be okay? It’s just mercury, I mean.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does mercury have to do with it? The question is whether measuring is permitted. Let’s see. And then he was puzzled by that view, because after all it’s forbidden to count, weigh, and measure things on the Sabbath—that’s because of commerce. And he said: so what, are you going to tell me this is abstract measurement? But halakhic decisors also forbid measuring time, even though time is an abstract thing. Measuring when twenty seconds have passed is forbidden on the Sabbath. So what’s the difference between that and measuring temperature?

[Speaker F] Where is measuring time forbidden? What? Who forbids measuring time?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are many halakhic decisors who forbid measuring time.

[Speaker F] What, saying one, two, three, four?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Saying one, two—

[Speaker F] Three, four is permitted, but measuring time is forbidden. What, counting seconds?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Start a watch, a stopwatch, okay? And check how much time passes, or even without a stopwatch, using your regular watch. Forbidden. It’s measuring, like commerce.

[Speaker F] Is that written somewhere?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s written in several halakhic authorities. Not in the Talmud, but in several authorities it says that this is forbidden. And then he said—maybe even Rabbi Moshe Feinstein himself raised the contradiction, I no longer remember because it was many years ago—he said: after all, measuring time is also forbidden, and that’s no less abstract. So why is measuring temperature permitted while measuring time is forbidden? And then the penny dropped for me that in fact these are two entirely different actions. It’s not a question of abstract or not abstract at all. What is the difference between the number that indicates a temperature—forty degrees, thirty-nine degrees, thirty-eight degrees—and the number that indicates a quantity of seconds? The number that indicates a quantity of seconds is a number indicating a quantity. The number that indicates degrees of temperature indicates no quantity at all. It’s not the quantity of degrees that I have; it’s a heat level. Those who know physics—extensive and intensive—it’s related to distinctions made in thermodynamics. But here it’s pretty clear. Look, with seconds, if I say I have nineteen seconds, I can add one more second and then I’ll have twenty in total. In that sense it’s like counting oranges; it’s abstract, but still made up of units, each unit has significance, and if I add it then I have one more in the total quantity. But if I measure temperature, I can’t say: I have thirty-nine degrees, now I’ll add one more degree and then in total I’ll have forty. The fortieth degree is not adding one more degree beyond the thirty-nine so that now I have more degrees in total. Forty degrees is one heat level above thirty-nine degrees. The fortieth degree that I added has no connection. The numbers of degrees are ordinal numbers and not cardinal numbers. I am not counting how many degrees I have. I am ordering heat quantities, heat levels, one above another. By contrast, with seconds I am counting how many seconds have passed, exactly as I count how many kilograms of potatoes I’m selling you at the market. Therefore, if we forbid counting on the Sabbath because of commerce, it is very plausible that what was forbidden was cardinal counting and not ordinal counting. Ordinal counting is a completely different action. Ordinal counting is not even an action—it’s not even counting, sorry. Numbers are used there only as measurements of what stage you are at. It’s not how many degrees you passed until then, but rather: what heat level is this? This is heat level number forty. This is heat level number thirty-nine. So I arrange the heat levels one above another. The numbers are ordinal. By the way, this is related to Rabbi Shimon Shkop and to many issues there about counting and measure and many things, and also with counting the Omer there are other laws that relate to this—whether what is needed is cardinal counting or ordinal counting. If I’m speaking about cardinal counting, then you can say I need one after another because I’m counting how many I have altogether. There’s no point in speaking about the thirteenth day; I have thirteen days accumulated by now. It’s like counting seconds. But if I’m speaking about ordinal counting, then today is the thirteenth day. That’s true even if I didn’t count the first twelve days, because I’m talking about what this day is; I’m not arranging it relative to the previous days. So if the counting is ordinal counting, there is at least room—though it’s not necessary, on this side it’s not necessary, on the other side it is necessary—to say that one can count a single day and it still counts as an act of counting. Because I have ordered this day. True, I didn’t order the previous days. But if I’m counting how many days I have, it is impossible to count only the thirteenth day. It’s the thirteenth day after I already have twelve in the stack, and then it’s the thirteenth that goes in there. What meaning is there in saying that today is the thirteenth day if the counting is cardinal and not ordinal?

[Speaker G] Why not say that I join the community that is counting, and so I’m part of the community? I didn’t understand. If he was a minor, then anyway he had no option, so he counted what he could, but he joined the community as the community counts. The community is counting the days. I’m just adding a day to the community.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For individuals—it’s not a commandment on the community. What do you mean? Counting the Omer is an individual commandment. So for example with the counting of the Jubilee, there too one has to discuss this. But Nachmanides makes a distinction there between that and a zavah. But with the counting of the Jubilee it could be that it’s a law on the community, and then maybe with minors, if it has a practical ramification, they can be subsumed into the community. Like the commandment of Hakhel, for example—there are opinions that this is the dispute between the Sha’agat Aryeh and the Minchat Chinukh. In Hakhel, after all, you need to have land. So he asks: how can a minor fulfill the commandment of Hakhel? It says, “Assemble the men, the women, and the children”—even the children. And children have no land; the land belongs to their father. And if their father died, then their father can’t bring them. So if they have land because they inherited it from their father, then how do you tell the father to bring the children? The Minchat Chinukh says—he asks—from either side it doesn’t work. And the Sha’agat Aryeh—therefore he says what the Sha’agat Aryeh claims cannot be right. Meaning, it can’t be that the child needs land, because clearly the child comes only by virtue of education; he doesn’t really need land, his father fulfills the commandment, not the child. But the Sha’agat Aryeh argues that the child himself needs land, and there’s a device for how it could come out that the child has land and still has a father. Never mind, that has to be discussed separately. But there the point really is: how can a minor be obligated in commandments? And there the claim is that the obligation is on the community, so women and minors too are obligated in that obligation. Everyone included in the community. Therefore the Talmud in Kiddushin says, “One does not derive from general rules even where an exception is stated,” regarding women in the commandment of Hakhel. Even though this is a positive commandment dependent on time, women are obligated. Why are they obligated? Because it’s not a commandment on individuals. If it’s a commandment on individuals, then women are exempt if it is time-bound. But if the community is obligated, everyone who is part of the community is obligated. It is not measured by whether you are a woman or a minor; rather everyone is obligated because the entire community has to arrive there.

[Speaker G] Like pilgrimage?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Like pilgrimage—

[Speaker G] To the festival?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every such thing has to be discussed. Not everyone agrees about this even in Hakhel. But every such thing has to be discussed. There is room there to speak about a communal commandment in which the individual person is subsumed, and even if on his own he might have been exempt, he will be obligated as part of the community, or he will fulfill it as part of the community. And there is another interesting point there, if we’re already drifting in that direction. The Chinukh writes that… this is very interesting, because if most of the nation got there, then the commandment is fulfilled, the community fulfilled the commandment. So if the commandment was fulfilled, why did I neglect a positive commandment? Whoever was obligated in the commandment fulfilled it; the community was obligated, the community fulfilled it. How can it be that a commandment is fulfilled by those commanded in it and at the same time neglected? If it was fulfilled, then it wasn’t neglected; if it was neglected, then it wasn’t fulfilled. And the claim is—we may get to this in the next lecture, where it will be more relevant—the claim is that in a communal commandment, the community is obligated, and therefore even if most of the community arrives—most is as the whole—and they fulfill the commandment, there is still a responsibility on each individual for it. He has a responsibility to make sure the community fulfills its obligation, and if you did not do what you needed to do within the framework of your responsibility, that is considered neglecting a positive commandment, even though the community fulfilled the commandment. This is a special definition for communal commandments; we’ll discuss it in the context of minors in the next lecture.

[Speaker F] But regarding counting the Omer, maybe the inquiry is whether I’m counting the days in the sense that I am counting, or I’m counting the days themselves.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the same thing. Cardinal counting means counting all the days; ordinal counting means counting the days themselves, arranging each day separately.

[Speaker F] Cardinal counting means, like, that I do a counting—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How many days I’ve gone through until now. Ordinal counting is saying what numbered day I’m on right now.

[Speaker F] Seemingly the definition of cardinal counting is a bit strange in the commandment of counting the Omer. Why exactly do I need to count where I am in the count?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? On the contrary, that’s precisely the simple straightforward meaning. On the way to the giving of the Torah, you want to see where you are. What’s the problem?

