Lecture dated 14 Tevet 5767
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The brothers’ fear and Joseph’s arguments
- Whether “Am I in place of God?” is a rebuke or reassurance
- Rashi’s interpretation and free choice
- The difficulty with the claim “God intended it for good”
- Morality of outcomes versus morality of actions
- The Jerusalem Talmud in Terumot and the emphasis on the forbidden act
- Two questions: defining the transgression and the degree of criminality
- The brothers’ intention: plain meaning versus midrash
- The Or HaChaim’s interpretation and the difficulty from the Talmud in Nazir
- “Her husband annulled it, and the Lord will forgive her” and Rabbi Akiva
- Three levels: thought alone, thought with an act that turns out to be permitted, and a full act of transgression
- Distinctions between “liable by the laws of Heaven” and “beyond the letter of the law”
- The rabbi of Brisk and Maimonides: exempt but forbidden, and disciplinary lashes
- Why the Or HaChaim gives the parable of a cup of death and a cup of wine
- Action-based prohibitions versus result-based prohibitions and the act of Joseph’s brothers
- The Chazon Ish: intention defines the act
- Menachot: fish and a child, and the dispute between Rabbah and Rava
- A summary of the relation between Joseph’s two claims and the example of David and Bathsheba
Summary
General Overview
The text interprets Joseph’s words to his brothers after Jacob’s death, when the brothers fear his revenge and bring a kind of “last instruction” in order to appease him, and Joseph calms them with two statements: “For am I in place of God?” and “You intended evil against me, but God intended it for good.” The author examines whether these are two separate arguments or a rebuke followed by only one reassuring claim, suggests that the plain sense of the verses indicates that these are two reassuring arguments, and then probes the moral and halakhic difficulty of the second claim: how can a good outcome exempt an evil intention and evil act. From there he sets up the tension between “morality of outcomes” and “morality of actions,” brings sources from the Jerusalem Talmud, from the Talmud in Nazir, from the Or HaChaim, from Maimonides, and from the famous innovation attributed to the rabbi of Brisk, and tries to explain how it could be that there is no formal halakhic transgression here even though there is still a moral reckoning, while comparing this to discussions in Sabbath law (fish and a child) and to the Sages’ reading of the story of David and Bathsheba.
The brothers’ fear and Joseph’s arguments
“His brothers too went and fell before him and said, ‘Behold, we are your servants.’” They come to him with some kind of instruction from Jacob, though it is not entirely clear how real such an instruction actually was, and they fear his revenge. “Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in place of God? You intended evil against me; God intended it for good, in order to bring about what is this day, to keep many people alive. And now do not fear; I will sustain you and your children.’ And he comforted them and spoke to their hearts.” The straightforward reading presents two arguments that Joseph raises in order to calm them, not merely a rebuke.
Whether “Am I in place of God?” is a rebuke or reassurance
Some commentators want to say that “Am I in place of God?” is Joseph rebuking them for offering to become his slaves, and that the reassurance is only in the next verse: “You intended evil against me; God intended it for good.” But the plain meaning of the verses seems to be the opposite, because Joseph says, “Do not fear, for am I in place of God?” So “Am I in place of God?” functions as reassurance. The simple meaning is that vengeance belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He, and not to Joseph, and therefore they have no reason to fear him.
Rashi’s interpretation and free choice
Rashi there says that no person can take revenge unless the Holy One, blessed be He, decides that revenge is deserved, and whatever one can do is only what the Holy One, blessed be He, decides. The author sees a difficulty in this, because a person does have some degree of choice, and he prefers the plain meaning: that revenge is not Joseph’s business but the Holy One’s, against the background of the commandment, “Do not take revenge and do not bear a grudge.”
The difficulty with the claim “God intended it for good”
The claim “You intended evil against me; God intended it for good” sounds as though there is nothing to respond to at all, because in the end a good result came out. The author objects that this is like someone aiming a rifle at his friend and firing, except that the bullet was defective; the criminal intent and criminal act are still there, even if the intended result was not achieved. Rashbam explains that the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged everything, so in practice it was never really in their hands, and the author argues that this once again raises the difficulty of human responsibility versus divine plans.
Morality of outcomes versus morality of actions
The text formulates the issue as “morality of outcomes versus morality of actions,” and asks whether moral and halakhic judgment depends on the result or on the act and the intention, based on the information available to the person at the time. He asks whether, according to this verse, a bad act that ends in a good outcome exempts the one who did it, as though the Torah adopts consequentialist morality. He wants to understand how that fits with moral intuition and with rabbinic sources.
