Fulfilling the Commandments, Lesson 7

Table of Contents

• Defining secular and religious by commitment
• Faith, certainty, and philosophy
• Maimonides and minimal halakhic status
• Movements, sociology, and essence
• Gray areas and the analogy of the “sorites paradox”
• Presumptions and practical conduct toward an unfamiliar person
• Intention in commandments, circumcision, and marriage
• Conversion and acceptance of the commandments
• Types of causing someone to stumble: “do not place a stumbling block,” instructing, and directly feeding the prohibition into someone’s hands
• Application to inviting someone for the Sabbath and to the synagogue
• Army: switching shifts, permission for Sabbath desecration, and securing hikers
• Switching a shift with someone who is not committed, and Kant’s categorical imperative
• The example of leaven sold on Passover and the duty of public consistency
• Halakhic reasoning, “why do I need a verse? It is logical,” and broader implications

Summary

General overview

The speaker sums up an approach according to which the practical distinction between a secular person and a religious person, with respect to commandments, transgressions, and halakhic attitude, depends mainly on the question of commitment to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to the revelation at Sinai, and not on philosophical certainty or on one’s actual level of observance. He argues that there is no one-hundred-percent certainty in any field, and therefore the decisive criterion is the choice to be committed, while actual observance is subject to human weakness. From there he develops a framework for classifying different situations of causing someone to stumble (“do not place a stumbling block,” instructing, and directly feeding a prohibition into someone’s hands), and applies it to questions of inviting people for the Sabbath, army duty shifts, and attitudes toward different movements, while recognizing that the boundaries are not sharp and that there is a gray area that must be handled through the laws of doubt and practical judgment.

Defining secular and religious by commitment

The speaker defines three levels of secularity: an atheist who does not accept the system at all; a believer who does not observe the commandments and does not see himself as obligated; and a person who observes commandments for cultural or national reasons that are not based on a Sinaitic command. He states that someone who is committed to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to the revelation at Sinai is not called secular even if in practice he observes nothing, because his inclination overpowered him, yet he still recognizes the obligation; therefore a transgression is considered a transgression and a commandment is considered a commandment. He emphasizes that this definition creates the possibility that someone who observes everything may still be considered secular if he does not understand it as obligation to a command, while someone who observes nothing may be considered religious if he accepts the obligation in principle.

Faith, certainty, and philosophy

The speaker argues that one need not be a philosopher in order to be considered committed, and that each person can arrive at commitment in a different way, including education, tradition, or personal inference, without needing to “go off the path” in order to be religious. He states that there is no absolute certainty in the world, and anyone who claims complete certainty is fooling himself or others; therefore the demand for one hundred percent is irrelevant. He defines commitment as a binary state—yes or no—but says that the threshold at which a person decides to choose commitment depends on personal criteria of “how many percent” of certainty are enough for him.

Maimonides and minimal halakhic status

The speaker says that Maimonides presents an ideal model of engagement with abstract truths and philosophy, but does not make that a condition for minimal halakhic status or for interpersonal obligations toward someone who is not a philosopher. He distinguishes between “the ideal Jew” and “the minimal Jew,” and argues that Jewish law needs a minimal definition of who is “inside the game” for purposes of practical halakhic relations. He rejects the need to accept Maimonides’ determinations regarding the thirteen principles as binding rules of the game, and says that the practical decision rests on examining commitment to the giving of the Torah from heaven as binding.

Movements, sociology, and essence

The speaker presents Conservatism as a sociological term and argues that its right wing overlaps with the left wing of Orthodoxy, so the question is “who are you” and not “what are you called.” He states that someone who is committed to Jewish law, even if his interpretation is different and even if Maimonides would define him as denying a fundamental principle, is still considered “inside the game” with respect to mutual obligations, “do not place a stumbling block,” and interpersonal duties. He expects a reciprocal attitude of acceptance in the sense of recognizing that everyone is “in the game” despite interpretive disagreements, and distinguishes between Conservatives who define themselves as committed to Jewish law and Reform Jews.

Gray areas and the analogy of the “sorites paradox”

The speaker explains that many everyday definitions are not binary but continuous, and illustrates this with the sorites paradox and distinctions such as “red” and “afternoon.” He argues that the solution is to see these concepts as degrees along a continuum rather than as a sharp line, and that the arbitrariness of setting a threshold is meant for legal certainty, not for exposing some sharp truth in reality. He applies this to the definition of religious and secular, and says that the extremes can be well defined, but in the middle there are cases that are hard to diagnose and hard to assign a status to; at that point the laws of doubt and practical judgment come in.

Presumptions and practical conduct toward an unfamiliar person

The speaker says that Jewish law relies on presumptions and that one can act on their basis when there is no personal acquaintance, as the Sages say: “we kill and stone on the basis of presumptions.” He suggests using reasonable indications to estimate “what shade” of secularity is standing before you without interrogating the person, and gives the example that usually someone asking a question while driving on the Sabbath is, in his estimation, not committed to Jewish law. He argues that common practices such as circumcision or honoring parents among secular Jews are not necessarily commandments; they may be folklore or natural morality, and therefore by themselves they do not prove commitment.

Intention in commandments, circumcision, and marriage

The speaker distinguishes between the validity of an act and its being credited as a commandment, and argues that commandments require intention in order to be credited to the person performing them, but that does not mean the act lacks validity. He explains that in circumcision, the commandment incumbent on the father may not be credited to him if he had no intention, but the child may still be considered circumcised, and appointing the circumciser as an agent can in some cases create fulfillment of the commandment. He compares this to marriage and argues that marriage is a valid contract even if the person has no “commandment of marriage” credited to his account, because he has entered into the contractual obligation of “according to the law of Moses and Israel.”

Conversion and acceptance of the commandments

The speaker says that without accepting the commandments there is no conversion, and anyone who says otherwise is ignorant; but after accepting the commandments, the convert may fail and may even not observe them in practice, and still be considered a convert, if he understood that the commandments obligate him and accepted that. He criticizes blanket invalidation of conversions and explains that in order to retroactively void a conversion one needs specific evidence that the person did not sincerely intend to accept the commandments at the time of conversion, and one cannot “void an act of a religious court” on the basis of statistics or a general impression. He gives the example of a convert who got married immediately on Friday night after the conversion, and argues that this could serve as an early indication of non-acceptance of the commandments, though one can debate whether this is merely knowing that he would fail, rather than absence of acceptance.

Types of causing someone to stumble: “do not place a stumbling block,” instructing, and directly feeding the prohibition into someone’s hands

The speaker presents a scale of levels of causing someone to stumble, and distinguishes between “do not place a stumbling block” in a case of two sides of the river and one side of the river, between telling someone to commit a prohibition, and directly feeding a prohibition into his hands. He argues that “do not place a stumbling block” does not apply to someone who is not “in the game,” and therefore is not committing a transgression; but telling someone to commit a prohibition creates a rabbinic prohibition analogous to “telling a non-Jew” to do forbidden labor. He states that directly feeding a prohibition into someone’s hands may be a Torah prohibition because the one feeding is considered the one who performs the transgression itself, and he cites Yevamot 113: “you shall not eat them—you shall not feed them,” and Maimonides at the end of the laws of forbidden mixtures, that if someone clothes another person in shaatnez while the wearer is unwitting and the dresser is deliberate, the dresser receives lashes for forbidden mixtures; and he also gives examples of rendering a priest impure and of false testimony in the case of someone declared the son of a divorcee or a disqualified priestly line.

Application to inviting someone for the Sabbath and to the synagogue

The speaker says that there are halakhic decisors who permit inviting a person for the Sabbath even if he will drive, because the goal is for that person’s benefit and not to cause him to stumble; he himself argues that if this is a person who is not “in the game,” then there is no prohibition dilemma here at all. He cites Rabbi Eliezer’s freeing his slave to complete a quorum, and Nachmanides’ explanation that the prohibition on freeing a slave is like giving a gratuitous gift, but when it is a “use” for the sake of a commandment, it is permitted. He describes how a similar argument was used by Conservative communities to encourage driving to the synagogue, and argues that sociological affiliation does not prove that the argument is wrong or right; rather, each thing must be judged on its own merits and according to local reality, including Rabbi Aviner’s change of position after encountering a different reality.