[Speaker G] But then what—if I don’t count, then Shavuot won’t come? Because it’s counting?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It comes, you just didn’t prepare yourself properly for Shavuot. What do you mean it doesn’t come? Of course it comes. Shavuot doesn’t depend on counting the Omer—it doesn’t happen only when people count the Omer. Even when people don’t count the Omer, Shavuot comes. It’s unrelated. You just didn’t prepare yourself properly for Shavuot if you didn’t count. Okay, in any case, let’s get back to our topic, I drifted. What I want to say is basically that the dispute between Behag and Tosafot regarding a minor who comes of age in the middle of counting the Omer could be centered on the question of what counting is, and not on the definition of the commandment of counting the Omer—what the commandment is—but rather what the concept of counting is. And the practical difference is very large; it flips the practical ramification. Because now according to Behag, if the minor counted by virtue of education until the stage when he came of age, he can continue counting afterward even though he did not fulfill the commandment until now, because he physically did the counting—in practice he carried out the act of counting. Not the legal effect of the commandment; rather it’s a definition in the concept, and the concept of counting was fulfilled—I counted until now too. The same thing I want to claim regarding Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur too, one can discuss how the obligation to fast is defined: at every single moment, or on the whole day. But one can also define the question as: what is called fasting? Not how the halakhic obligation to fast is defined; what is the concept of fasting? What is an affliction? If so, then it could be that in fact fasting means not eating over the course of a full day—we talked about this. Not eating for a moment is just not eating; it is not called fasting. Fasting means a certain duration of time—in this case, a full day. Then what happens is that if I fasted by virtue of education—and regarding education, especially on Yom Kippur, we’ll discuss this in the next lecture—then even if I came of age in the middle of Yom Kippur, I have to continue fasting even according to the view that this is one unit. Why? Because the definition that this is one unit is a definition in the concept of fasting, not in the commandment of affliction—in the concept of affliction. And the concept of affliction—after all, I didn’t eat until now either. True, I didn’t eat only by virtue of education, but practically I didn’t eat. So you can’t say I’m not afflicted. So later in the day too, when I don’t eat, I’m not merely refraining from eating—I’m also afflicted. And that’s perfectly fine. So I fulfilled the commandment, or fulfilled half the commandment if you like. The commandment is basically to be afflicted. So the commandment is to be afflicted, but at every single moment I need to be afflicted. And I was afflicted; at every moment that I was obligated, I was afflicted. What comes out from this, by the way, is that there is an obligation at every single moment. It’s just that the obligation at every single moment is not “not to eat,” but rather “to be afflicted” at every moment. It’s just that in practice, to be afflicted at every moment means not eating all day. So now the halakhic definition gets reversed: the halakhic definition is actually at every single moment, not on the whole day. But how is it defined? That at every moment I be afflicted. It’s just that the concept “afflicted” requires not eating all day—not the definition of the commandment to fast.

[Speaker G] The commandment is at every moment. And according to this, how can I fast in advance? How can I be afflicted right at the beginning of the fast according to this?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because being afflicted is something prior? I talked about this in the previous lecture and said that indeed there are later authorities who want to argue that… the addition to Yom Kippur is intended to do this, what we discussed about the ninth and the tenth. Its measure is the time of digestion. Why? Because then, the moment you enter Yom Kippur, you are already afflicted. And then really… the addition is not a commandment in itself, it is only the way I ensure fulfillment of the commandment of Yom Kippur itself—to be afflicted. Not a common view of course, but it is a possibility.

[Speaker B] And maybe even without that—just from the fact that there is “and you shall afflict yourselves on the ninth of the month,” together with the commandment to eat on the ninth and then “it is considered as if he fasted”—maybe for this definition, that one needs to be afflicted on the ninth from the very first moment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be. Yes, interesting. Look, one could also say more simply: impossible—what can you do? You have to be afflicted from the first moment. The intent is to begin not eating from the first moment, so that one becomes afflicted. Be afflicted—but what can you do, at some point it starts.

[Speaker G] So you can fast before Yom Kippur. I won’t eat from noon and that way I’ll arrive hungry.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I understand—that’s what I said before. But I’m saying one could say no, the obligation is on Yom Kippur itself. And when they tell you to be afflicted, they mean not to eat from the start of Yom Kippur and to be afflicted after the digestion period from the beginning of the fast. Fine, that’s not… on a commonsense level it’s completely okay. We don’t have to turn this into some very, very conceptual yeshiva-style construct. Anyway, sometimes ordinary people are also right. Usually they’re right. Anyway, whoever understands “the opinion of ordinary people is the opposite of the Torah’s opinion” to mean that the Torah’s opinion is usually mistaken… What I once saw from Benny Lau—he once wrote that one of the troubles of our generation is that the spiritual leaders, the rabbinic leaders of the generation, are yeshiva heads. Once, the rabbinic leaders were rabbis—community rabbis, rabbis of towns, and so on. What’s the difference? A community rabbi doesn’t think like an ordinary layman, but he also doesn’t think like a yeshiva analyst. Meaning, when he says something, it’s not enough that it be consistent and well-defined and brilliant; it also has to hold water, it has to make sense. And when you give a lecture to ordinary people, if you say something foolish they’ll tell you you’re talking nonsense. But if you’re a yeshiva head, then you’re shaving on seventeen-, eighteen-, nineteen-year-old boys who judge you by the brilliance and consistency and what clever answer you gave, and they don’t check whether what you’re saying is reasonable, makes sense. There’s a lot of truth in that claim, by the way. A lot of truth.

[Speaker I] But what about what is written, that if a rabbi isn’t hated by the people of his city, then he doesn’t have a coin for faithfulness?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what does that mean? It’s not related here.

[Speaker I] Seemingly it is related—to a rabbi who behaves toward ordinary people in a way that makes them happy.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not makes them happy—in a way that they understand that this is what Jewish law says. If they don’t like keeping what Jewish law says, that’s another matter, but this is what Jewish law says. Listen, there’s… today I’m drifting a bit, but there’s a Talmudic statement that one does not decree a decree upon the public unless most of the public can stand by it. Yes, and a decree that did not spread among most of the public is nullified. People usually think—there was some baal teshuvah that I accompanied, he came to some small, pious Haredi community, and at some point he went crazy because he walked around with a backpack like that; he had formerly been a student. He walked around with a backpack, and they told him it was not fitting—go with a plastic bag like a kollel fellow, not with a backpack like some student. And then he rode a bicycle, which seemingly is accepted among yeshiva men too, but there for some reason it bothered them that he rode a bicycle. That too was apparently not Torah-like enough, not yeshiva-like enough. And his name was some very Israeli-sounding name, so they also said it would be proper to switch it to some Berel or Yankel or some modern name of that kind. So he came to me and said: tell me, what do these people want from my life? And then the penny dropped for me during the conversation, and I told him—I brought him this Talmudic principle that an enactment that did not spread among most of the public is nullified. Usually people understand that this is basically some kind of compromise: that the truth is that one ought to do what the enactment says, but if most of the public can’t handle it, we’ll let it go, okay? I claim it’s the opposite. I claim that if it didn’t spread among most of the public, then apparently it’s not correct. And if the Torah scholars in the study hall think it’s correct, it’s simply because they’re disconnected. And then the ordinary householders tell them, “Friends, here you’re disconnected,” because Torah is supposed to be something implemented by the entire public. And something that doesn’t take root in the whole public—not talking about slackers or people who aren’t interested in Jewish law, but the simple public, ordinary people—if it doesn’t catch on there, then apparently it’s not right. Won’t you say this weakens the rabbi’s presumption? Wait, wait, wait. So why did they think of it in the study hall? Why, why? Because they’re disconnected, because they’re sure they’re sitting inside the four cubits of Jewish law and there it seems terribly logical to them. But what doesn’t actually work on the ground is simply not right. What do you mean by “right”?

[Speaker K] What does “right” mean?

[Speaker E] This sounds a bit—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Democratic, Rabbi?

[Speaker E] It sounds a little too democratic.

[Speaker K] Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Right” means what the Torah expects from us.

[Speaker K] But the Torah doesn’t expect… the issue of rabbinic law isn’t… it’s not expectations of the Torah, it’s expectations of the rabbis.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not expectations of the Torah? Why not expectations of the Torah? It is the Torah’s command.

[Speaker K] What, every rabbinic commandment is basically a guess at what the Torah wants from us?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not what it wants—the Torah wants us to obey the sages, right?

[Speaker K] Yes, but the considerations of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but—

[Speaker K] the considerations of the sages are not to guess what the Torah wants.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No guessing is needed, but—

[Speaker K] There are correct considerations and incorrect considerations. Yes, but the considerations of… Right, but that’s what I’m saying. Since the considerations of the sages are always what will better preserve the Torah’s laws, but this won’t better preserve the Torah’s laws—it’s a matter of a fence. So in practice it doesn’t work, and therefore that proves from itself that it’s not right in that sense, in the sense that they didn’t achieve—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So beat them and insist even more until in the end it works.

[Speaker K] Even with Torah law, if in the end it works, then that will be called an enactment accepted by the public.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] An enactment that was nullified and afterward spread and afterward was nullified—these are whole Talmudic discussions. Not at all. It’s really not simple.

[Speaker I] Rabbi, there was one enactment from which most of the Jewish people were cut off. The enactment not to say the blessing against heretics… or rather, to say the blessing against heretics. Half the Jewish people went and became Christian because of that. I mean, in many cases—in the split with the Karaites, in the split with the Ananites, and so on—the sages knew very well how to impose things on the public, and only that public that listened to them survived through the generations.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly what I’m saying—that the sages know how to impose things when needed, and Jewish law tells them not to do that. Why? Because Jewish law tells them that if it doesn’t work with most of the public, apparently you’re the ones who are mistaken, not them. It’s not simple. The public, the ordinary people, give you feedback about where you are disconnected, where you are thinking too much like an analyst. It’s just not right.