The Jerusalem Talmud in Terumot and the emphasis on the forbidden act
The author brings an example from the Jerusalem Talmud in Terumot: if gentiles besiege a city and demand that one Jew be handed over, or else they will kill everyone, the Jerusalem Talmud forbids handing him over even though everyone will die in any case. He presents this as an expression of the idea that the focus is on the act of handing him over, which is akin to murder, and not only on the outcome, and he stresses how far-reaching that is. He adds that, in his opinion, this is the standard way the Jerusalem Talmud is usually learned, but he thinks it is not the correct plain meaning, and he mentions an article he wrote that is due to appear in the upcoming issue of Techumin.
Two questions: defining the transgression and the degree of criminality
The text distinguishes between two related but not identical questions: whether the transgression is defined mainly by the act or by the outcome, and what the status is of someone who performed criminal actions but the intended result was not achieved. It also asks about the degree of guilt and punishment where there was criminal intent but the result turned around for the good. He notes that there is a distinction between the question of prohibition and the question of punishment, and mentions as an example the discussion of “he intended to kill one person and killed another,” along with the complexity involved there.
The brothers’ intention: plain meaning versus midrash
The text raises the possibility that, from the brothers’ own point of view, their intention was for the good and they were simply mistaken in their understanding, but notes that the plain meaning of the verses is not that way, since Joseph says, “You intended evil against me.” He distinguishes between a midrashic reading involving legal categories like a pursuer and the plain meaning of the verses, and emphasizes that the main difficulty arises precisely if one takes Joseph’s words in their straightforward sense: that there really was evil intent.
The Or HaChaim’s interpretation and the difficulty from the Talmud in Nazir
The Or HaChaim writes on “You intended evil against me; God intended it for good” that this is like someone who intended to give his friend a cup of poison but actually gave him a cup of wine; he is liable for nothing, and they are exempt and innocent even by the laws of Heaven. The author asks, as a matter of logic, how someone who intended harm comes out innocent even by the laws of Heaven, and he also asks how the Or HaChaim can be alluding to the Talmud in Nazir when the Talmud there seems to say the opposite. He asks how the Or HaChaim can fit with the phrase “and the Lord will forgive her,” which implies a need for atonement and forgiveness.
“Her husband annulled it, and the Lord will forgive her” and Rabbi Akiva
The Talmud in Nazir expounds the verse “Her husband annulled it, and the Lord will forgive her” about a woman whose husband annulled her vow without her knowledge, and she knowingly ate something she thought was forbidden, though in fact it was permitted. Rabbi Akiva weeps and concludes that if someone intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb, he still requires atonement and forgiveness; and if someone intended pork and actually ate pork, all the more so. The Talmud adds the opposite kind of case, one involving an inadvertent transgression, “a piece that was of uncertain status, either fat or forbidden fat,” and paints a picture in which both evil intent without an actual forbidden act and an actual forbidden act without evil intent require atonement, though in different senses.
Three levels: thought alone, thought with an act that turns out to be permitted, and a full act of transgression
The author distinguishes between someone who only thought of committing a transgression and did nothing, someone who thought about it and ate a piece he believed was pork but which turned out to be lamb, and someone who thought about it and actually ate pork. He emphasizes that in the Nazir passage the evil intention is realized in an act, even though reality later turns out to have been permitted, so this is not just “thought hanging in the air.” He considers whether the Or HaChaim’s phrase “innocent by the laws of Heaven” can be understood as denying a formal halakhic transgression even if there remains a need for forgiveness in a moral or spiritual sense.
Distinctions between “liable by the laws of Heaven” and “beyond the letter of the law”
The text brings distinctions found among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), such as Meiri, regarding “exempt in human law but liable by the laws of Heaven,” “to satisfy one’s duty before Heaven,” and “beyond the letter of the law.” He explains that liability by the laws of Heaven can mean a full halakhic obligation that a religious court does not enforce, similar to “death at the hand of Heaven” as a defined halakhic punishment. He suggests that one could understand “innocent by the laws of Heaven” to mean that there is no formal halakhic liability here, even though a moral reckoning and religious self-work may still remain.
The rabbi of Brisk and Maimonides: exempt but forbidden, and disciplinary lashes
The text presents the innovation attributed to the rabbi of Brisk on Maimonides: if a woman vowed and the father or husband annulled it, and she did not know and violated it intentionally, she is exempt; nevertheless, since she intended something forbidden, though it turned out to be permitted, she is exempt, but they give her disciplinary lashes because she intended a prohibition. According to the rabbi of Brisk, this yields a remarkable novelty: someone who intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb violated a prohibition in some sense, but there is no punishment because the forbidden result is missing. The author is hesitant about that precise reading, notes that disciplinary lashes are also given for rabbinic prohibitions or as an educational measure, and stresses that the Or HaChaim certainly did not learn like the rabbi of Brisk, because he describes them as innocent by the laws of Heaven.