Army: switching shifts, permission for Sabbath desecration, and securing hikers

The speaker argues that there is no general “permission” on the Sabbath; rather, something is either a commandment or a prohibition. Therefore, when a goal can be achieved without desecrating the Sabbath, there is no justification for desecrating the Sabbath in order to achieve it, and so a non-Jewish driver is preferable if that is truly possible. He says that a commander should give soldiers permission to go out and let them decide for themselves regarding the Sabbath, because that is their own religious decision. He raises a dilemma regarding securing hikers who are desecrating the Sabbath, and argues that if it had been possible to warn them in advance that they would not be secured, there would be room to forbid desecrating the Sabbath to save them; but in reality, where this was not made a condition and they are “going about innocently,” this is a case of saving life and therefore security is required.

Switching a shift with someone who is not committed, and Kant’s categorical imperative

The speaker presents the common position among halakhic decisors, which forbids switching a shift because the Sabbath desecration of the secular person is considered Sabbath desecration just like that of the religious person; but according to his own approach, if the person is outside the game, then from that person’s standpoint there is no Sabbath desecration, and therefore one should seemingly switch in order to reduce Sabbath desecration on the part of the person who is committed. He then qualifies this and brings in Kant’s “categorical imperative,” according to which one should act only in a way one would want to become a universal law, and argues that it is forbidden to build policy on the assumption that others will be transgressors in order to let you be stricter. He connects this to a debate in Tzohar about the sale permit (heter mekhira) versus Otzar Haaretz, and to the response that the secular public will buy produce based on the sale permit anyway; he interprets the criticism as the claim that one cannot rely on a reality of non-observance in order to justify avoidance by those who do observe.

The example of leaven sold on Passover and the duty of public consistency

The speaker describes a grocery store in Bnei Brak that still had leaven after Passover which had been sold through the sale of leaven, and argues that if one permits a business to sell actual leaven through that sale because of major financial loss, but the Haredi public then will not buy from it afterward, the permission ends up trapping the store owner and becomes unreasonable. He concludes that the permission to sell necessarily includes permission for the public to buy; otherwise the permission is not consistent and cannot exist in a properly ordered world where everyone acts that way. He uses this to reformulate the dilemma of switching shifts: even if a secular person outside the game exists in reality, a halakhic decision must also be examined against a picture of the world in which one does not “build” on others carrying the burden of transgression so that the observant person can escape it.

Halakhic reasoning, “why do I need a verse? It is logical,” and broader implications

The speaker says that the Kantian consideration is a philosophical move from outside the halakhic system, but that it can be adopted as binding reasoning within Jewish law if it is sound, in the sense of “why do I need a verse? It is logical.” He notes that this consideration has many nuances and may also affect additional questions, such as the obligation to vote in elections, and says that he found partial parallels in the sources, though not identical ones. He concludes by saying that practical applications require familiarity with local reality, and that there are no general rulings that fit all communities and all situations.