[Speaker I] Why should disconnectedness be a value, though? Torah is supposed to be something one aspires to.

[Speaker E] This is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] An idealization of weakness, Rabbi.

[Speaker I] Why is this supposed to have moral value?

[Speaker E] This is an idealization of weakness, Rabbi. Not an idealization of weakness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You decided that it’s weakness, so you say it’s idealization. I’m telling you it’s not weakness.

[Speaker E] I mean, if the sages say that practically, halakhically, this will bring you closer to the service of God, but the reason people don’t do it is because most of the Jewish people can’t manage to keep it, then what you’re basically saying here is that these people are weak.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying they are closer to the Holy One, blessed be He. You were mistaken. The opposite—you say that.

[Speaker E] That’s a bit arrogant…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a bit arrogant because you’re saying that this is basically a compromise. We take them into account because they can’t manage. I’m claiming that’s not true. You are idealizing weakness. I’m claiming that’s not true. It’s not weakness, and that’s why we do it.

[Speaker E] But that’s the point, the idea. If we could do it, we would do it. But sometimes, what can we do, yes, our level is not that of the sages of the generation. On the contrary—if I put it on the sages of the generation, that’s idealizing weakness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not at all.

[Speaker I] Better to recognize that Torah sometimes gives in—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re claiming it’s weakness and idealization. I’m saying it’s not weakness. It’s feedback about what is right to do. I told that fellow I was speaking with, the claim is that… I told him one of the things that causes the explosion of stringencies in the worlds of Torah scholars, in Haredi worlds, is that there isn’t this feedback from ordinary householders. What happens in Bnei Brak? In Bnei Brak, for example, in the Haredi world, in the world of kollel men—what happens there? Some certain stringency emerges. You also have to be strict about this issue. Fine. Now whoever doesn’t keep it is a layman, and they don’t take him into account. After all, the only thing that counts is the oilem, not the world, right? So basically we take into account only Torah scholars. Torah scholars, of course, keep it, because whoever doesn’t keep it is not a Torah scholar. Right? So now they keep it, of course, in order to be considered Torah scholars. Whoever doesn’t keep it is a layman, so his opinion isn’t considered at all, because he doesn’t count. What, do we also consider secular people? Consequently, what happens is that all the stringencies—not one of them ever goes down. Once it comes up, it doesn’t come down. Meaning, in the end every such thing does not receive this healthy feedback that the sages established, where the sages told you, my friend, you’re a Torah scholar, very nice, very lovely—get feedback from ordinary householders because sometimes you think in a disconnected way, too brilliantly. There are foolish things that only academics say, yes? As Niels Bohr—or whoever it was—said. So too in the halakhic world there are foolish things that only Torah scholars say.

[Speaker F] These are two different issues. Decrees are one thing—the definition of a decree, that if it isn’t accepted then it isn’t right. But with stringencies, each case has to be judged on its own.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m claiming it’s the same logic. The same logic.

[Speaker F] But there it’s a question of whether it’s practical or not practical. If it’s not practical—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not practical? If you insist more strongly, it will be practical. So what if it didn’t catch on? Then insist more strongly. No, it’s because… I can bring you many laws that are not practical. They’re not canceled so quickly. I don’t understand—if it’s Torah law, that’s something else. No, also not Torah law. What about not extinguishing a fire on the Sabbath when your whole house is going up in flames? That’s the question. It says it’s forbidden, no?

[Speaker I] It really is forbidden, and today people only do it because the gas lines could blow up the whole neighborhood.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Did people accept that or not accept it? But it’s forbidden even though it’s not practical. So not everything impractical gets canceled, right? Wait, wait, but that’s different. Today the application is different when there are external circumstances. Not related to today.

[Speaker E] But it is practical.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s difficult, true, but as he said, everything is difficult—but not practical? There is no such thing as something intrinsically impractical. There’s no such thing.

[Speaker E] No, but Elikim just said that the reason people do it is to prevent an actual danger to life from exploding gas tanks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That turns it into something else. You’re talking about that law today. What people say today is that today we do extinguish it. Why? Because there is danger to life because of gas lines. I’m talking about the basic law, not about today. Jewish law demands of us not to extinguish that fire. All the property I accumulated over my whole life is going up in flames. Tell me, how many people will stand up to that?

[Speaker F] Apparently it’s hard, but it’s still the law.

[Speaker I] That’s exactly the proof. It’s the law and it remained the law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, it’s the law? I’m saying there are things that are hard to implement and yet the sages insisted on them, and apparently they did take hold.

[Speaker I] According to the Rabbi, it would be forbidden to do such a thing, because the feedback should have told them that it was bad.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but “feedback means anything impractical is immediately nullified”—that’s not true.

[Speaker I] Well, but it’s bad. Something that the feedback should have rejected, like for example that prohibition—according to what the Rabbi is saying, then…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How many people had their house burn down? You can’t say it didn’t spread among most of the public—there’s no feedback. What, are there thousands of people whose houses burned down and I’m checking how many of them didn’t extinguish it? There’s no feedback there. Believe me, nobody would keep it. So today they reinterpret it like today because there are gas lines, because there is possible danger to my neighbor’s life, because there is—I don’t know what. A person will not leave all the property of his whole life. And notice: this is a rabbinic prohibition. The extinguishing there is a labor not needed for its own result, and he doesn’t need the charcoal. It’s a labor not needed for its own result.

[Speaker F] But stringencies really are a totally different matter. No, the question is what the whole idea of taking on stringencies even is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, I’m not going to keep—

[Speaker F] It’s not even…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s stop for a second, because we really are drifting way too far, so I’m going back, let’s gather ourselves and get back on track. How did I get to all this? I don’t even remember anymore.

[Speaker B] The ninth, the ninth, in the lesson on affliction, and then we got to the contribution of homeowners. Right, the contribution of homeowners, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That in the first few minutes, then you’re not yet afflicted, but that’s how it starts. And the truth is, that really is the truth—forget all the gimmicks around it. You don’t need digestion time first. It’s pretty clear that this is the halakhic definition even without finding all the clever conceptual definitions of the lomdanim. It’s obvious that this is the truth. Okay, in any case, for our purposes, what I just want to say is that very often—and this is a conceptual lesson in general—very often the requirement in Jewish law is not itself a halakhic requirement. The requirement in Jewish law is for the existence of some institution or some act. Now you have to define what that act is or what that institution is, and that definition is not necessarily a halakhic definition. It could be a definition, yes, like the Talmud says, “as people say.” Very often the Talmud brings “as people say” and derives from that evidence for the meaning of some institution. Okay? Therefore here too, very often the definition follows from the definition of the institution, and the halakhic definition follows from that, not the other way around. This has very significant practical implications. You have to pay attention to it. And again, the tendency of lomdanim is not to notice such a thing. And why? Because they think Jewish law generally constitutes its own concepts. In analytic philosophy they distinguish between constitutive and regulative systems of rules. Constitutive systems of rules are systems like the rules of chess. Someone who plays not according to the rules simply isn’t playing chess; he isn’t a criminal. He’s just not playing chess—he’s playing some other game. So that’s a constitutive system of rules. Meaning, the rule system is what defines the concept “chess.” It’s not that there was a game called chess and then we set up rules for ourselves. The rules are the definition of the concept, the game. By contrast, traffic laws are a regulative system of rules. Meaning, driving is not defined by someone who drives according to the traffic laws. Driving is taking the car and driving. Traffic laws say how, what is right and what is not, and those are regulative rules. Now there’s a certain conceptual tendency to think that in the halakhic world, the concepts are constituted by Jewish law rather than regulated by it. For example, when Jewish law says how to write a bill of divorce, then Jewish law defines the concept of divorce. Someone who divorced not in that way simply didn’t divorce. True, he didn’t commit a transgression; he just didn’t divorce. Why? Because Jewish law defines the concept of divorce, and if you didn’t do it that way, then this is a constitutive rule system. But that’s not so. Because the Sefer HaChinukh, for example, writes that someone who divorces a woman not according to the rules has nullified that positive commandment, and his punishment is great. What would the typical lamdan say if you asked him? He’d say: if he divorced her not according to the rules, then she isn’t divorced, that’s all. He didn’t nullify any positive commandment, he has no punishment, and nothing happened—she’s simply not divorced. And the Sefer HaChinukh says no, he nullified that positive commandment, and his punishment is great. What does that mean? That the concept of divorce is a concept that the Torah regulates, not constitutes. To divorce a woman means to send her out of the house—that’s called divorcing a woman. But Jewish law requires me to do it with a bill of divorce so that she will be permitted to marry others. It’s not enough to end the relationship between us, to dismantle the household. You have to permit her to the broader public, and permitting her to the broader public is only through a valid bill of divorce. And therefore, someone who did this without permitting her to the broader public has nullified the positive commandment. A bill-of-divorce refuser who doesn’t give his wife a bill of divorce nullifies the positive commandment of divorce. Do you understand what I’m saying now? He nullified the positive commandment of divorce. There is a positive commandment here to divorce the woman. Why? Because once you decide to dismantle the household, you have to release her. You can’t leave her bound to you or forbidden forever.