Why the Or HaChaim gives the parable of a cup of death and a cup of wine
The author wonders why the Or HaChaim does not explicitly bring the Talmud’s example, “he thought to eat pork and ended up with lamb,” and instead shifts to a case between one person and another. He suggests one possibility: that the Or HaChaim is emphasizing the difference between a neutral outcome and a positive outcome, so that an act intended for evil but from which actual good emerged is different from an act that merely turned out to be permitted. He also suggests another possibility: distinguishing between action-based prohibitions, like eating pork, and result-based prohibitions, where the main issue is the harm caused to another person; in that case, when the harmful result did not occur, there is no formal transgression, even if a moral flaw remains.
Action-based prohibitions versus result-based prohibitions and the act of Joseph’s brothers
The text tries to frame eating pork as an action-based prohibition, where the act itself is forbidden, while wrongs between one person and another may be result-based prohibitions, where the main prohibition is the harm caused to the other. He examines whether the sale of Joseph is an action-based prohibition or a result-based one, and suggests that the answer depends on how the prohibition is defined and what counts as merely the practical circumstance of the case as opposed to the essence of the transgression. He leaves this as a suggestion that can be accepted or rejected, but uses it to explain how “God intended it for good” might cancel the formal classification of the act as a transgression.
The Chazon Ish: intention defines the act
The text brings an example attributed to the Chazon Ish about a person who swerved his car in order to save someone and killed another person, and says that the Chazon Ish defines this as “an act of rescue” rather than “an act of killing” done unintentionally. He uses this to support the idea that sometimes intention gives content to an act and defines its halakhic nature. He tries to apply that line of thought to the Joseph discussion as well, to explain how an action that ultimately produced good can be viewed differently on the level of legal definition.
Menachot: fish and a child, and the dispute between Rabbah and Rava
The Talmud in Menachot is brought through a case involving an additional sin-offering when the first one turned out to be emaciated in its innards, and the discussion turns on whether one follows “his intention” or “his act.” The Talmud compares this to the dispute between Rabbah and Rava in a case of spreading a net on the Sabbath: he heard that a child had drowned in the sea and spread a net in order to bring up fish and brought up fish, or brought up fish and a child, and the question is whether one judges according to intention or exempts according to the actual act and result. The text uses this passage to show a case where the same action can be permitted as rescue but forbidden as fishing, and intention becomes decisive in defining the act.
A summary of the relation between Joseph’s two claims and the example of David and Bathsheba
The text returns to a possible explanation that “You intended evil against me; God intended it for good” negates a formal transgression while leaving a moral reckoning in place, and therefore “For am I in place of God?” directs that reckoning to the Holy One, blessed be He, and not to Joseph. He compares this to the Sages’ statement, “Whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken,” which explains that there was no formal halakhic transgression in the Bathsheba episode because “everyone who went out to the wars of the house of David would give his wife a bill of divorce,” and yet there was still a moral sin for which the prophet rebuked him through the parable of the poor man’s ewe lamb. He concludes that the Or HaChaim’s phrase “innocent even by the laws of Heaven” can be read as acquittal in the formal halakhic sense, even though the Talmud in Nazir still establishes that one “requires atonement and forgiveness.”
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “His brothers too went and fell before him and said, ‘Behold, we are your servants.’ And Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in place of God? You intended evil against me; God intended it for good, in order to bring about, as it is this day, that many people should be kept alive. And now do not fear; I will sustain you and your children.’ And he comforted them and spoke to their hearts.” So they come to him with some kind of instruction from Jacob. It’s not entirely clear how much there really was such an instruction, but at least that’s what they say. They’re afraid of his revenge, and then Joseph answers them. So he says, “Joseph said to them: Do not fear, for am I in place of God?” — that’s one point. And besides that, “You intended evil against me, and God intended it for good.” So really there are two arguments here that Joseph raises in order to calm them. There are commentators who want to say that these aren’t two arguments at all. “Am I in place of God?” is simply a rebuke — they’re offering themselves to be his slaves. So Joseph says to them, what am I, God? What do you mean, you want to be my slaves? That’s a rebuke. And the reassurance is only the next verse: “You intended evil against me, and God intended it for good.” It seems that the plain meaning of the verses doesn’t look like that, because Joseph says to them, “Do not fear, for am I in place of God?” Meaning, “am I in place of God?” is not a rebuke; those are words of reassurance. That’s why you don’t need to be afraid — because am I in place of God? So really it turns out there are two arguments here meant to calm them. One argument: “Am I in place of God?” What does that mean? In the simple sense, it seems that he’s saying revenge belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. You’re afraid that I’ll take revenge on you. No — revenge I leave to the Holy One, blessed be He. Am I in God’s place? What do you want from me? That’s the first argument. Rashi there says he wants to claim that a person in general can’t take revenge, because if the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t decide that they deserve revenge, he won’t be able to do it. Whatever can be done is only what the Holy One, blessed be He, decides. That sounds a little problematic, because we know that all in all a person does have some measure of choice. We’re operating on two different planes.