Okay, I want to wrap up our discussion about the commandments and transgressions of a secular person, and what that means in terms of the halakhic attitude, or our attitude, toward him. I’ll briefly summarize the previous sessions. In the first stage I talked about what a secular person means for our purposes. In other words, there are several levels, or several types. One of them is the simplest: the atheist. An atheist who believes in nothing, who doesn’t accept this whole business. The second level is a person who believes but does not observe commandments. He believes in God in some sense, but he is not committed to the commandments. The third level is a person who does observe the commandments, maybe even believes as well, maybe not, but not out of standing under command, not out of the command at Mount Sinai, but from a whole range of motives. Starting from Ahad Ha’am, right? Where it doesn’t even have to involve belief. Some say it does involve belief, some sort of connection to the Jewish people, or things of that sort. That’s the third level, and that too is called secular for our purposes. And what is not called secular in this context is someone who is committed to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to the revelation at Mount Sinai. Although in this regard you can also be lenient, let’s call it that—I don’t know if “lenient” is the right word—but this definition allows quite a wide margin. It sounds like something very dogmatic, very demanding, but in fact it allows quite a wide margin. It could be someone who observes nothing at all. Meaning, as long as he understands that the command at Sinai is binding. Now, all of us manage to keep what we manage to keep. Some are stronger, some are weaker. There may be someone very weak, so he does nothing—it doesn’t matter. For our purposes he is a believing person, not a secular person, and his inclination overcame him—what can you do. But he understands the obligation. So a transgression he commits is a transgression, and a commandment he performs is a commandment. Therefore in this regard there are aspects of leniency and aspects of stringency. Meaning, there can be people who observe everything, down to the smallest detail, and from my perspective they’ll be secular, and there can be others who observe nothing at all and from my perspective they won’t be secular. That is, they’ll be religious, yes. But what does “believing” mean? Because a lot of people have principled questions, questions of faith. Are you one hundred percent sure? Ninety-five percent? Something like that? So maybe I really should—part of the summary I’ll add now is precisely some clarification about this, because I also wrote down for myself that I need to clarify it a bit. First, I think there is absolutely no need to be a philosopher. That is, the question of how you arrive at your sense of obligation or your decision of obligation—that’s your business. Everyone arrives there from a different direction, provided that there really is a genuine commitment to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to the revelation at Mount Sinai. Meaning, I’m not talking about some Ahad Ha’am-style commitment, okay? Rather, commitment to the Torah. How he got there—whether he trusts tradition, whether he has philosophical proofs, whether—I don’t know—whatever philosophical proofs, whether like those of Abraham our forefather or others, I don’t know. Like Maimonides, or at least the Sages, think of him. It was instilled in him through childhood education. It was instilled in him—but again the question is: if it was instilled in him and he’s simply used to doing it, that doesn’t count. But if it was instilled in him and that helped him reach an understanding that this is what he thinks, that is completely fine. You don’t have to leave religion in order to be religious. Meaning, and then come back afterward. If a person accepts the education he received, and that’s perfectly fine, then of course he is a religious person in every respect. There is no need whatsoever to be a philosopher. On the other hand, yes, there is a philosophical addition to this issue regarding certainty. You asked whether it has to be one hundred percent. In my view, there is nothing that is one hundred percent in the world. Not belief in God, and not the fact that you’re sitting here right now. We are human beings, and human beings can always be mistaken. They can be mistaken in their inferences, in their direct observations, and even in their assumptions. Therefore the demand for certainty—I don’t even bother arguing whether it exists or doesn’t exist, because it’s simply impossible. So what difference does it make? Even if it exists, you can’t fulfill it. There’s no such thing. Anyone who thinks he is in a state of complete certainty is either fooling me or fooling himself. There’s no way to have complete certainty about anything. Do you think Maimonides agrees with that? There was always a sense that in Maimonides—according to Maimonides—the person, not the perfect person, but the basic state, is someone who really examined every single detail and understood it precisely. There’s that sort of feeling—but go ahead. I made several assertions here, so why ask whether Maimonides agrees? You’re taking me back to an earlier assertion, about whether one has to be a philosopher. That one doesn’t have to be a philosopher—Maimonides agrees that one doesn’t have to be a philosopher. As far as your halakhic definition as a believing person is concerned, as far as my obligations toward you or things like “do not place a stumbling block” in relation to you—he fully agrees that you don’t have to be a philosopher. He says the ideal model is indeed a person who is a philosopher and who engages in intellectual truths. Fine—I’m not talking right now about the best path for a person to take. Even about that I’m not sure I agree with Maimonides. But it is certainly true that Maimonides wants a person to engage in intellectual inquiry, to arrive at his conclusions, to be a philosopher. But he does not make a person’s halakhic status contingent on that. He does not say that if someone is not like that, then there are no interpersonal obligations toward him, or no “do not place a stumbling block” in relation to him. Certainly not. That it’s not the highest ideal in his eyes—fine, not the highest ideal is fine. But I’m talking from the standpoint of my definition. I’m not talking right now about the ideal Jew; I’m talking about the minimal Jew. Okay? The ideal Jew—we can debate that. Yes. You made a distinction between the definitions of secular and religious based on believer and non-believer, and a question was asked here about certainty in belief, and you said there’s no one hundred percent. So when you say “believer,” and you also say there’s no one hundred percent, then what is that percentage that isn’t one hundred percent? Right. No, for me what matters is what the person himself decides. If in the end he decides that he is obligated, then he is obligated. The criteria—how many percent he wants in order to be obligated—that the person sets for himself. If I think eighty percent is enough, and someone else thinks sixty is enough, that’s his decision. Obligation is either one or zero. Belief is not tied to action; it’s only the sense of obligation. Not a feeling—a choice to be obligated, not a feeling. Feelings are no help at all. A choice to be obligated. Now this choice—a person can be satisfied with sixty percent certainty in order to make that decision, and that’s fine; that’s his criterion. So you’re saying obligation is either yes or no, there’s no half-and-half. Yes, yes, make him obligated. And again—not observance, but obligation. Observance—we all fail. But obligation, yes. You have to decide that you’re there, that you’re in the game. What are your criteria? How much certainty do you need for that? Each person by his own criteria. In other areas of life too, some of us demand a higher degree of certainty in order to make decisions, and others less. I don’t think you can define anything fixed here. And what about other streams of Judaism? Right, so I said—I already mentioned this last time. It seems to me that, say, Conservatives—that’s a sociological term. If I’m speaking in the essential sense, then the right wing of what is called Conservative today has long since crossed over with the left wing of what is called Orthodoxy. Therefore the question is not what you are called, but who you are. Each person individually. And if a person is committed to Jewish law, even if he thinks Jewish law looks a bit different from what I or you think—so what? As far as I’m concerned, he is completely in the game. Even someone whom Maimonides might define as denying a principle—that doesn’t matter to me in this regard, since he thinks differently. Meaning, he interprets differently. I may disagree with his interpretation. I’m not claiming all interpretations are correct. If I disagree with him, then I’ll argue with him, try to persuade him, and fight against his view. Fine—that’s unrelated. But in terms of his being in the game, in terms of my obligation toward him existing—it exists. That’s the interpretation he gives. There are also all kinds of other interpretations, one of which you’re hearing now, and others from other people. I expect a mutual attitude of acceptance—not in the sense that we all accept that the other is right, but in the sense that we accept that we are all in the game. And if we are all in the game, then interpersonal obligations exist between us, and the issue of “do not place a stumbling block,” of course, and all those things fully apply. And we have interpretive disagreements. In my view, someone committed to Jewish law—and Conservatives at least define themselves that way, unlike Reform—I think they are inside, they are in the game, on the principled level. But again, many define themselves that way only sociologically. The question is, among them, each individual—you know, each one is something else. Even among the Orthodox, by the way, there are some who are only sociologically inside, and they are Orthodox secularists, not Conservative secularists. I have a friend in Yeruham—today he’s the head of the local council—he told me that once he wanted to establish some kind of Conservative minyan in Yeruham; his wife comes from a Conservative home. But nobody agreed to come. I told him: listen, people here desecrate the Sabbath—we’re talking about people who don’t really keep commandments, traditional folks, you know, from Yeruham. He said yes, but they are Orthodox traditionalists, not Conservative traditionalists. They can drive on the Sabbath and it doesn’t matter, or watch television. But they are Orthodox traditionalists. There’s something there that I think is very interesting. But really, I’m