[Speaker G] And what does it mean that he fulfilled the divorce?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He left the house, they’re no longer a couple. I claim that all the obligations of the marriage contract no longer exist. All the obligations of the marriage contract no longer exist. He does not become impure for her, he does not inherit her, he has no rights to her produce. Everything that exists between betrothal and marriage remains, but what exists after marriage does not remain. So a bill-of-divorce refuser—you can’t force…

[Speaker G] Support payments and things like that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’ve gone back to the status of a betrothed woman.

[Speaker F] That’s only according to the Sefer HaChinukh, but Maimonides too, there’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here there’s some—these are disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), there are explanations here, there are different approaches. There’s a Rashbam in Bava Batra who says that from the moment he set his mind on divorcing her, he no longer inherits her and does not become impure for her. And the Talmud in Gittin says on page 17 that from the moment he set his mind on divorcing her, he no longer has rights to her produce, according to Rabbi Shimon there. What is that—what does “set his mind on divorcing her” mean? What do you mean he has no rights to her produce? So what if he set his mind on divorcing her? She’s divorced in his heart. And there is a rule from the Prophets not to maintain marital relations—this is one of the “nine types.” Meaning, if you gather the views together—and of course this is reconstruction—but if you gather the views together, then you see that we basically returned to the status of betrothal. From the moment he set his mind on divorcing her, the marriage is nullified; the betrothal still exists, and therefore he has to give a bill of divorce in order to dissolve the betrothal too. The construction of the family unit is done in two stages: betrothal and then marriage. The dismantling of the family unit is also done in two stages. You dismantle the marriage by taking them out of the home, and then you give a bill of divorce in order to dismantle the betrothal.

[Speaker G] Rabbi, are we talking about every separated couple, or does it have to be that he says to her something like “don’t ever come back”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That they decided to separate. What does that mean? Not that they’re living apart just because they want a short break. Rather, we’re talking about a case where they already decided, that’s it, they don’t want each other anymore. Only the bill of divorce is missing, or he doesn’t want to write a bill of divorce.

[Speaker G] Like he told her not to come back.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, I recorded a lot today. So that’s regarding this claim, this practical implication, about whether it applies to each and every moment or to the whole twenty-four-hour period. One second, I’m just putting in the code here. Okay. Now I’m moving on to women’s obligation. So, regarding women’s obligation, we find explicitly in the Talmud that women are obligated in the commandments of Yom Kippur, yes? As a matter of fact, that’s clear. Why? We see that there are special leniencies for a pregnant woman and a bride and the like, yes? And it’s quite clear that women in general are included. And this applies to the other afflictions as well. Okay. Now, the source for why women are obligated—here, of course, if we look at it a priori, why are women obligated? First of all, this is a positive commandment dependent on time. So regarding a positive commandment, there’s room to discuss it, because it depends on time. On the other hand, if we understand that there is also a prohibition here, as we saw in Maimonides for example regarding affliction, and work is explicit in the Torah that there is a prohibition, then women are obligated because a prohibition that depends on time—obviously women are obligated. The question can still be raised whether they are also obligated in the positive commandment, or only in the prohibition. Okay? That’s a question worth discussing. So the source of the law, the source of the discussion itself, appears in the Talmud in Sukkah. The Talmud—the Mishnah says: women, slaves, and minors are exempt from the sukkah. A minor who no longer needs his mother is obligated in the sukkah. There was an incident where the daughter-in-law of Shammai the Elder gave birth, and he removed part of the roof plastering and put sukkah covering above the bed for the sake of the child. All right? So that “a minor who no longer needs his mother” is simply the age of education, but we’ll discuss that next class. He is obligated in the sukkah, but in principle minors are exempt from the sukkah, and the law of education, as I already said, is rabbinic. And women too are exempt from the sukkah. The Talmud asks: from where are these words derived? As the rabbis taught: “citizen”—that means citizen; “the citizen” excludes women; “all” includes minors. The Master said, “includes minors”—apparently those who no longer need their mother; on the face of it that would imply this is Torah-level, but the Talmud later discusses this, and I’m not getting into that right now. The Master said: “the citizen” excludes women. Is that to say that “citizen” by itself implies both women and men? Yes, you’re telling me that “the citizen” excludes women, because “citizen” in general means every citizen, women and men. When you tell me “the citizen,” then apparently it means only the more definite citizen, as Rashi says, the more quintessential citizen—that is, the men. So that comes to exclude women. So that means the assumption is that “citizen” by itself means women and men, and “the citizen” comes to limit. The Talmud asks: but on Yom Kippur we see the opposite. For it was taught: “the citizen” includes the female citizens, who are obligated in affliction. Apparently “citizen” implies men. Meaning, if it says “citizen,” that means only men, and “the citizen” includes women—the opposite of what you told me regarding the sukkah. So the Talmud answers: Abaye said, these are laws, and the rabbis merely supported them with verses. Now that’s a very confusing statement—what does that mean? On the simple reading, it seems that both laws, both on Yom Kippur and on the sukkah—it says “these are laws,” plural, so that refers to both of them. So both laws are really laws, and the derivation from “citizen” or “the citizen” is just a support text. Right? And each time they use the support text just as a kind of game, but really the source is another source—it is a law. On the simple reading, “law” here means a law given to Moses at Sinai. Okay? The Talmud asks: which one is the verse and which one is the law? What does that mean, which one is the verse and which one is the law? What is it asking? Which of them is the verse and which of them is the law? I don’t understand—didn’t it say that one is a verse and one is a law? It said that both are laws, and both verses are just supports.

[Speaker F] But what is the meaning of “citizen”? There is some meaning to “citizen,” right? I didn’t understand. The question is presumably what “citizen” means in practice when you read the word “citizen.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So then what?

[Speaker F] No, so it’s obvious that if so, only one of them needs to be a law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In terms of the logic you’re right, but the wording of the Talmud is “these are laws”—plural. Both are laws, and “they supported them,” again both of them, “with verses.”

[Speaker F] Yes, right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Something here isn’t logical. You’re right that overall, one of the two interpretations of “citizen” and “the citizen” is probably correct. The question is which one. But the wording of the Talmud is problematic. In any case, the Talmud apparently says that one of them really is an actual verse, and the other is a law with a support text.

[Speaker H] Why not say that “these are laws” refers not to the laws themselves but to the concept “citizen”? And then we ask, okay, so to which one does it apply? The law given to Moses at Sinai spoke about the fact that the term “citizen” means only men. And now what that means is, “these are laws”—know that there is a law regarding the word “citizen.” So now it asks: between these two words, where is the law given to Moses at Sinai speaking?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it’s not about the word “citizen,” because it applies only to one of the two. So that isn’t the meaning of the word “citizen.” On the contrary, then it’s about the law, not about the word. Because if it were about the word, it would be true of both.

[Speaker H] No, the law tells you that in one of the places where “citizen” is written, that’s what it means.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you’d have to say it’s one, not “these are laws.” Once again we’ve come back to the point that it’s one. Fine, that’s a comment. In short, the Talmud says: this one is the verse and this one is the law. One question. A second question: furthermore, why do I need a verse, and why do I need a law? Why do I need the verse and why do I need the law? Again, the Talmud assumes that one is a verse and one is a law. What—sukkah is a positive commandment dependent on time, and all positive commandments dependent on time, women are exempt from. So in sukkah, the fact that women are exempt does not require a verse or a law or anything. Women are exempt because it’s a positive commandment dependent on time. As for Yom Kippur, it follows from Rabbi Yehuda in the name of Rav. For Rabbi Yehuda said in the name of Rav, and likewise it was taught in the school of Rabbi Yishmael: Scripture says, “a man or a woman”—Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah. There is karet, and Rashi here says there are lashes, because apparently with regard to karet alone it isn’t certain that Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah, because “punishments,” on the simple reading, means punishments imposed by court. Rashi says, true, but everywhere there is karet there are also court-administered lashes. And therefore here too, this belongs under “Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah.” Bottom line, we seem to have independent sources to exempt a woman from sukkah because it’s a positive commandment dependent on time, and to obligate a woman on Yom Kippur because there is a punishment there, and with regard to punishments, woman and man are equal. And if so, then we need neither the verse nor the law nor anything. Another point: the Talmud here is speaking about affliction. Notice—look here. Do you see? “To include the female citizens, who are obligated in affliction.” Okay? Now, “affliction, to include the female citizens who are obligated in affliction” means that there is a prohibition in affliction. Karet tells me that what’s being discussed is that karet equates woman to man for all punishments in the Torah. We already saw that karet is given for a prohibition, not for a positive commandment, because for a positive commandment there is karet only for circumcision and Passover. On Yom Kippur it is karet for a prohibition.

[Speaker F] If so, the proof is not from here; the proof is from the fact that there is karet. What? Why does Maimonides bring proof from here? The proof is from the fact that there is karet for affliction. Fine, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying it could be karet for a positive commandment.