[Speaker B] But the simpler plain meaning is the commandment “Do not take revenge and do not bear a grudge”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. So that’s why it seems to me the simpler plain meaning really is that revenge belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. As for me — I have no intention of taking revenge on you; that’s not my business. The second verse, the second argument with which he calms them, is: “You intended evil against me, and God intended it for good.” What does that mean? Basically, you meant to do something bad, but in the end something good came out of it. And therefore there’s no problem; you don’t need to worry. These arguments seem, on the face of it, to contradict one another, right? The first argument says, “Am I in place of God?” If anyone is going to take revenge on you, it’s Him, not me. Revenge isn’t my business; I leave it to the Holy One, blessed be He — which implies there is something to take revenge for. Meaning, there is a problem with what they did, only he doesn’t intend to respond; the Holy One, blessed be He, will respond. In the second verse, though, it seems like he’s telling them there’s nothing to respond to at all. What, you think this was something bad? Not at all. In the end a good result came out, so there’s nothing to respond to in the first place — not just that it isn’t his business to respond. So later we’ll still see the relationship between these two arguments. But if we speak about the second argument already now, that second argument is indeed very problematic. What difference does it make if in the end something good came out of an act of wrongdoing? At the end of the day, they intended to do something bad to him. So what difference does it make that in the end God intended it for good? Suppose someone aims a rifle at me and fires — loads it and fires — but in the end the bullet is defective, so no shot comes out. So what, I tell him, don’t worry, nothing happened, you didn’t do anything to me, everything’s fine? Fine? What fine? The Holy One, blessed be He, saved me somehow, but you’re a complete criminal. You did everything you could to harm me; it just didn’t work. You’re not only wicked, you’re also unlucky. I mean, okay — but that doesn’t make you any less wicked. So what comfort is there in the second argument? Rashbam here again goes a bit in the direction of Rashi on the first argument. Rashbam says it on the second argument. He says: you’re not guilty, because the Holy One, blessed be He, really arranged everything so that in the end the good thing would come out, and therefore it wasn’t in your hands at all. You think you did this? Not at all. The Holy One, blessed be He, did all this so that in the end something good would emerge. And again that pushes us into the same corner as Rashi on the previous verse. The Holy One, blessed be He, has His own plans and rolls them out as He sees fit, but that doesn’t exempt any of us from responsibility for our actions. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, will carry out His plans however He wants, and we need to behave as we ought to behave. These two planes are not supposed to interfere with one another. The same argument we had against Rashi’s explanation in the first verse also applies against his grandson’s explanation in the second verse. Fine. So first of all, it seems to me we need to examine the second argument a bit, and afterward we’ll come back to its relation to the first. He’s basically telling them: look, in the end it turned out well. Everything was fine. You intended evil, God in the end turned it into something good, so you have nothing to worry about, everything is fine, I have nothing to avenge. It’s all right, you have nothing to fear, everything’s fine. The question is whether that’s really so. Is it really true that when in the end a bad act produces a good result, then there is no claim at all against the person who did the bad act? In moral philosophy they call this morality of outcomes versus morality of actions. Right — when you judge someone for a bad action he did, do you judge him because the outcome was bad, or do you judge him because the action was bad? Of course it’s a bad action because bad outcomes come from it, but at the end of the day what you judge him for is what he did. Whether in the end he succeeded or didn’t succeed — that’s already up to the Holy One, blessed be He; what does that have to do with him? The question of how criminal he is depends solely on what actions he took given the information he had. The fact that in the end the Holy One, blessed be He, turned it to good doesn’t seem to exempt him from anything. Yet here we see otherwise. Here we see that if in the end the result that came out is a good result, then that’s perfectly fine, then he’s exempt — a kind of morality of outcomes and not morality of actions. So we need to understand this. It seems to me that — well, later we’ll see what there is to discuss in this matter. The truth is that on this level — on the second level, of whether the Torah relates more to outcomes or more to actions — we can discuss two aspects of it, or ask two questions about it. The first question is about the definition of the transgressions themselves. Is the main thing in the transgression the act of transgression, or is the main thing the result of the transgression? Or maybe there are some of each. I’ll give an example. The Jerusalem Talmud in Terumot, for instance, says that if gentiles besiege a city and ask for one of us to hand over one of the Jews to them — one of us is supposed to hand him over — otherwise they’ll kill everyone, then the Jerusalem Talmud says it’s forbidden to hand him over. We’ll all die, but it’s forbidden to hand him over. From the standpoint of morality of outcomes, that makes no sense whatsoever. No sense at all. Because if we don’t hand him over, he’ll die anyway. After all, he’ll die in any case together with us. They’ll kill all of us. So what are the options? Hand him over — he’ll die, but at least we’ll be saved. He’ll