saying we need to free ourselves a bit from sociological definitions and get to the essence. By the way, I accept this notion of Orthodox traditionalists. Meaning, I think if behind that statement there really lies a genuine view—namely, I think the truth is with Orthodoxy; it’s just that I don’t live up to it, I don’t have the strength, it doesn’t work for me, I don’t know what—that’s what I spoke about earlier. If you think that basically that is what is binding, then you are in the game. Each person and his inclination, each person to the extent he can. But if the Conservative movement is committed to Jewish law as you say, but not because of Sinai—okay, the Torah developed over time and all that. Torah from Heaven and not Torah from Sinai—they have all kinds of theories like that. Because of that, would you classify that as… Look, if you mean Mount Sinai in the historical sense, I’m not sure. As long as it’s Torah from Heaven, that seems to me to be the point—at least that’s how I think. But Torah from Heaven in a very vague way—Holy Spirit, whatever, I don’t know. There are fifty shades of gray in the middle. And I don’t know what to do with all those shades. I’m saying: the two ends are clear to me; in the middle I really don’t know. There’s a gray zone where it’s hard to say anything clear. But I say: each person individually. I don’t think it is right to judge a person by his sociological affiliation, by what synagogue he goes to or doesn’t go to on the Sabbath. Regarding “do not place a stumbling block”—do I have to give each person a test before I offer him something? About that too I think I said something last time. There are presumptions in the world, and that’s what they’re for. The Sages say in tractate Kiddushin that we execute and stone on the basis of presumptions; we burn and stone on the basis of presumptions. Meaning, a child who is presumed to be his father’s son is his father’s son. I’m not now looking for two witnesses to come and tell me he is his father’s son. I know he is secular; the question is what shade of secular. So now I’m saying: if you have some indications of what shade of secular he belongs to, you can use presumptions when needed, if you don’t know him personally. But there are many presumptions—not just one. There are many presumptions about many types of people, as I described earlier. The standard question: there’s some driver and he asks you what to do—can you tell him to go here and… You know nothing about the person; it’s a driver you don’t know, and so on. I think that in most cases, a person who asks me while driving on the Sabbath and asks me—he is not committed to Jewish law. That’s what I think. Or maybe I’m mistaken in my assessment of reality, but that is my assessment. Since that’s so, clearly it’s not practical to start interrogating him there. So that’s what I go by—what else can I do? But what about this: Israelis—every secular person here is committed to certain Jewish laws; they all do circumcision. That doesn’t interest me; it’s meaningless. Why? Because they don’t do that circumcision as a commandment; they do it as folklore. What does that have to do with anything? There is no commandment in that. The son may become circumcised, but the person did not perform a commandment; he is not committed to commandments. What does that have to do with commandments? He also honors his parents—so what? His honoring of parents is not a commandment; his honoring of parents is a good deed. He’s a moral person. But a commandment means that I respond to a command. So according to what you’re saying, the circumcision isn’t a circumcision. What? According to what you’re saying, the circumcision done to the son is not a circumcision because of the intention. The commandment is on the father; the father did not intend to fulfill a commandment. The father did not intend to fulfill a commandment, but that does not mean the circumcision isn’t a circumcision. Usually it’s not the father who does it but the mohel, and if the mohel does it and the father sent him, then there may be a commandment. Second, even if the father has no intention, the question whether the son is considered circumcised—that’s not so simple. Commandments require intention in the sense that the commandment will be credited to the father. The question is whether the son is considered circumcised. The father did not do the commandment, but the child… Yes, for example, they asked me—one second—they asked me, after I wrote that article, maybe I mentioned this, I no longer remember: what about marriage? A secular person betroths a woman. If he does not belong to commandments and transgressions, then his betrothal is not betrothal. But that is obviously not true, because betrothal is a contract. If a person enters into that contract and says, “I accept upon myself what the contract obligates,” that is betrothal. True, he won’t receive the commandment-credit of betrothal. Meaning, assuming that it is a commandment. If there is indeed a commandment to betroth, then that commandment he did not fulfill. But the contract is a contract. If he signed it, then he is bound by it. Okay? According to the law of Moses and Israel. Whatever Moses and Israel established—that is what he committed himself to. But here you’ve ruled out all secular people, who maybe really are… Not all of them—those among them who meet the conditions I mentioned. But they believe. The fact that they perform circumcision—and that they believe in something, believe that yes… Believe in someone. I’m not comparing anything, Heaven forbid. I have friends who believe in nothing at all and circumcised their sons. They really agonized over it and in the end did it. Meaning, confused Jews and the basic desire—right. Among secular Israelis. I’m not comparing anything; I’m speaking about what I know, not what I don’t know. I said there are different types of people. I can’t say something about all of them. I can tell you about people I know. If in the United States, or in some places in the United States, it’s different, then it’s different. I’m not trying to make any factual claim. You’re comparing to others, but the essence is the same essence. If it is the same essence—I don’t know; you need to know the phenomenon. There is a very different conception of Orthodoxy here in Israel than Orthodoxy abroad. Fine, I’m only saying that the attitude should be different. I said: clearly the decision there is entrusted to people who live there and know the reality there. I can speak only about what I know, and even that with limited confidence. Because what I know—who knows what is in a person’s heart? Right, one has to try to assess. But you know, a Conservative person here in Israel—his level of commitment is much higher, say, than some secular person who isn’t. What? I know one of the heads of the Conservatives here, the father of my friend’s wife. We spoke quite a bit. He was the head of their institute in Jerusalem, the one through which all the rabbis have to pass. No, yes, the Schechter Institute—but him, his name is Seigel. So we spoke quite a lot. He is completely Orthodox from my perspective. I mean in terms of commitment to Jewish law, even though there are things he won’t do. Men and women sit together in synagogue—big deal; I already said that from my perspective there’s no problem with that. But there are things here and there that they do differently, really differently. Fine, we have an interpretive disagreement. But he is a committed person. Meaning, that’s part of whether he is inside the game or outside the game. But there are things that are foundational assets of the game, without which it is not considered being in the game—for example, accepting the Talmud as authority. I assume there are other things too? Or maybe they’re playing a different game. The Karaites—are the Karaites in the game? Right, right. A Jew who became Karaite? Right, right. I think he is in the game. Because acceptance of the Talmud—the fact that we accepted the Talmud upon ourselves, okay, that’s a decision. But it’s not something someone else can say—for after all, it’s not written anywhere that we accepted the Talmud upon ourselves. It’s some kind of practice, and medieval authorities mention it. Now someone will say: listen, I have a different interpretation. I think the Talmud was not accepted, rather it is only a recommendation, not binding. Let’s say. Fine? I’ll argue with him. But to say he is outside the game? I don’t know. Now where is the boundary? That is the boundary of our game. Exactly. Now tell me—what about Christians? After all, the Christian also accepts Mount Sinai, the Torah, he is committed. Sure, there’s the New Testament, fine, but he accepts it. Where does it stop? I don’t know. It’s the Sorites paradox. You know—one pebble is not a heap; how many pebbles make a heap? Exactly. One pebble is not a heap. If you add one pebble to a pile of stones, that doesn’t change its status. But a million pebbles are indeed a heap. So how can both of those be true? At some point you move from not-a-heap to a heap. The answer is—that is, which of the three claims is false? “One pebble is not a heap” sounds very reasonable. “Adding one pebble does not change the status” also sounds, at first glance, reasonable. So why, why? Where is it? But there is a border; whoever deals at the boundary is cursed. Everything has a boundary. Now I ask you: what is the boundary? Tell me how many stones make a heap. No, I refute the second claim. So I ask: is there some point—let’s say a heap is three? What do you mean, “let’s say”? I’m not asking “let’s say”; tell me the answer. How many is a heap? Seventeen? Fourteen? Four? Okay, and I think seventeen. Do you have any way to prove it? No—you’re just making an arbitrary assertion. Whatever you say, the claim that adding one doesn’t change the status—if that happens, that seems definite. No, that’s not definite. It’s not true—but not in the sense you mean. In a moment I’ll explain. So the second claim, that adding one pebble does not change the status—that sounds very plausible to me. Formally, of course, you can define it and say from eight stones and up it’s a heap, and then there’s no problem; that’s a definition that passes logical scrutiny. But it does not pass the test of the meaning in which we use the concept “heap.” That’s not the meaning. And of course a million pebbles are a heap. So all three claims sound very reasonable, but they don’t fit together. So what do we do? Clearly the second claim is wrong. But why is it wrong? Not because there is some number in heaven written there, from which onward it is a heap, but because we need an alternative formulation. Adding one pebble changes the status a little bit. In other words, the concept heap / not heap is not a binary concept. It’s not yes or no. There is something that is