[Speaker F] But again, then where exactly—how do you see here that it’s not karet for a positive commandment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But according to Maimonides, who says there is a prohibition and the karet is on the prohibition—as, for the time being, that’s apparently what has been accepted by all the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim)—and as we saw that there is a sin-offering, which shows that there is a prohibition. So if that’s the case, then what does it mean, “to include the female citizens who are obligated in affliction,” if you learn that from the fact that there is a punishment? But including the female citizens who are obligated in affliction is, on the face of it, about the positive commandment, while the punishment is on the prohibition.

[Speaker K] What’s the connection? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The punishment is certainly on the positive commandment, right? Is there anyone who says the punishment isn’t on the positive commandment? The Torah says, “for any soul that will not be afflicted shall be cut off.” Meaning, the karet is on the prohibition, not on the positive commandment. From where—what is the verse? What is the verse from which we include “the citizen”? Do you know what the verse says? The verse says—I brought it here somewhere, wait a second while I find the precise wording and… I brought it here somewhere, here it is. No, I keep saying it, every second there’s some noise here… Okay, this is the verse: “you shall afflict your souls and you shall do no work—the citizen and the stranger.” So “you shall do no work” is a prohibition. But regarding affliction, “you shall afflict your souls” is the positive commandment. And on that it says “the citizen and the stranger.” Meaning, if I’m speaking about affliction, then “the citizen” includes the positive commandment of affliction. So how can you ask me why we need the inclusion of “the citizen,” since there is karet and with regard to punishments women are equated to men? But the inclusion here is about a positive commandment—what’s the connection?

[Speaker F] But the punishment is certainly on the positive commandment, right? Is there anyone who says the punishment isn’t on the positive commandment? In the Torah it says, “for any soul that will not be afflicted shall be cut off.” But in the Torah it’s written about the positive commandment, no? What is the verse? What is the language of the Torah?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “The soul that will not be afflicted”—so what does that mean? The question is what exists within affliction. According to Maimonides, affliction includes both a prohibition and a positive commandment. “The soul that will not be afflicted”—the karet is on the prohibition. There is no explicit verse for the prohibition of affliction, that’s clear, we saw that. But still, affliction includes both a prohibition and a positive commandment. And I said that unlike work, with affliction it is even clearer that the prohibition and the positive commandment are the same definition, because both derive from affliction. With work one can still discuss cessation versus not doing work. But with affliction there isn’t even an independent warning verse at all, and there too, even if you derive the warning indirectly as Maimonides says, clearly it is the same content, overlapping with the positive commandment. And “the soul that will not be afflicted” refers to the prohibition.

[Speaker F] So then what is this thing with Rabbi Yishmael who equates woman to man? About what did he say it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—that’s what I’m asking. He’s speaking about punishments.

[Speaker F] But punishments for what? For positive commandments or for prohibitions?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, for prohibitions. After all, Rashi here also mentions lashes.

[Speaker F] Women aren’t commanded regarding prohibitions? I mean, I would have thought women aren’t commanded regarding prohibitions? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, “you would have thought”? This is the source from which it emerges that for prohibitions, or in anything that carries a punishment, there is no difference between woman and man.

[Speaker F] Why would there be a difference? I mean, what, because the Torah spoke in the masculine?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “The citizen”—I don’t know, there’s room to discuss it, but that’s what he says. So the claim is that on the one hand there is inclusion here regarding the positive commandment of affliction, apparently from the beginning of the verse. On the other hand, they say that this is unnecessary because there is karet, and with regard to punishments women are like men. So the difficulty here is very unclear. It could be that the Talmud assumes that in a place where there is both a prohibition and a positive commandment regarding the same thing, whoever belongs to the prohibition also belongs to the positive commandment. And therefore, if Scripture equated woman to man with regard to prohibitions—the karet is on the prohibition—and the positive commandment is attached to the prohibition in affliction, also in affliction, then women are also obligated in the positive commandment. And that is the source for women being obligated in the positive commandment, and therefore we do not need the inclusion of “the citizen.” That is apparently what emerges here from the Talmud. At least if we understand that indeed the prohibition—the karet here—is on the prohibition, as most of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) understand, that the karet here is on the prohibition. And today we’ll see a slight exception; until now I only mentioned it, but I didn’t discuss it.

[Speaker F] Here the discussion is about the prohibition of afflicting, about what the discussion is regarding a woman? Whether she is permitted not to fast at all? Yes. So if so, what—it could be that there is no positive commandment, but in any case from here we learn that there is a prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then you’re asking me why we need the verse “the citizen” to include a woman. Since Scripture already equated woman to man—what do you mean? We need “the citizen” to include the positive commandment.

[Speaker F] But to include the positive commandment, but not to innovate the commandment—not to introduce that she is forbidden to eat.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, but to include the positive commandment. So what is the Talmud’s question—why do we need “the citizen”?

[Speaker F] Because the Talmud learned from “the citizen” the very prohibition itself, not that it’s just a positive commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not at all. The Talmud learned “the citizen,” and then that women too are obligated. Then the Talmud asks: but Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments? Right, but “the citizen” teaches that the positive commandment also applies. Regarding punishment there is nothing to discuss—obviously a woman is obligated, because in punishment a woman is obligated like a man. But the verse “the citizen” comes to include that the positive commandment also applies to women. What’s difficult? Fine. So the Talmud brings two answers here. Abaye says: actually, sukkah is the law. Sukkah is the law. And it was necessary, because you might have thought: “you shall dwell” means “as you live”; just as in a dwelling there is a man and his wife, so too in a sukkah there should be a man and his wife—therefore it teaches us otherwise. There, I would have thought women are obligated in the sukkah because it’s “as you live”; she has to dwell together with her husband. Therefore it teaches us that here a woman is exempt. By the way, there is room here to discuss what exactly “therefore it teaches us” means. “Therefore it teaches us”—the law, yes? Does it teach us that the rule of positive commandments dependent on time exempts women here as well, or not—that really this general rule would not exempt women because of “as you live,” and there is a law given to Moses at Sinai that provides a new exemption, not an exemption because of positive commandments dependent on time? There could be practical implications, for example regarding questions of whether a woman is permitted to perform it, or whether that would be adding to the Torah, whether she may recite a blessing on that commandment—because for positive commandments dependent on time there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) on this matter. What happens when there is an explicit law exempting the woman from a commandment—perhaps there it would even be forbidden for her to do it. That could be a practical implication. So here there is room to understand it one way or the other. Does the law reveal that the exemption of positive commandments dependent on time applies here as well, or not—that the exemption really does not apply because there is “as you live,” and the law merely exempts her anyway for another reason?

[Speaker J] What about Yom Kippur? After all, sukkah is the law. So what is Yom Kippur?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the verse, right? Agreed? Yom Kippur is the verse. One of them is the law and one is the verse. They ask which is which, and they say sukkah is the law and Yom Kippur is the verse. So with sukkah I understand: it’s a positive commandment dependent on time, but “as you live” says that a woman should be obligated, and the law comes and says she is exempt. So what is “the citizen”? It’s just a support text. “The citizen” that comes to exclude. So what is the true meaning of the word “the citizen”? That “the citizen” comes to include, right? Because “the citizen” in sukkah is only a support text. So “the citizen” really—its true meaning is that it comes to include, not to exclude. “Citizen” means only men, and “the citizen” includes women. But then I ask: what about a woman on Yom Kippur? Why is she obligated? Apparently because of “the citizen,” right? Because the true meaning of “the citizen” is that it comes to include. In sukkah they use it the opposite way because it’s only a support text. But on Yom Kippur that is the correct interpretation: it includes. But there is still a question here—how does Abaye answer it? Here the question is: why do we need this? After all, with regard to punishments Scripture equated woman to man. So why do we need “the citizen”? What answers that later on? But it’s strange that here Abaye doesn’t see fit to say this at all. More than that—look at Rashi; I brought the Rashi here. See: Abaye said, actually sukkah—look at the highlighted line—“and the ‘the’ to include women, we should have expounded as we do on Yom Kippur.” Rashi understands that at this stage women’s obligation on Yom Kippur is learned from the “the” in “the citizen,” not from the equation of woman to man, right? How can that be? But Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah. Maybe he’s talking about the positive commandment? “Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments” refers to the prohibition. And the “the” comes to include the positive commandment. I don’t know—there’s no hint in Rashi about this point, but it’s strange.

[Speaker F] It’s not understood. What? If that’s what Rashi means, then the Talmud is unintelligible, because then there really is no question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the answer.

[Speaker F] Yes, but what? Rashi is giving an answer?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, Abaye—Abaye is giving an answer. So he says that in sukkah it is the law. He doesn’t bother to note that consequently you understand that Yom Kippur is the verse, right? That’s obvious. They ask, “which one is the verse and which one is the law,” and Abaye says sukkah is the law. You understand from his words that Yom Kippur is the verse.

[Speaker F] Right, yes. But there is still the Talmud’s question, and all the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This whole answer of Rashi—Abaye omitted it. So I’m saying, maybe Abaye somehow understands that the intent is the positive commandment, but he doesn’t get into that. So that really is strange. Let’s see a bit further in the Talmud. Rava said: it was necessary, because you might have thought we derive “fifteenth” “fifteenth” from the Festival of Matzot; just as there women are obligated, so too here women are obligated—therefore it teaches us otherwise. So he has a different initial thought for why women would be obligated in the sukkah, and therefore we need a law to exempt them, but still the basic structure is like Abaye’s.