die anyway. From the standpoint of choosing the optimal outcome, clearly logic says you should hand him over. But the Jerusalem Talmud forbids it; it doesn’t allow you to hand him over. On the face of it, you see here morality of actions and not morality of outcomes. Meaning, what matters is: don’t perform the act of handing him over, which is basically like murder. You’re taking someone and causing him to be murdered. When you do that with your own hands, that’s very bad. The problem is not the outcome, that he dies in the end, because that will happen anyway. The problem is your act — the act of murder. Murder is the very thing I would have been most inclined to classify as an outcome-based transgression rather than an action-based one. If I had to imagine any transgression in Jewish law that is an outcome transgression and not an action transgression, I would say murder. The fact that in the end the person dies — that’s the problem, not the actions I performed. Of course the actions I performed are forbidden because they lead to the person dying. But clearly, with the transgression of murder, I would expect it to be defined as an outcome transgression and not an action transgression. Yet here in the Jerusalem Talmud we see otherwise. So what — is it permitted for me to murder someone with a Sabbath timer? To disconnect life-support with a Sabbath timer? Rabbi Shlomo Zalman has a responsum on that. On the face of it, does it matter whether it’s a Sabbath timer or not? If in the end he dies as a result of my act, then the bad outcome was achieved, so it’s murder. But we see here that’s not the whole picture. Meaning, we see that the prohibition of murder, at least part of it, has a dimension of a forbidden act — not only the bad result one reaches. Even a result that would have happened anyway — if I caused it, that’s a transgression. And therefore we need to take note: we would have to be killed rather than violate this. In other words, we would all die rather than hand over that person, even though he would die anyway. In other words, handing over a person who will die anyway is forbidden to us even if the price is that we all die for it. That’s a very far-reaching claim. By the way, I think it’s not correct. That’s the accepted way of learning the Jerusalem Talmud; I won’t get into it here. I think that’s not the correct plain meaning of the Jerusalem Talmud. That’s from an article I wrote recently; it’s due to appear in the upcoming issue of Techumin. In any case, that’s just to sharpen the point. So I’m saying that here you see an expression of the first type of question: how exactly are transgressions defined in the Torah? When a person performed an act but didn’t achieve the result, is there a transgression here or not? Let’s say the transgressions are indeed result-based, or are action-based and result-based — that question may depend on the first one, but it isn’t identical to it. Meaning, if I did an act like Joseph’s brothers, and they did all the criminal actions possible, but in the end a good result came out — the action was done, but the result wasn’t achieved — is such a thing a transgression or not? Of course you can discuss that on the first plane, namely what is even called a transgression in the first place. Is the transgression the act they did, or is the transgression the result that should have been achieved and wasn’t achieved? But one can discuss it differently: the transgression is defined as it is defined, but the question is how criminal I am. Does the fact that the result wasn’t achieved reduce the degree of my criminality or not? Fine. So really there are two questions, which of course are related, but they aren’t exactly the same question. So let’s try to look specifically at the second question. What is the relation?
[Speaker B] What about intention? What do you mean? Intention also has to fit into all of this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but I’m talking about intention. Meaning, once there is criminal intent, like Joseph’s brothers had, but in the end the result was a good result, then there is what we call criminal intent here, but the outcome wasn’t achieved. In the end the act did not conclude in the result they wanted to achieve. So what is the status of such a thing? Is it a transgression one is punished for? Is it a transgression one isn’t punished for? Is it not a transgression at all? What’s the relation here? So Joseph, according to the verse, at least on the face of it — what Joseph is telling them is: there’s no problem, don’t be afraid. Meaning, you intended evil against me, but God intended it for good, so everything is fine, don’t worry, everything is fine. Meaning, everything is determined, apparently, by the outcomes. If the result wasn’t achieved, you did nothing. That’s how it seems at first glance.
[Speaker B] Even if we assume that, there’s another proof for that approach: if someone intended to kill one person and killed another, then not only do they not execute him—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what?
[Speaker B] His intention was bad and his action was bad, and still they don’t execute him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay — at least that’s a practical difference as to punishment. The question whether he violated the prohibition of “Do not murder” is one question, and whether they execute him is another. Fine — we’ll see a few more distinctions like that later. The case of intending to kill this one and killing that one is a very complicated topic; we won’t get into it here.
[Speaker B] But I think there’s another point here. Basically, the brothers — their intention, in principle, on the fundamental level, was for the good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No — “you intended evil.” What do you mean, for the good?
[Speaker B] Yes, but I’m saying it wasn’t what you’d call criminal intent. They had an idea; they were just mistaken in their approach.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But now Joseph said, “You intended evil against me.”