not a heap, something that is a little bit of a heap, something that is fairly much a heap, something that is very much a heap, and something that is completely a heap. If you want, on a continuous scale between zero and one, right? So there is something that is 0.8 heap, 0.3 heap. So adding one pebble changes your heap-status a little bit. That’s the right definition, that’s all, and everything is fine. But not that there is some particular number from which onward this is a heap, okay? And below it, it’s not a heap. Yes, exactly, and below it it’s not a heap. And back to the lesson—how is this connected? No, in all our everyday concepts, basically we need to understand that they work this way. Our everyday concepts are not judged in terms of yes or no. Many of the paradoxes we get stuck in come from treating everyday concepts in a binary way. You must not do that. So from what point is it red? At what wavelength is it red? There is an entire continuum. It’s a bit red, more red, less red. Right? From when is it afternoon? My children once asked me whether they’re allowed to go out—between two and four they’re not allowed to go out because it makes noise for the neighbors. So from when is it afternoon? Now I had a good answer: four. As a legislator I set four. But what do you mean? Twelve is not afternoon; adding one second doesn’t change the status, right? It doesn’t suddenly become afternoon. So how does four become afternoon? It becomes afternoon gradually. At first it’s a little afternoon, and in the end it’s completely afternoon. A convention cuts the scale; the points gather into “more afternoon.” Fine—where they cut, they cut. But if they didn’t cut, what can you do? What can you do? The very ability to cut shows that there is—no, the ability to cut is arbitrary. That’s the whole point. It is not truth. The ability to cut is arbitrary. They fixed something only for legal certainty, so you have to fix something. But not that they really found the truth—that’s not the point. It’s not that whoever eats an olive-bulk and above suffers a spiritual disaster, and whoever eats slightly less than an olive-bulk is no big deal. Obviously not. There is some process here—as you eat more, it becomes more problematic. They placed some threshold from which onward it’s prohibited. Isn’t this the issue of whether it’s possible to reduce things exactly or not? I don’t think so, because that question only concerns whether you can establish a defined boundary. Here I’m arguing that there is a whole continuum; no one place is especially privileged over another. “Possible to reduce exactly” would be, for example, whether two events can happen at the exact same moment, at the same instant, okay? It asks whether you say there really can be something specifically precise or not. No—but I’m saying even if there is, that’s what I’m saying, it’s not the same thing, because it may be that each event separately has a fully precise moment. The whole question is whether they can coincide. I’m claiming that even on either side there cannot be a precise moment—not because of their matching, but because there is no thing that shifts sharply from before to after. The transition is always gradual. Yes, that is the assumption of continuity. I assume things are continuous; it’s not a step function. Not in the physical world? In the physical world it’s totally like that. Why not? Certainly there are all the discontinuous things. Maybe we can’t measure them, but there is a specific point, a specific time, when something happens. No, of course there is a specific time when something happens. I didn’t say otherwise. But the physical definitions—the functions, the laws of physics—are always continuous. If we want to get to something discontinuous, we usually move to an infinite system, and there is no such thing. Phase transitions and things like that. Because in life there is no such thing; everything is continuous. How is this connected—what does this have to do with the things you’re talking about, with this group we’re in? Yes, it’s connected, connected. So now you tied a weight to my other leg too; I’ve landed. Okay, now what I’m getting back to is that the definition of religious and secular, or believer and non-believer for our purposes, also—I don’t know how to give a sharp line that defines from when it is so and from when it isn’t. Therefore the right way to deal with such a thing—and by the way this is a lesson in itself—is how one deals with a certain kind of thing like this, and how many problems arise when people don’t know how to deal with such things. In the humanities there are lots of problems when people try to propose sharp definitions for gray phenomena—that is, for continuous phenomena. So here too, when I want to define what is religious and what is secular, I can try to define the two ends. At the ends it’s fairly simple; you can define the situation well. In the middle there are many situations that either I don’t know how to diagnose, or maybe even if I do diagnose them I still won’t know their status. Obviously. What can you do? We enter the laws of doubt. There are laws of doubt in Jewish law too; that is also part of Jewish law. So that’s okay. If Sages come and establish something—this goes back to you—if Sages set some measure, fine, they set it, and from now on that is what binds. Here it will be hard to set a measure, because how do you measure it? It’s not something you can measure and say: whoever is sixty percent and up is an atheist. It doesn’t work that way. Therefore I say the only way to relate to it is to ask what the person determines for himself. If the person sees himself as obligated—that’s all, for me that’s fine. That is, I don’t care at the moment how he arrived at that determination and what caused him to it. He sees himself as obligated by the commandments that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave. That’s it. For me that’s a person who is in the game, as I said earlier. But Maimonides, in the Thirteen Principles—doesn’t Maimonides in the Thirteen Principles at least hint, or even determine, that one who does not believe in even one of them—well, who said I accept what he writes? No—Maimonides determines the rules of the game there. Right. Once you give yourself the right to determine the rules of the game, then it’s impossible to argue with you. Do I have an argument with you? By what rules will we decide? If the argument is over the rules of the game, I don’t agree with what he writes there. Fine. Self-definition—you’re saying self-definition, whoever declares himself? Not declares—truly, genuinely determines. Declarations don’t help. Many people say things about themselves. If I really wanted to be—I don’t always do this, and you can’t always do this—you do the best you can. I’m saying hypothetically, if I could check, I would need to check whether he believes in Torah given from Heaven, that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah and that this therefore obligates him, and that is why he performs commandments. If yes, then yes. I don’t care—don’t check how he got there, what his proofs were, where he came from, what convinced him—it doesn’t matter to me at all. From my perspective, if that is where he is, then he’s in the game; if not, then not. Okay? Therefore, as I said, he can do all the commandments and be considered outside the game, and do none of the commandments and be inside the game. It’s like conversion, by the way. About conversion I wrote a very controversial article, and the Haredim and others shouted at me there. Fine, there are worse insults. But I say that the article was both lenient and stringent. That is, on the one hand I argued that without acceptance of commandments there is no conversion. I argued—and this is obvious. Without acceptance of commandments there is no conversion; anyone who said otherwise is ignorant. Beyond that, though, I say that after acceptance of commandments, he may keep nothing at all. Meaning, if he understands that it obligates him, and he accepts it upon himself, then he is a convert. The fact that afterward he chooses to sin—fine, all of us sin here and there, right? What can you do? We’re human beings. And if he is a very weak person, then he will do nothing at all. It doesn’t matter. He’s a convert in every respect. But if from the outset he did not intend—if he does not understand that the system of commandments obligates him—then he is not a convert; he is a gentile. Okay? Those are the two sides of the coin. Obligates him as the word of God? What? Obligates him as the word of God? Yes, yes, certainly. I mean in the same sense I spoke about here. In the same sense I spoke about here. So most conversions are not Jews. I assume so, but I have no way of knowing. In order to invalidate someone’s conversion, you need to know something specific about him. Rabbi Sherman’s sweeping invalidation—I don’t agree with that. I agree with his basic approach to conversion; I don’t agree that he decided that all the rabbinical courts are wicked and all the conversions are invalid across the board. That’s nonsense. You have to examine. If you have a convert whom a rabbinical court already sat for and converted, then in order to invalidate his conversion you have to see that this specific person did not genuinely intend to accept commandments. If you can prove that, he is a gentile. I had an example—Rabbi Katz, head of the kollel at Bar-Ilan, told me he had a convert for whom he himself sat on the conversion court, and they converted him, accepted him. On Friday night he married his partner, may she live and be well. He converted in order to marry some Jewish woman. They had already booked a hall, an orchestra, everything. Now you don’t book a hall and orchestra on Friday afternoon for that very night, right? Obviously they booked it beforehand. Which means that already from the outset—that’s an indication that from the outset he really didn’t intend to observe commandments, didn’t accept observance of commandments upon himself. Fine, you can argue and say he crossed the line in advance—it’s not that he didn’t intend to keep commandments; he knew he would fail. Fine, okay. But I’m saying on the principled level, that is the kind of thing that can invalidate a conversion even retroactively. But you need specific evidence about that specific person. You can’t just generally say: I don’t accept it, because I too agree that generally these conversions are not serious. If I had to decide based on statistics, then no. But there are no statistics. Meaning, when you want to invalidate a conversion, you need specific evidence about that individual person, because a court already ruled something about him. You can’t just casually annul a court’s act. Okay? On that I do not agree. But I do agree with Rabbi Sherman’s basic principled