[Speaker B] Now, it sounds in the Talmud—just a small comment—it sounds like “citizen” really means only men. So opposite that, against “Scripture equated woman to man,” there is “citizen.” So after “the citizen” is written, without getting into why, there is an inclusion of women in the meaning of the verse “the citizen.” So it’s understandable why we need the exposition.

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

[Speaker B] “Citizen” comes to exclude women. So that stands in opposition to Rabbi Yehuda said in the name of Rav, that Scripture equated woman to man. Right? So what about “the citizen”? Right. So they say that “the citizen” includes women. Once “citizen” is written, and for some reason it needed to be written, they add the “the” in “the citizen” so as to include women. Right. Then the difficulty arises—why write “citizen” and then include for me, when in any case it follows from Rabbi Yehuda. But it seems the Talmud doesn’t get into that. Once “citizen” is written, it deals with the meaning of “the citizen.” But that alone answers the question on the simple level.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. I hear you. It may be that you’re right. Meaning, in principle it’s possible. Listen to what he’s saying: basically he’s saying that in principle, Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah. Only in the verse here there is the word “citizen,” and therefore I would have thought we need to exclude women, and only men would be obligated. Therefore they add the “the” of “the citizen” so that you do not exclude women, and you leave in place the law that Scripture equated woman to man even on Yom Kippur.

[Speaker F] So then what is the Talmud’s question? If so, the Talmud’s question never gets off the ground.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud’s question does get off the ground—that’s the answer. You’ve already turned it into something trivial; it’s an answer.

[Speaker F] Again they bring an answer that isn’t written. What? Again they bring—what difference does it make whether the answer is that it’s a positive and a negative commandment, or that it’s true in any case?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s true in any case, yes? There is an answer here that isn’t written. Abaye and Rava speak only about sukkah; they don’t speak about Yom Kippur.

[Speaker F] Fair enough, Abaye and Rava are not difficult, because it could be they weren’t addressing it; they were asked only one question, and only the editor of the Talmud inserted this here, inserted it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So then the editor of the Talmud edited it illogically. You present two difficulties and then give an answer to only one of them. That isn’t logical. So present that difficulty, give an answer to it, and only afterward present the second difficulty. The editing isn’t logical in such a case.

[Speaker F] But apparently then what? Then in a sense it does make sense because he gave an answer to one of the difficulties and for the second it’s self-evident? Is that more understandable?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, more understandable? Since he didn’t say it, apparently there was something there that was obvious to him. In any case there is some strain here, I agree, what can you do. Fine, let’s continue. Why indeed are women obligated in matzah? We have the “fifteenth” “fifteenth” linkage of sukkah and matzah. As for matzah itself, how do we know? Rashi brings it—look here. “For what reason are women obligated in eating matzah? Even though matzah is a positive commandment dependent on time, it follows from Rabbi Elazar in Pesachim, as it is stated: ‘You shall not eat leaven with it; seven days you shall eat matzot’—whoever is included in ‘you shall not eat leaven’ is included in ‘arise and eat matzah.’ And women are included in the prohibition, namely the eating of leaven.” There is a juxtaposition between eating leaven and eating matzah: whoever is included in the prohibition of eating leaven is included in the commandment of eating matzah. And therefore we know that women are obligated in the commandment of eating matzah. And the analogy to sukkah says they would also be obligated in sukkah, and therefore we needed the law to exempt them. Now notice—this is an interesting point because it has accompanied us from before, and this is Shlomo’s question from the beginning of the lesson. On the face of it, it seems from here that there is no general principle that wherever there is a prohibition and a positive commandment in the same matter, if the woman is obligated in the prohibition she is obligated in the positive commandment too, even though it is time-dependent. Because I’ve mentioned this more than once, and we’ll return to it later today. There are things that have both a positive commandment and a prohibition, like Sabbath, like a Jewish holiday, like Yom Kippur, eating matzah, and more, parapets, various things like that. Things that depend on time—so for the positive commandment women should have been exempt, but for the prohibition they are obligated. The accepted view is that if there is a prohibition and a positive commandment regarding the same thing, even if it depends on time, women are obligated in both the positive commandment and the prohibition. Now, as I already said, I’ve already mentioned this, that “remember” and “observe” in one utterance is a juxtaposition made specifically regarding Sabbath. It isn’t certain that one can derive from it a general principle that everywhere there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, women are obligated in the positive commandment as well.

[Speaker F] Even regarding Sabbath it wasn’t said about labors. What? Even when it was said regarding Sabbath, it wasn’t said about the prohibition of labor.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, it was said about labors too. We’ll still discuss that. We need to check—actually I told you I needed to check the source for you, I still haven’t checked it—but it is said about labors too. Women are obligated in the positive commandment of Sabbath as well. I brought you Tosafot in Kiddushin 34, yes, I brought it—you’ll see it in just a moment. So here too, on the face of it, it is the same thing. We make a special juxtaposition between “you shall not eat leaven” and “eat matzah.” That implies that a special source is needed to obligate women in the positive commandment of matzah, even though here too there is a positive commandment and a prohibition in the same matter.

[Speaker F] What prohibition? There is no prohibition on eating matzah here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. The proof from here isn’t a proof, because here there is no overlap between the prohibition of eating leaven and the obligation to eat matzah. Rather, there are two obligations: there is a prohibition on eating leaven and an obligation to eat matzah—two different things. During the rest of Passover, for example, there is a prohibition on eating leaven and no obligation to eat matzah. Therefore here specifically, in order to obligate women, clearly you need a juxtaposition. It cannot emerge from some—even if there is such a general principle, that where there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, women who are obligated in the prohibition are also obligated in the positive commandment—here that would not be enough. Here you certainly need a juxtaposition. So this is not a proof. We’ll see more about this later. Now the Talmud continues and asks.

[Speaker F] According to the Rabbi, basically—according to the article of the Rabbi that I read—there is never really a true overlap between a prohibition and a positive commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no true overlap except for the fact that one is a prohibition and one is a positive commandment.

[Speaker F] Yes, so then it’s already not overlap, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s what I call overlap here.

[Speaker F] Technically it’s the same act—that’s the whole overlap—but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, it’s not technically the same act. If there are no real practical differences other than the practical differences that one is a prohibition and one is a positive commandment, that’s what I call overlap. That’s what Maimonides discusses in the sixth root, and he counts it as two commandments. It’s not the same as a prohibition and a positive commandment that have practical differences, like Tosafot and Nachmanides bring on Kiddushin 34 there, where they say there are situations in which you have the prohibition without the positive commandment. Not because one is a prohibition and one is a positive commandment, but because there is a difference in content. But fine, let’s leave that for the moment, because I see I won’t get through it. The Talmud: “And now that you have said sukkah is the law, why do I need the verse?” Yes, if sukkah is a law that excludes women, why do we need “the citizen”?

[Speaker F] I didn’t understand—he already said that it’s merely a support text, or are they asking someone else? What? Didn’t he already say earlier that it would be just a support text?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A mere support text, but what do we do with the verse? The verse is written, right? So you make the support text out of it regarding the addition of women. But what do we really learn from it? Not what kinds of support-readings we make from it. After all, it was written for some purpose. What do we learn from there? And there it comes not to exclude but to include. The support text—so “the citizen” comes to exclude women. But the real meaning is that “the citizen” comes to include women, or include something. So they ask: what do we really learn from the word “the citizen”? And they answer: to include converts. You might have thought the Merciful One said “the citizen” among Israel, and not converts—therefore it teaches us otherwise. About that too, by the way, there are some contradictions—does “the citizen” come to exclude converts, include converts; it’s a question on which not all the tannaitic midrashim, all the halakhic midrashim, agree. In any case, now the Talmud gets to the question we asked earlier: Yom Kippur follows from Rabbi Yehuda in the name of Rav. So why do we need “the citizen” to include women on Yom Kippur, if we already have the equation regarding punishments—which Abaye and Rava above did not answer? Notice: the Talmud pushed that off, but actually the answer is found here. And I showed you above that Rashi says they learn women on Yom Kippur from “the citizen.” That’s a real derivation. And then the question really arises: so why do we need it? So the Talmud says: it is necessary only for the addition to the affliction. You might have thought that since the Merciful One excluded the added affliction from punishment and warning, women should not be obligated in it at all—therefore it teaches us yes. And it’s only regarding the addition. And it’s interesting that it says here “the addition to the affliction.” Why “the addition to the affliction” and not “the addition to work”? That’s not clear to me. According to Maimonides it’s very clear, because everything that applies to the addition is only affliction. Right? In the addition there is only affliction, no work. But according to the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who say there is also work, it isn’t clear to me why here the Talmud says specifically “the addition to the affliction” and not the addition in general. I don’t know.