[Speaker B] And what comes out is that, from their point of view, their intention was good, and the result was also good. It’s just that according to Joseph’s way and according to the truth they intended to do something bad from his point of view, but really their intention from their own point of view was good, and the result from their point of view was good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So you’re saying they were inadvertent?
[Speaker B] I’m saying both ends were—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “He thought it was permitted” — that’s an inadvertent case of “he thought it was permitted.”
[Speaker B] “He thought it was permitted,” and in the end he also didn’t eat—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, meaning, he thought it was permitted, and as for the aspect of the act without the result, there too he thought it was permitted.
[Speaker B] Both ends were fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but Joseph said, “You intended evil against me.”
[Speaker B] So this isn’t criminal intent with a bad result. Here really there was good intent, in the middle things weren’t good, and in the end they were good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you really interpret it as having been good intention, that’s not the plain meaning of the verses. The midrashim of the Sages, with the court ruling and all those things, are midrashim. The plain meaning of the verses is not like that. And when Joseph speaks to them, he says, “You intended evil against me.” He doesn’t say, “According to my position you did something bad,” but “you intended something bad.” You intended evil against me. You tried to do something bad to me. And what’s troubling is that in the end there wasn’t evil; there was good.
[Speaker B] Looking back, it turns out that it wasn’t—after all, according to the midrashim he proved to them that they were mistaken.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even the midrashim—
[Speaker B] They say that really this was their initial assumption. How can you explain their initial assumption at all — that he was a pursuer and that whole story — but in the end it wasn’t true. Fine, but according to their view, that’s what they thought. According to their view maybe it wasn’t a bad act. You’re saying it wasn’t criminal intent? No — that means what we have here is no criminal intent and also no bad result, so it’s easier than the case I described earlier. The claim is that it’s easier than what I described before because here—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s neither bad intent nor bad result — although the plain meaning of the verses is not like that.
[Speaker B] I’m saying that in the end, if we look from a bird’s-eye view, both the intention and the result contained neither criminal intent nor a criminal act. Because from their perspective the intention was good, say according to those midrashim, and from the perspective of the result a good result came out. So what’s left? Maybe someone really sells a slave and intends to make money — maybe that too is good intention? No, to make money honestly is good intention. You can’t justify this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, you can’t think — but even in the legal ruling… But again, the plain meaning of the verses and the midrashim are two different things. Fine. The Or HaChaim writes — I brought it here in the next passage — on this verse, “You intended evil, God intended it for good”: “And this is similar to one who intended to give his fellow a cup of death to drink and gave him a cup of wine, for he is not liable for anything, and they are exempt and innocent even by the laws of Heaven.” So what is the Or HaChaim saying? He really reads the verse the way I said earlier: basically this is like someone who intended to give his friend poison, and in the end it turns out it wasn’t poison at all, it was wine, something good to drink. So what happened? Nothing. He is liable for nothing, everything is fine, and they are innocent even by the laws of Heaven. That’s what the Or HaChaim says. The big question is of course twofold. First, logically: is it really true that someone who intended to give his fellow poison and afterward it turns out he didn’t know, but it turned out to be wine — is he innocent even by the laws of Heaven? Meaning, there is no claim against him at all and everything is fine — he’s righteous? That’s one issue we need to discuss. The second issue is that the Or HaChaim is clearly alluding to some Talmudic passage — the Talmud in Nazir — “he intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb.” And in the Talmud there — in the very Talmud passage to which he is alluding — it says the opposite. So let’s read the Talmud. “The Sages taught: ‘Her husband annulled it, and the Lord will forgive her.’” What does “her husband annulled it, and the Lord will forgive her” mean? That’s at the beginning of the portion of Matot, right? The section about vows. So what does “her husband annulled it, and the Lord will forgive her” mean? If her husband annulled it, then the vow is annulled, so what’s the problem? Why “and the Lord will forgive her”? Why does the Lord need to forgive her? What did she do? Rather, what is it? It is speaking about a woman whose husband annulled her vow and she did not know — Rashi brings this at the beginning of Matot — it is speaking about a woman whose husband annulled her vow and she did not know, and she still requires atonement and forgiveness. What does that mean? It’s talking about a woman who made a vow, and her husband annulled it on the day he heard it, and then the vow is annulled. But he didn’t tell her that he annulled it. He didn’t reveal it to her. Now she knew that this loaf of bread was forbidden to her, because her husband didn’t reveal to her that he had annulled the vow. What does she do? She comes and eats it intentionally in order to commit a transgression. Now in the end it turns out that she didn’t commit any transgression, because her husband annulled it — but she didn’t know that. So there was criminal intent here, intent to commit a sinful act, but in practice she ate lamb, she