approach—that this is not the right way to convert people. I just wanted to clarify: if after the fact, at the time of the conversion he was committed and afterward he fell? No—not in terms of actual observance of the commandments, but in terms of his awareness? It doesn’t matter, okay, it doesn’t matter. And if he doesn’t know, then all the same he won’t observe; he’ll just be decent, that’s all. A Jew is allowed to be decent. Fine—well, all of us fall. Can a person say he’ll keep everything? He can say: “I’ll try, and fine, as much as I succeed.” All in all he’s an honest person, so it would be good to bring in a few more like that, so we’ll have a few more, right? It’s not pleasant to leave all the decent people as gentiles. Okay, so that was the first part about who is religious—not who is Jewish; in the end I drifted into who is Jewish. After that I talked about kinds of causing stumbling, and I said there is causing stumbling under “do not place a stumbling block”—two sides of the river and one side of the river, meaning whether he can commit the transgression without me or cannot commit it without me. There is verbal instruction—like instructing a gentile—meaning telling him to do something forbidden. And there is putting food into his mouth directly, physically feeding with one’s own hands—meaning I give a person a prohibition with my own hands. Then I transgress even if the person is a minor. Okay? So there are many kinds—or several kinds, I don’t know if all of them are technically “causing stumbling,” but yes, let’s say along the spectrum of causing stumbling. And causing stumbling itself is a continuous scale too; there are different levels of it. Now, for all the acts about which we hesitate, we have to identify: first, who is the object—sorry for the wording—who is the subject standing before us? Where does he fit in the list of secular, non-secular, or religious people? Then we need to clarify what type of action I am doing toward him. Is this causing stumbling on one side of the river or two sides of the river? Is this direct physical feeding? Is this verbal instruction? Each one of these actions—and then we can arrive at some conclusion, after which, of course, further considerations enter. For example, there are decisors who say that when I invite someone to my home for the Sabbath and he drives—yes, we heard that today in the short Torah talk—then there is an issue of preventing him from driving. That was the assumption of the writer there. I disagree, if we’re talking about a secular person who is not in the game. Then on the contrary, there is reason to invite him so that he will drive on the Sabbath to me; maybe it will influence him somehow after all. And indeed the decisors write—even those decisors who take the conventional approach—at least some of them write that one may do such a thing because it is all for his benefit. The purpose of “do not place a stumbling block” is to help a person, not to trip him up. Well then, if I do it for his benefit, then that is not called “do not place a stumbling block,” because I did it in order to help him, not to interfere with him. On the other side of the coin, you know that Rabbi Eliezer freed his slave in order to complete a minyan. So everyone asks: but it says, “you shall work them forever,” and it is forbidden to free a Canaanite slave. Fine—a Canaanite slave whom you free becomes a Jew, and thus he completed the minyan there. So why is it forbidden to free a Canaanite slave? It says, “you shall work them forever.” So Nachmanides says there, and everyone more or less copies his words, that freeing a slave is forbidden when it is a gift to the slave; it is like “do not show them favor,” you may not give him a gratuitous gift. But if that is the use I am making of the slave, then there is no problem. I simply made use of the slave, I used him to complete a minyan. No problem. So it’s fine. By the way, that opens a nice way to do all kinds of shtick in that matter. To find yourself in a place with nine men and bring along my slave, if I’m a writer who loves him very much and wants to free him—so I arrange that there are only nine people, I need him to complete the minyan, and I free him in order to complete the minyan, and that’s it, liberated territory will not be returned. Afterward that’s it—he’s a Jew. And he’s not a flowerpot. And he’s not a flowerpot, exactly. Unless he doesn’t believe. If he doesn’t believe, then nothing will help; he’ll be a flowerpot even if he’s freed. And that’s relatively fast conversion, no? What? That’s a fast conversion? It’s a very fast conversion—freeing slaves is fast conversion. Here in the book, Nadav talks about the mechanism of a Hebrew slave in order to convert. He argues that perhaps one can compel acceptance of commandments there. I’m not sure he’s right about that, but he thinks you can compel acceptance of commandments there. Anyway, this business of inviting a secular person on the Sabbath—that was the basis for the Conservatives in synagogues abroad, where they said it’s preferable to drive a car to get to synagogue. Right. Right. And there you have proof that the fact that someone is called Conservative does not mean his argument is wrong. It also doesn’t mean it’s right. Each thing has to be judged on its own merits. By the way, I read that Rabbi Aviner was horrified—what? He’s fine. It may be that he’s mistaken; it may also be that I’m mistaken. I’m saying that… I read that Rabbi Aviner wrote against this matter of inviting secular Jews on the Sabbath. Then he traveled on a tour—not a tour, some visit—in the United States, came back and wrote that one should do it. Invite people to synagogue and home on the Sabbath even with a car. In Israel or there? He said he recommended it here too. He recommended it here too. Now, that means that when you encounter a different reality, you need to be open enough to change your position. That is a relevant consideration. Many decisors say this. I say more than that, yes. I say that if he’s not in the game at all, then there’s no dilemma. Rabbi Aviner had a dilemma and ruled leniently. I say that if he’s not in the game—it depends what kind of Jew we’re talking about—if he’s not in the game, then there is no dilemma at all. Meaning, you can go ahead and invite him. And only in hindsight is it a shame that for all those hundred years the Orthodox rabbis in the United States had to get up and say: fine, drive to us in cars. Here, we’re opening our parking lot—come on everybody, come to us too, and compete with them. Maybe. That’s always a hypothetical question. I don’t know what would have happened otherwise. What would have happened had we… We’re wise after the fact, and we’re not even after the fact. Because maybe if they had done that, then we all would have lost everything and it would have failed. I’m not sure that historical speculation works. I’m just saying: it’s possible, and one has to use one’s best judgment as much as one can. Maybe in the end you’ll be mistaken—but it is a legitimate consideration to say that I invite him for his own good and therefore it is permitted, or to say, as I do, that there is no dilemma at all and you may invite him. That is a legitimate consideration. If in the end it turns out that that consideration was mistaken—fine, we are all human and we make mistakes. I strongly disagree with that. That the rabbi does not inspect people’s fringes to see how they got to synagogue—that’s one thing; it’s very common in France, for example. Half the people come to synagogue by car on the Sabbath. They try to park far away so no one notices, but basically it’s different. The rabbi isn’t required to check. But to say “everybody come to synagogue”—that’s already another stage in verbal instruction. Fine. That’s why I say it’s not… but even verbal instruction—even verbal instruction—that’s what those decisors say, that even where… I said there is no dilemma. I have no problem with it at all because it involves no prohibition. I’m not doing it for their benefit. It’s simply permitted—not because it benefits them. If he is not obligated. Yes, if he is one of those not in the game. But I say that the decisors who think there is indeed a problem here, still sometimes permit it, even at the price of doing a prohibition, even verbal instruction, which is a prohibition. Well, that of course depends on the reality. A person has to know the environment in which he lives and make decisions. I don’t think you can establish something general here for all communities. What they tried there—opening the parking lot on the Sabbath at the synagogue—that really is a question. Okay, I don’t know what the best answer is; you need to know the reality for that. I don’t know. Isn’t there a difference between inviting someone to a Sabbath meal, where you’re not saying anything about his level of commitment, and inviting or encouraging him to come to synagogue, where supposedly—unless he’s coming for a bar mitzvah—he’s coming in order to pray? He’s coming to express commitment. And then by your assessment he is someone who is in the game. Okay, so that’s why you need to know the reality. I’m talking about those who usually come for bar mitzvahs or something like that. But right—each case on its own. That’s what I’m saying: there are no blanket rulings. Each case on its own. If your assessment is that he is indeed someone who is in the game, then here there is already a dilemma. That doesn’t tell us the answer to the dilemma. Meaning, even if there is a dilemma, sometimes it will still be permitted to do it despite the prohibition because… But not on the basis that he’s not obligated. Exactly. So each case on its own. Again, I’m just trying to show the range; you can’t go through all the cases. Just now we moved from inviting to a Sabbath meal to inviting to synagogue, and I think there is room to distinguish. Possibly, definitely possible. Definitely possible. So each case on its own. Now another point: there is another aspect that comes up in these contexts, and it is a bit hard to map it onto the framework I’ve described until now. I’ll speak about situations that arise many times in the army—not only there, but many times in the army—such as switching duty shifts, which already came up here in previous sessions. Yes, if I have duty on the Sabbath—duty meaning something that involves desecrating the Sabbath—should I switch it with someone who is not obligated? Okay? The accepted assumption is no, right? People generally say no; that’s what decisors usually say—that no, you shouldn’t. He’s as Jewish as you are; if it needs to be done, then it needs to be done, and if it doesn’t need to be done, then no one should do it. But if it’s a duty that is a commandment, or a duty that is permitted? I said: there is no “permitted” on the Sabbath. Either it’s a commandment or it’s