[Speaker F] In any case, what is the Talmud saying here? How is it explaining the—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud says that “the citizen”—on Yom Kippur, what is written “the citizen”—cannot come to include women, because women we already include from the fact that with regard to punishments they were equated to men. So what do we learn from “the citizen” to include women? To include women in the added affliction. All right? Why? Because maybe, since the Merciful One excluded the added affliction from punishment and warning, women would not be obligated in it at all—therefore it teaches us otherwise. How would you understand the initial thought to exempt women from the added affliction? Why do we need the verse? On the face of it, because karet and prohibition were excluded, and what remains is only a positive commandment, and that positive commandment is time-dependent, therefore women are exempt. Right? Look at Rashi. “Since the verse excluded it from prohibition and karet, as it is written regarding affliction, ‘on this very day’—on the very day itself one is liable to karet, but one is not liable to karet for the added affliction; and from warning as well, as appears in the last chapter of Yoma, one might likewise exclude women, that they should not even be obligated in a mere positive commandment.” From Rashi it sounds not as I explained the Talmud. I explained the Talmud as meaning that because the addition was excluded from karet and warning, only a positive commandment remains, and women are exempt from positive commandments dependent on time. But here Rashi says no—it’s a kind of carryover. Since in the added period we excluded karet and the prohibition, maybe we also excluded the women. Maybe it spills over to other things.

[Speaker F] “On this very day”—how does that exclude them? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no idea. But that’s what Rashi writes. So that there should not remain even a mere positive commandment for the women; only for the men would there be a mere positive commandment—therefore it teaches us that they were not excluded. Meaning, Rashi understands that the initial thought to exempt women from the addition—why we need the verse “the citizen”—is not because it’s a positive commandment dependent on time, but because there was some initial thought that the exclusion from karet and warning would continue and exclude women even from the positive commandment. I don’t know exactly why. That means that according to Rashi, from the law of positive commandments dependent on time women would not have been exempt from the addition. And this fits, as we saw in the previous class, with the view that says the positive commandment of the addition is a continuation of the positive commandment of Yom Kippur; it is not a new positive commandment. Then whoever is obligated in the positive commandment of Yom Kippur is obligated in the positive commandment of the addition as well. Therefore we would not have excluded them. Women would not be excluded simply because it is a positive commandment dependent on time. But since karet and warning were excluded, I would have thought maybe women were excluded too—therefore it teaches us they were not. By the way, maybe one can combine the two ideas and say as follows: since the added period was excluded from karet and warning, therefore the positive commandment that remains there is also a new positive commandment; it is not the positive commandment of Yom Kippur itself. Because if it were the positive commandment of Yom Kippur, then why wouldn’t there also be a prohibition and karet? It would just be Yom Kippur beginning earlier. But if karet and the prohibition were excluded, then there would be an initial thought to say that maybe the positive commandment that remains is also a new positive commandment; it is not the positive commandment of Yom Kippur continuing, and then women would be exempt. Therefore it teaches us that women are obligated in this positive commandment. Why? Either because it is a novelty that they are obligated, or because it is a continuation of Yom Kippur. Even though—and then I also connect Rashi to this. Do you follow? I brought two possibilities to explain the initial thought that women would be exempt from the addition. Either because what remains is merely a positive commandment and it is a positive commandment dependent on time—and I said that would only be if this positive commandment is a new one—or because the Torah had already excluded something, so maybe it excluded women too. Now I want to combine the two things and suggest a third possibility, and then that also answers Shlomo’s question why women would be excluded here. What I want to say is this: since the Torah excluded the addition from karet and warning, it seems that the addition is probably not the beginning of Yom Kippur; it is a separate occasion. And then the positive commandment that still remains there is also a new positive commandment; it is not the positive commandment of Yom Kippur starting earlier. But if so, then I would have thought women would be exempt from it, because women are exempt from positive commandments dependent on time. It is not the positive commandment of Yom Kippur starting earlier. Therefore it teaches us that women are obligated. Or it teaches us that women are obligated even though it is distinct, or it teaches us that it is not distinct—it is the positive commandment of Yom Kippur continuing.

[Speaker F] Now, in practice, why are women obligated in the positive commandment of Yom Kippur?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it goes together with the prohibition. What I said at the beginning, that’s what the Talmud says. After all, the Talmud says that women are obligated in all the punishments of the Torah, and from that it also learns the positive and the negative commandment. Otherwise it would not have asked why we need “the citizen.” Right? So you see that the Talmud assumes that the positive commandment and the prohibition on Yom Kippur go together.

[Speaker F] So for something that has no punishment then… this whole rule of punishment—is it only when it’s time-dependent, or throughout the whole Torah? Because apparently throughout the Torah women are obligated in positive commandments and there’s no…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Scripture equated woman to man throughout the Torah, including time-dependent things—regarding prohibitions.

[Speaker F] Where were they equated? In a prohibition that carries a punishment. And in a positive commandment a woman is not obligated?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, “Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments”—that doesn’t mean a woman is not obligated in everything else. In this she is obligated. As for everything else, discuss each thing on its own merits. It doesn’t say that all the rest are excluded, that whatever has no punishment women are exempt from. If it has no punishment, there is no general rule that women and men are the same; every case has to be discussed on its own. Now, I’ll do this briefly because I see this really took me time today and I drifted a bit at the beginning of the lesson. Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla—look later in the summary I’ll upload to the site, in positive commandments 54–55—he brings a whole list of medieval authorities (Rishonim), three or four, yes, three or four medieval authorities (Rishonim) who do not count a prohibition in affliction, only a positive commandment. He brings Rav Saadia Gaon, he brings the Ba’al Halakhot Gedolot, he brings several medieval authorities (Rishonim), Albargeloni, who count only a positive commandment and not a prohibition. And then he says that what is written here, “Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah,” refers to punishment, not to prohibition. There is no prohibition here. There is only a positive commandment. And actually that fits the Talmud very well, because in the Talmud it really fits excellently. Because if there are both a prohibition and a positive commandment, the question arises why the Talmud doesn’t say that “the citizen” comes to include the positive commandment, while “Scripture equated woman to man” teaches me the prohibition. According to his view there is no prohibition. So if there is no prohibition, then “Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments”—even if the punishment comes without a prohibition—the woman is obligated when there is a punishment.

[Speaker F] So then there is no sin-offering? Huh? There is no sin-offering for eating?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Seemingly, seemingly, it should come out from here that there is no sin-offering. Right? For the affliction and for the labor there certainly is. Yes? But in the Mishnah in Keritot, it seems to me, it says there is. Regarding eating and drinking, whether they combine or do not combine, that is puzzling. In another moment I’ll make a comment about that. He asks that in the Mishnah in Keritot we saw that there are only two positive commandments that have a prohibition attached to them and incur karet: Passover and circumcision. Seemingly, here we see a third commandment. After all, there is no prohibition here; there is only a positive commandment that incurs karet. And then he wants to argue—and this is an argument I don’t manage to understand. The Orakh Perla here contradicts himself, and in many places that comes out in the Orakh Perla. He wants to argue that in fact there is a prohibition here, it’s just that Rav Saadia Gaon does not count it because it has no practical significance; it overlaps with the positive commandment. But there is a prohibition here, and the karet and the sin-offering come for the prohibition. It’s just that he does not count it because there is also a positive commandment here, and the positive commandment and the prohibition overlap. So after all, the punishment is written in the Torah, and there certainly is a positive commandment here, so what is the point of counting the prohibition? It has no practical significance. That’s what he wants to argue. And then I ask myself what exactly he means. Does he mean to say that this is only a problem in the enumeration of the commandments—that in principle there is a prohibition here, only in the count of the commandments they do not count it? But if so, then what does he want at all from the Mishnah in Keritot, which says that only with Passover and circumcision—only with Passover and circumcision—is it a positive commandment that incurs karet? Then why is that difficult here? Why is it difficult here? Here the karet is for the prohibition. The fact that they do not count the prohibition, fine, they do not count it—but there is a prohibition here. He also resolves it there. How does he resolve it? He brings the Talmud itself there. The Talmud says there that the intention is not positive commandments; rather, it means only two things that one violates passively and is punished with karet for, including prohibitions. So it does not mean positive commandments that incur karet, of which there are only two examples; rather, there are only two examples of things that one transgresses through passive omission and whose punishment is karet. And then he says that here on Yom Kippur, of course, when one violates the affliction, one violates it through positive action. Therefore it does not have to appear in the list in the Mishnah in Keritot, because here there is karet for a violation through positive action. True, it is a positive commandment, but it is a positive commandment that one violates through positive action, not through passive omission. And that is why it need not appear in the Mishnah in Keritot. But if he says that, then he means that in fact there is only a positive commandment here—not that they do not count the prohibition, but that there is no prohibition. It is a positive commandment that one violates through positive action, but it is a positive commandment. Yet on the other hand he brings a sin-offering; he says explicitly that there is a sin-offering and lashes here, so clearly there is a prohibition, because a sin-offering is not brought for a positive commandment, even if one violates it through positive action. Only for a prohibition. So the Orakh Perla’s approach is not clear to me, but in any event his claim is that there are views among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) that here there is only a positive commandment and no prohibition. This whole matter is very strange, especially from the standpoint of the sin-offering.