ate something permitted. No transgression was actually committed. About that it says, “and the Lord will forgive her.” Right — after all, we have to explain this. How can it be that if the husband annulled it, then there is no transgression, so what does the Lord need to forgive her for? So they make a midrash here. They say apparently the verse is talking about a situation where indeed the husband annulled it, but still there is an aspect that requires forgiveness. How? Since the husband didn’t reveal to her that he annulled it, she committed a transgression — she performed an act, she ate the thing with the intention of committing a transgression — but in the end she ate lamb, meaning it was permitted to her, because her husband annulled it. “And when Rabbi Akiva reached this verse, he would cry, and say: If one who intended to have pork in his hand and lamb came up in his hand requires atonement and forgiveness, then one who intended to have pork in his hand and pork came up in his hand, all the more so.” And Rabbi Akiva says: look, even such a case needs atonement and forgiveness. Someone who really intended something bad — to eat pork — but in the end what he ate was lamb, a permitted act of eating — even he requires forgiveness and atonement. So what about someone who intended to commit a transgression and actually committed it? Surely, certainly, he requires much forgiveness and atonement. That’s one direction. Then the Talmud continues and says: “And similarly you say, ‘And he did not know, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity.’ And if one intended to have lamb in his hand and pork came up in his hand, such as a piece that was of uncertain status, either permitted fat or forbidden fat, Scripture says, ‘and he shall bear his iniquity’; then one who intended to have pork in his hand and pork came up in his hand, all the more so.” What is it saying? The other side of the coin is someone who intended to eat lamb and ate pork. What do we call that in ordinary language? Inadvertent. Right? Someone who committed a transgression inadvertently. And about that too it says “and he shall bear his iniquity,” meaning that such a thing is an iniquity. So all the more so with someone who acts intentionally. Right? What picture emerges here from the Talmud? Basically, a sinful act requires two parameters: act and intention. Right? There are two partial situations. There is a situation where the evil intention exists but the act was not actually transgressive: he thought to eat pork and lamb came up in his hand. And there is the opposite partial case, where the act happened but the evil intention is absent. That’s: he thought to eat lamb and ate pork — what we call inadvertent. Both of these are forms of iniquity that require forgiveness and atonement, each in its own terminology. So Rabbi Akiva says: then all the more so for someone who has both things — both evil intention and an evil act. That’s what the Talmud says. So what do we see from the Talmud? That someone who thought to eat pork and lamb came up in his hand — that’s our case — and it’s obvious that the Or HaChaim is alluding to this Talmud passage; it can’t be otherwise. So he requires forgiveness and atonement, right? “And the Lord will forgive her.” So how can the Or HaChaim write that he is clean, “exempt and innocent even by the laws of Heaven”? It says “and the Lord will forgive her”! What does “innocent even by the laws of Heaven” mean? And now, he didn’t forget this Talmud passage. It’s this very Talmud passage he’s talking about. Obviously he’s alluding to this passage. This isn’t some case where maybe it slipped his mind or he forgot or whatever. This is the passage he’s talking about. He’s bringing this Talmud.
[Speaker B] Maybe they aren’t summoned in the laws of Heaven? What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that we’ll see in a moment. “Innocent by the laws of Heaven” sounds, at least, like a stronger phrase. Fine. So in the end, how should we really understand the Or HaChaim’s words? As I said, the two questions troubling us are: first, how can it be that an act whose result was not achieved, but which was done with criminal intent and with an actual deed and everything — still somehow has no problem at all? That’s what the plain meaning of the verses seems to imply when Joseph speaks to his brothers, and that’s also what the Or HaChaim writes. That’s one side. And the second difficulty is that it doesn’t fit with the Talmud. The Talmud really sounds more logical also from the standpoint of common sense — namely, that in such a case at least the Lord has to forgive. In other words, some sort of atonement is needed. It’s not a full transgression, but some sort of atonement is still needed.
[Speaker B] What? It should say — what does the verse say? “And the Lord will forgive her.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, she needs—
[Speaker B] We’re being informed: “and the Lord will forgive her”? Some say?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, certainly not just information. “And the Lord will forgive her” is like “and he shall bear his iniquity,” so—
[Speaker B] It requires atonement and forgiveness.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Does “and the Lord will forgive her” — so Rabbi Akiva makes an a fortiori argument: it requires forgiveness. That’s what it says here. She needs to repent, and then He forgives. If she needs to repent so that the Lord will forgive her. So Rabbi Akiva comes and makes an a fortiori argument and says: if even this requires repentance, then a full transgression surely, certainly requires repentance. That is obviously the more severe case.
[Speaker B] There’s also another very difficult point regarding the Or HaChaim, because in the end Joseph sat twelve years in prison, and he was a slave for one year before he rose to greatness. And about that — where is “innocent by the laws of Heaven”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in the end, true — but still, only that way could it all unfold so that he would become viceroy. So in the end that whole path turned out to be some sort of path that saved them and the whole world.