forbidden. If it’s… Then why should I switch? On the contrary—I gain a commandment. But there is desecration of the Sabbath. If there’s someone who can do it without desecration of the Sabbath… I don’t understand. A positive commandment overrides a prohibition—what? If someone can do it without desecrating the Sabbath, then there is no permission to desecrate the Sabbath, right? If you can achieve the result without violating a prohibition, then there is no permission to violate a prohibition in order to achieve the goal. My wife is giving birth—do I drive her to the hospital, or do I get an Arab driver? Sorry? I drive her to the hospital because it’s my commandment! No. Not because it’s your commandment—that’s a mistake. Not because it’s your commandment. If truly everything can be arranged with an Arab driver, then get an Arab driver. Am I obligated? Yes. Because where there is no Sabbath desecration—where you can achieve the result without Sabbath desecration—there is no permission to desecrate the Sabbath. Why is it permitted for you to go with your wife to the hospital? Because the woman in labor wants her husband with her. That’s perfectly fine; it is a consideration for the patient’s benefit, meaning the woman in labor. That is fine; it permits Sabbath desecration. But I’m talking about a situation where I achieve the desired result without Sabbath desecration. If I achieve it without Sabbath desecration, there is no justification for desecrating the Sabbath. Except for the view of the Maggid Mishneh, who holds that it is entirely suspended, and Rabbi Chaim who follows him, but that is not the accepted view either among the medieval authorities or among the later authorities. Practically, I think it’s hard to rely on that. Where the Sabbath desecration is not needed in order to achieve the goal—and I’m talking about a goal that indeed must be carried out: a military patrol, or a woman in labor, or something like that—then there is no question: of course it must be done. But if I can do it without Sabbath desecration, then why do it with Sabbath desecration? Rabbi, you’re speaking to religious people. There are guys who can switch on the Sabbath and guard the Sabbath for those who don’t keep commandments. Should we let them or not let them? What do you mean let them—let them go out on the Sabbath? First of all, you’re asking me not even halakhically—I would say that once you can, you have to let them. It’s their decision whether they go out or not. You are not causing them to sin… As commander, here the platoon commander functions as a commander, not as a rabbi. And in the general rotation in general—what? I didn’t understand. In the general rotation. Fine, so what if it’s in the general rotation? Practically, I’m saying: but you have authority to release soldiers. You should say to them: guys, you can go. It’s your decision whether you go—it’s the Sabbath, your decision. I’m not supposed to make their religious decisions for them. I only need to convey to them what I received. I received permission to release them, so I need to tell them: guys, you can go. I can recommend they not go, set up a study session with them. Fine, but it’s their decision; it’s a religious decision. I can’t make those decisions for them—that’s what I think. Shall we go back to patrol? Yes. So regarding patrol and switching duties and the like. Or there’s another situation, say protecting hikers. Guarding hikers. There are dangerous areas and the army secures them. Now—someone once asked me—there is an area where people hike, say some nature reserve or something in a region that requires military security. So their platoon got a mission to secure that area. Now what? We’re talking about people who desecrate the Sabbath—they drive on the Sabbath to that nature reserve to hike. Am I allowed to… Do I have to desecrate the Sabbath in order to guard them? After all, there is a discussion—it’s saving life. Fine, but if a person jumps into water, jumps into fire, then because of that I now have to desecrate the Sabbath to save him? If he jumps into fire—that’s his problem. He didn’t jump into water. I’m saying: if truly, if truly, you tell those hikers in advance—and this doesn’t happen—if you tell them in advance: friends, you are not allowed to do this. If you are there, I’m not coming to guard you. Let’s say it all depends on you, okay? It’s a somewhat grotesque description. In such a situation I think it is forbidden to do it. Forbidden to do it. The problem is that the situation here is more complex. Those people weren’t told that no one would come to guard them, and they go innocently on their way. That’s what they think, that’s what they… you can’t… Now it’s already life-saving, so now you do have to guard them. But it’s not so simple. Meaning, let’s say this wasn’t the army but me alone with a gun. We’re living on a deserted island—well, not deserted, there’s an enemy. It’s me with a gun and one other guy who goes off hiking. Okay? I tell him: listen, if you go hiking on the Sabbath, I’m not coming to guard you, and the enemy may attack him. Am I forbidden to guard him on the Sabbath? If he goes there, he can’t force me to desecrate the Sabbath. What about the opposite case? It happened to me that there was a walking caravan of Haredim from Ramot to Nabi Samuel, and I was in reserve duty on the Sabbath. Okay? I got a call over the radio: go secure the caravan. Okay? Now what are they? They didn’t desecrate the Sabbath. They didn’t desecrate it; they caused me to desecrate it. That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. All the citizens of the State of Israel constantly cause us to desecrate the Sabbath. The army is constantly desecrating the Sabbath. The moment we are not the ones desecrating it, no dilemma arises. I’m asking whether they are permitted to go on that hike. And I think yes. I think yes. A person lives and behaves in his normal way. He doesn’t need to—by the way, this was said today in the short halakhic talk—Rabbi Melamed said that I don’t need to waive some right of mine so that the other person won’t come to Sabbath desecration. For example, not turning on the light in Saudi Arabia. Ah yes, right. Not turning on a light in Saudi Arabia so that he won’t turn it off. Exactly. We cause the army to desecrate the Sabbath every day, every Sabbath. If you live in a normal way and don’t desecrate the Sabbath, then the army and police are supposed to stand at your service and protect you. That’s their job. Let’s switch to a secular person who is not in the game. Patrol… Wait, now I’m getting there. So I spoke about securing Sabbath desecrators; I’m trying to do that consistently. No, I didn’t digress. I talked about another case—you need to talk about two cases. Okay, my legs are already weighted down on both sides. Anyway, the last situation really is the situation of switching shifts. And here this is a question that really deserves a whole lesson. I’ll state it now telegraphically, and we’ll devote a session to it sometime, because I think there is a very interesting and novel point here in Jewish law. In principle, decisors say it is forbidden. That is, it is forbidden to switch the shift; do it yourself. Why? Because they follow their view that the secular person’s Sabbath desecration is also Sabbath desecration exactly like yours, so why are you preferable to him? Okay? And here questions begin to arise. After all, he will desecrate the Sabbath anyway—just over something else. What’s forbidden—why is it forbidden? It’s neutral, according to what you’re saying. It’s neutral—why is it forbidden? No, it’s forbidden. When you transgress by passive omission, where the options are balanced, passive omission is preferable, and that turns it into a prohibition. For example, if they threaten me to kill someone, otherwise they’ll kill me. It’s still neutral. No, but here I’m actively involved; there I’m not… Why? Here too you’re switching a duty shift with him, what do you mean? You tell him: come go out in my place. That’s active. Isn’t it like verbal instruction…? No more severe, and no less severe than verbal instruction… Yes, but the verbal instruction here is not to do a forbidden act. It is permitted to do this patrol; it must be done. The whole question is only who will do it. And I’m saying, usually the assumption is: choose the lighter option first. So if there’s someone for whom this does not desecrate the Sabbath and someone for whom it does, then let the one for whom it doesn’t desecrate the Sabbath do it. Okay? But if you adopt the accepted decisors’ view that a secular person’s action is also Sabbath desecration exactly like yours, then clearly the conclusion has to be that it is forbidden. Forbidden to switch shifts. But according to my view, if this secular person is, say, the kind who is outside the game—yes?—then from his perspective this is not Sabbath desecration at all, not at all. In that case one certainly should switch. Why? Because he won’t desecrate the Sabbath and I will, so why not switch? It’s like switching with a gentile. With a gentile one should certainly switch. Meaning, if you can find a gentile who will go on patrol instead of you—a Druze soldier or something like that, if he is willing, of course, and everything is fine—why not? Surely that’s preferable. But here there is an important point. I too felt the discomfort of this claim, that it is somewhat problematic, and discomforts usually—I hope I’m honest—but they do give me some signal to look again, to check again whether it’s really correct. And here I think there is a new point. The penny dropped for me in a debate that once took place in the journal Tzohar about the sale permit. There was a debate between two rabbis about the policy—this is timely now, since it’s the Sabbatical year—about the policy of Otzar Haaretz. The policy was not to buy produce sold under the sale permit unless absolutely necessary. And there was some fellow there who wrote: listen, so what, you’re leaving the sale permit for the secular people? Meaning, then you’ve emptied the sale permit of all content. After all, in the end, if we say that one should use the sale permit, then one should also consume produce under the sale permit. How can you say one ought to do it, but I won’t use it? So the rabbi from Otzar Haaretz answered him: listen, who loses from this? After all, most of the public in Israel buys under the sale permit; they have no problem with it. They would buy even without the sale permit. So no farmer—what is the market share of the people who consume produce under the court treasury arrangement? A small share. So for the sake of argument, let’s say it has no effect at all on the farmers. No farmer will lose if we are stringent and don’t buy under the sale permit, but instead buy through Otzar Haaretz. Fine? So what’s the problem? Nobody