Now regarding women and labor during the extension, the Minchat Chinukh already comments that here they were included only for affliction during the extension. That implies they are exempt regarding labor during the extension. So I said, according to Maimonides that is not difficult, because according to Maimonides there is no extension of the labor prohibition at all, only of affliction; men too are not obligated regarding labor during the extension. Okay? But according to the other medieval authorities (Rishonim), it comes out that women were included only for affliction and not for labor. So indeed, if we include women through the word “the citizen,” then the verse of “the citizen” teaches me that women are obligated in the extension. With respect to what? There it says—let me remind you of the verse I marked for you above—it says: “You shall do no labor, and you shall afflict yourselves, the citizen and the stranger.” So “you shall afflict yourselves” is the positive commandment for affliction, and here there is the prohibition of labor, right? Now “the citizen,” according to the Talmud, comes to include affliction—that is, the positive commandment. And in the extension there is only a positive commandment anyway according to most views. Now the labor in that same verse appears as a prohibition: “You shall do no labor.” So it could be that because of that, the inclusion from “the citizen” does not include women in labor, but only in affliction. Because in the extension there is only the positive commandment. And if “the citizen” includes only what is in the verse, and in that verse the positive commandment speaks only about affliction and not about the prohibition. But again, that means that in fact the inclusion of women is only for the positive commandment of affliction and not for the prohibition. And notice, this sharpens even more what I said above: before we reached the conclusion that this was talking about the extension, we said it was talking about Yom Kippur itself. And what does “the citizen” include there—the positive commandment or the prohibition? Simply still the positive commandment, because it is the same verse. The fact that afterward we say this speaks only about the extension and not about Yom Kippur does not change the reading of the verse. If the verse is read only regarding the positive commandment of affliction, then it is read only regarding the positive commandment of affliction. Whether in the end this is about the day itself or about the extension—that is something one can discuss.

[Speaker F] Why should the verse apply only to the positive commandment and not to the prohibition? What’s the reason?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the prohibition does not appear there; only the positive commandment appears there.

[Speaker F] Why? It says both prohibition and positive commandment. It says all labor.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—the prohibition is on labor, and the positive commandment is on affliction.

[Speaker F] So why shouldn’t it include the prohibition of labor? I didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The prohibition of labor during the extension does not exist at all, so there is nothing through which to include women in the prohibition of labor during the extension.

[Speaker F] Only in the solemn rest is there the extension.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, yes? We are talking about the extension. Okay? So I am saying: all this requires further analysis. I’m only making a comment here. What happens with women regarding the other forms of affliction?

[Speaker F] The plain meaning of the verse is that “the citizen” goes back to “you shall do no labor,” because that’s what is adjacent to it. The plain meaning of the verse is that clearly “the citizen” says something about the prohibition of labor, because that’s what’s next to it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In another verse?

[Speaker F] No, in this verse.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And you shall do no labor”—that is a prohibition.

[Speaker F] It says, “You shall afflict yourselves, and all labor you shall not do, the citizen and the stranger.” Right. So how can I say that “the citizen” goes back only to “you shall afflict” and not to what is written after it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “The citizen” comes to include by way of “if it is not needed for this matter.” After all, this is an “if it is not needed for this matter” case. This is not about the extension; it is speaking about Yom Kippur. But for Yom Kippur I already have a source, so by way of “if it is not needed for this matter” I take it to the extension. But in the extension it applies only to affliction, because the prohibition of labor does not appear there. That’s all because of “if it is not needed for this matter” here. This whole mechanism of “if it is not needed for this matter” is strange, right? You can’t make it work for what it explicitly speaks about, so you take it somewhere else where it is needed. There is no choice. What happens with women regarding the other forms of affliction? That, for example, could be a practical difference. Because if we learn “Scripture equated woman to man for all punishments in the Torah,” then the other afflictions were excluded from karet. Right? So are women in fact not obligated in the other afflictions?

[Speaker F] But look, the Mishnah proves they are obligated. It says the rule is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. So seemingly how can that be? After all, this whole equation—and maybe it comes from “the citizen,” and then you do not need to get to the extension, but rather on Yom Kippur itself women are included. Included in what? In the other afflictions. There is some assumption here. Again, it depends on the question whether the other afflictions are Torah-level or rabbinic. If they are rabbinic, then of course it makes no sense to say that women are included in the other afflictions, because that is a rabbinic law. But if it is Torah-level, then here there is some room to hesitate. It could be that there is no karet for it, but it still belongs to the same prohibition of affliction. And if it is the same prohibition of affliction, then since women are obligated in that prohibition, they are obligated in all its branches—including all the forms of affliction. True, only some of them incur karet, but this prohibition applies to women as well, and therefore women are obligated in the other afflictions too.

[Speaker F] That’s also like shevut on the Sabbath, no? Women and rabbinic restraints. According to the understanding that shevut is Torah-level and later handed over to the Sages. But you mean Nachmanides’ shevut?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The character of the Sabbath.

[Speaker F] Yes, so according to that seemingly the same question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether everyone who is obligated in the labors of the Sabbath is also obligated in this, or whether this is an independent commandment and a time-bound positive commandment. Yes.

[Speaker F] But the structure is the same law here, no? It’s the same definition. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I am saying that all along here we see some assumption that this is a package deal. When there is a positive commandment and a prohibition together in the same matter, even if it is time-dependent, since women are obligated in the prohibition they will also be obligated in the positive commandment. That is what seems to emerge. But I won’t have time to get into it now—there is Tosafot in Kiddushin 34. I’ll only read the beginning of it so you can see. It says there—the Talmud brings parapet, lost property, and sending away the mother bird as examples of commandments that are not time-bound. The Talmud says there—or Tosafot asks there: this is difficult for Rabbenu Yitzhak, because in all these cases a prohibition is written. After all, in all these examples there is also a prohibition and not only a positive commandment. So why should I care whether it is time-bound or not time-bound? Even if it were time-bound, would women then be exempt? They would still be obligated, because there is also a prohibition. What is Tosafot assuming? That when there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, even if it is time-bound, since women are obligated in the prohibition they will also be obligated in the positive commandment. Otherwise, what is the problem with bringing these examples among the positive commandments, among positive commandments in which women are obligated and not exempt? There is a prohibition, so they are obligated in the prohibition—what does that have to do with it? Meaning, in the simple reading Tosafot assumes in its question that if there is an overlapping prohibition and positive commandment, even if they were time-bound, if women are obligated in the prohibition then they are obligated in the positive commandment as well. More than that—look here—Ri says: in all of them you can find the positive commandment without the prohibition. That is Ri’s answer. Meaning, it is not true that there is overlap between the positive commandment and the prohibition; the positive commandment is separate and the prohibition is separate. And here, this is the answer to what you asked earlier, Shlomo: these are differences that do not stem from the fact that this is a prohibition and that is a positive commandment, but rather from real practical distinctions between them. For example, with a parapet, “you shall not place blood in your house” does not apply except to someone building a house from the outset on condition not to make a parapet, or all kinds of cases of that sort. Okay. Now, that is answer number one. And there are those who explain that in any case there is a practical difference when a woman has a positive commandment to fulfill—that is, this. In fact, here there is an approach that a woman on a festival would be exempt from the positive commandment and obligated in the prohibition. And what is the practical difference? That burning impure terumah—oil for burning, terumah oil that became impure—a woman may burn it on a festival, because there is a positive commandment to burn it, and with respect to the festival she has only a prohibition, not a positive commandment. So a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. But that is an answer. In the question they did not understand it that way. In the question they understood that a woman is also obligated in the positive commandment of a festival. Now, on a festival there is no “remember” and “observe” said in one utterance, and there is no textual linkage either. Meaning, both in Tosafot’s question and at least in one of its answers, it is quite clear that Tosafot understands that wherever there is overlap between a prohibition and a positive commandment, even if it is time-bound, a woman is obligated in both the prohibition and the positive commandment.

[Speaker F] The question is what it would be according to other medieval authorities (Rishonim), Maimonides—meaning, from this questions are built on the other authorities.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Each matter on its own. I am only saying that in our passage it somewhat looks like this Tosafot. In our passage they seem to assume that if I have a source obligating women in the prohibition, then including them in the positive commandment is unnecessary. Yom Kippur. And on Yom Kippur too there is no equation of “remember” and “observe.” By the way, with respect to labor on Yom Kippur perhaps one could learn it from the equation of “remember” and “observe” of the Sabbath, but since here our discussion is only about affliction on Yom Kippur, then there indeed, seemingly, there should have been a need for a source to say that a woman is obligated also in the positive commandment. And the Talmud says no: if she is obligated in the prohibition, then no source is needed for the positive commandment. And once again we see the conception that the positive commandment goes together with the prohibition. Also in the Sefer HaChinukh, commandment 313—tha- that is the positive commandment 313. The positive commandment of affliction. Okay? So he says: it applies everywhere and at all times, to males and females. Women are obligated also in the positive commandment of Yom Kippur. Okay? It’s not only the prohibition. Okay, we’ll stop here. You can see some of the details in the summary, but broadly speaking I went through the topic of women. In the next class we’ll talk about minors. We’ll start with the Mishnah on page 82. Does anyone want to comment, ask? Thank you very much.

[Speaker J] Please. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Yoma, Chapter 8 – Lesson 10

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