loses. It’s a win-win situation. We’ll buy through Otzar Haaretz, while the secular people buy under the sale permit, and everything is wonderful. What’s the problem? And the other one refused to accept that. There was some back-and-forth there, and in my opinion he didn’t put his finger on the point that really bothered him. And the point is this: there is a rule in Kant’s moral theory called the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative means that there is a basic moral principle saying that you should act only in such a way that you would want it to become a universal law. Meaning, the decision whether a certain act is moral or not is made in the following way: I imagine a hypothetical world in which everyone behaves as I do. If that is a good world, then that is what I should do; that is a moral act. If it is a bad world, then no. Okay? But a large part of the Orthodox camps of the holy deceased rejects the Kantian principle absolutely and unmistakably. Yes, I’m not sure. But if so, then I am not among them. You can see it in each of their actions. They need a Sabbath gentile to exist. No, I’m not sure the Sabbath gentile contradicts the Kantian principle; that can be discussed, but that belongs in a lesson on the categorical imperative. Maybe that not everyone should go to the army. Ah? Right, right. I’m not going to the army—please. The other fellow wants to study Torah; what do you want? But not everyone is in the elite commando unit, so what? The whole army doesn’t need to be in the elite commando unit. In the world it would be good if everyone studied Torah. No. There is a world in which the universal law is that there will be a segment that studies Torah and a segment that fights. That is the universal law. After all, you need both. Just like you need the canteen and you need the elite commando unit. The Kantian law says everyone should study Torah. No, the Kantian law says that the world should function in such a way that we divide the tasks among us. What do you mean? It’s impossible, it’s absurd. What, does Kant mean that we all need to engage in the same thing? Either we all study Torah or we all serve in the army? The world has many needs. You need doctors, you need clerks. The same can be done with the sale permit too. Sale permit… Wait, wait, one second. Now, if the world is a complete, full world—that’s exactly the point. If the world is a utopian world, I’m imagining a utopian world right now. In my utopian world, the question is whether I would do a sale permit or not. If everyone in that utopian world keeps the Sabbath, right? After all, in the utopian world everyone keeps commandments. In that world, one of them would say: we don’t need a sale permit; we will all use the court treasury arrangement. Of course it’s not practical, because there are also gentiles and there is export of produce abroad, so it’s not practical. But that’s what he claims. What the other rabbi argued, the one who objected—I think this is what he argued—he says: the categorical imperative tells us, after all you too agree that it is impossible for everyone to act like you, right? Even you agree. So what? You are relying on there being transgressors who will not act like you. That is forbidden. In other words, the categorical imperative says that if the world were corrected, then this is how things should be done. If that’s what I say, then that “this way” is the moral step. Now, you are not really claiming, said the other one against him, that in a corrected world everyone would do the court treasury arrangement. It’s not practical. Impossible. You would lose the markets abroad. In other words, it’s not practical. So what? You need the sale permit. But what? I rely on the gentiles—the Jews, rather—who will buy under the sale permit in my place. That goes against the categorical imperative. But wait, this would also forbid you from buying an especially beautiful etrog, for example. Because when there’s a harvest of etrogim, only one percent come out super-beautiful—one percent. In order to be able to sell you a beautiful etrog not for a million shekels, I need ten thousand people to buy ordinary etrogim. So according to the categorical imperative that too is not okay. Here the question is—exactly here the question is—every halakhic stringency. Here the question is what you compare it to. To the situation we described earlier, of Torah study and the army? Meaning, that you need some who are stringent and some who are not stringent, because in the end both are legitimate—and then there is no problem. Since my universal law is—not wrongdoing, exactly. My universal law is that whoever wants to be more stringent may be more stringent, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t. No problem. I don’t have a universal law that everyone should be more stringent. I don’t obligate a person to be more stringent. I don’t see it as something he is obligated to do; I want to be more stringent. You can’t build a world on that. But if you say the other side is not legitimate, that it is not okay—that is problematic. Because in the corrected world you would not agree that it should be done at all. Now in the question of the army and a legitimate distribution, it’s legitimate on the personal level—what suits each person. When I decree on an entire group not to serve in the army, then I turn it into a categorical imperative. Completely agree. It’s perfectly fine for each person to say: I am a Torah scholar. Right. But when a rabbi tells me that all the guys on this street should all go study and not serve—that is entirely improper. Right, I agree completely. Now you switched the argument in the Otzar story. You’re giving the argument not to people who are careless about everything. There are those who are stricter and those for whom less is enough. Fine, then the same thing works out. Right. Again, the argument—you can debate it. I’m saying only that the logic of his argument was this. Now one can more or less compare it precisely to “I want to be more stringent.” Because in Otzar Haaretz what happens is not just that you want to be more stringent; you are channeling goods to an entire group of people. They’ll take from you even if you use the sale permit; you are essentially forcing them to do this. So there is room to discuss whether that is… Again, I don’t want to get into that whole situation. I just wanted to show the form of the reasoning. Now here too, when I’m talking about switching duty in the army—or maybe I’ll give one more example first. When I lived in Bnei Brak, there was a grocery store under our building. And you know that businesses are allowed to sell actual leavened food. We don’t customarily sell actual leavened food over Passover, only mixtures containing leaven, but actual leaven we don’t usually sell. But if it’s a business or factory that would suffer a major loss, then we permit it to sell even actual leaven. Now what happened there—by “sell” you mean sell before Passover? Yes. Not sell during Passover—sell to a gentile. They sold with a change, under the table—it wasn’t… Anyway, after Passover the man was left with leaven in the store. But of course none of the kollel men there bought it, because after all we don’t buy actual leaven that was sold over Passover. Neither do I. Okay? And then I started thinking—wait, something is wrong here. After all, this is a grocery store in Bnei Brak. He has no other customers. They’re not going to bus people in from—I don’t know where—from Kibbutz Na’an to buy actual leaven from him. We are his customers. So how can it be that we permit him, because of major loss, to sell his actual leaven, and then we stick him with it afterward because it remains unsold? What good did it do him to sell it if in the end he can’t sell it to us? So I started buying actual leaven after Passover—the leaven that was sold, of course. After Passover. Because clearly you can’t permit him such a thing and then not buy from him. Now let’s say there are secular people around who will buy it from him. That already starts coming close to our issue here. There it seemed simple to me that we need to buy from him. But this is already a subtler dilemma. What happens if there are secular people who will buy it from him and we are more stringent? If you claim that’s forbidden—in my opinion that’s not… you’re not being consistent. If it’s only a stringency, then we’re back to the previous situation. Fine—both are legitimate; I want to be more stringent. Do you say it is forbidden? That’s what they tended to say around me there. Then it isn’t consistent. It doesn’t stand up to the categorical imperative. That is, if in a corrected world nobody would buy this leaven, then one also could not permit him to sell the actual leaven. Then it would be forbidden, so how is he permitted to sell it? What’s this? If it’s forbidden to buy it, to eat it afterward, then let him sell to a gentile—let him sell to a gentile. Exactly. Obviously, the permission for him to sell includes within it our permission to buy from him. That’s obvious; it can’t be otherwise. So this is exactly a kind of categorical-imperative consideration. Now here too, when I’m in a situation… And notice, I’m speaking even about a secular person of the sort who is outside the game according to my view. He now comes, and I… In a corrected world, obviously they don’t do this, because in a corrected world there are no such people. Okay? So I say: in a corrected world, obviously somebody would have had to do it. So if that’s the case, I have to do it and not switch. Because of the categorical imperative. Now someone will say: with all due respect to the categorical imperative, that’s a philosophical move of Kant. How can you permit Sabbath desecration on the basis of a philosophical consideration or some external ethical consideration? So I say: why do I need a verse? Reason itself is enough. If I accept this reasoning, then for me it is a reasoning that I also apply in the halakhic world. If it’s sound reasoning, then it’s sound; and if not, then not. Now this reasoning has many nuances. Maybe we’ll talk about it next time—we’ll see. I’ll devote some session to it, because it’s a very interesting line of reasoning, and it is far from trivial, as it may perhaps sound. It has very interesting implications even for elections. I have arguments with my son about whether one should go vote or not. In principle, regardless of for whom, he says one shouldn’t go vote at all. Do we have parallels in our sources to the categorical imperative? I found things somewhat similar, not exactly, not exactly. More power to you. A grocery store in Bnei Brak needs business consulting. It can’t be. We should have cleared out his stock, his inventory. He has a lot of products. But it’s hard, it’s hard at 5:00. Then you risk not having any. Exactly.