[Speaker B] But that’s not a cup of wine—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, not a cup of wine?
[Speaker B] You can’t compare it to a cup of death that turned into a cup of wine, where the person didn’t suffer at all. Why? This was a salvation for the whole world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not that the person didn’t suffer; it’s that the person suffered through surgery in order to save his life. Are you going to come and complain to the doctor for causing the patient suffering? That’s how you save his life — what can you do? There’s no other way. How else would he become viceroy? Only in this way did they manage to make him viceroy. It’s like surgery, not—
[Speaker B] Joseph himself took action to cause the brothers to repent before that, before he revealed himself. Right. So the forgiveness somehow — in a moment—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll see in a moment. It could be that it ties in with what we’re about to see. So how should we really understand the Or HaChaim? One possible direction: it may be that what the Or HaChaim is writing is that what is required here — maybe I’ll preface this — when we discuss the question of what is primary, intention or action, we have to understand that we’re not talking here about someone who thought to eat pork, and that’s all, and didn’t do anything. That’s called evil intention without any act. That is not the case here. What the Talmud is discussing is someone who thought to eat pork, took a piece of meat that he thought was pork, and ate it — only in the end it turned out that in reality it was lamb. So from the standpoint of reality, no sinful act was committed here, but the criminal intention didn’t remain hanging in the air; he realized it in an action. Meaning, in the end he translated his criminal intention into an action. It’s just that it turned out that this action was not a forbidden action. He didn’t know, but it turned out that this action was not a forbidden action. Meaning, there are three levels here, not two. There’s someone who thinks about eating pork — fine — he’s even looking for it, wandering through the market… in a panic around the house looking for where there might be pork, but he doesn’t find any. There isn’t any pork in the house, so he doesn’t eat it.
[Speaker B] What? The Talmud in Kiddushin on page 39 and in Makkot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So that’s the first direction, the first situation. A second situation: someone sees a piece of meat, thinks it’s pork, eats it intentionally in order to commit a transgression, and in the end it turns out it was lamb. Clearly that’s something else, because here I actually carried out my criminal intention. Except what? It turned out—the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged it, I didn’t know—that in the end I didn’t actually commit the transgression. But still, I realized my intention. Right? A third case is of course: I thought I was eating pork, and in fact it really was pork. That’s the third case. Now we’re talking about the relationship between the last two cases. The first case is not under discussion here. Now I’ll ask you a question: if the Or HaChayim had been talking about the first case and had said that they are innocent in the judgment of Heaven, would that have been okay? Would that have been acceptable?
[Speaker B] Only someone who merely intended and didn’t do anything? A good intention the Holy One, blessed be He, joins to action. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A good intention the Holy One, blessed be He, joins to action; a bad intention… okay.
[Speaker B] But the Jewish law regarding gentiles is not like that. Regarding gentiles, intention does count… we’ll talk about Yosef.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On what assumption? That they had left the category of the descendants of Noah also in the lenient direction? I think there’s room to understand the wording of the Or HaChayim as referring to such a case, and I would accept it—not because no atonement is needed. Of course atonement is needed here. But clearly there’s no dimension of transgression here. Meaning, no transgression was actually committed. What is there? There’s someone here who is not serving God in the most exemplary way. Meaning, when he gets to the heavenly court they’ll settle accounts with him, not in the sense of “what transgression did you commit,” but in the sense that you’re not serving God as you should. That’s all.
[Speaker B] You can understand that this might also relate to the question of “do not covet” and “do not desire,” which are also things a person can violate—it’s not simple, there are disputes about it, there are different prohibitions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Do not desire” and “do not covet.”
[Speaker B] But according to your view, the point is that you violate it without doing any act at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in your mind—there too you do need an act, but with “do not desire,” the question is what the relation is between “do not desire” and “do not covet.”
[Speaker B] Between whether you do it intentionally or by accident.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. There are prohibitions that are prohibitions without an act. Fine. But the question is: we’re talking about prohibitions that do involve an act. So what happens there? Eating pork is obviously a prohibition that involves an act. So in such a prohibition, if I only thought about eating pork, and the Or HaChayim came and told me, “Look, you are innocent even in the judgment of Heaven”—that I would accept. Why would I accept it? Not because I’m really clean. God, after all, settles accounts with everyone also over moral matters, not only over transgressions in the formal halakhic sense. But still, there is no dimension of transgression here in the halakhic sense. That’s what he means to say. There is a Talmud in Bava Kamma that says there are four things where one who does them is exempt in human courts but liable in the judgment of Heaven. It’s speaking about indirect damage, right? A deaf-mute, an incompetent person, and a minor, and all kinds of cases of indirect damage. Now the Meiri there, and several other medieval authorities (Rishonim), and in general in the Jerusalem Talmud there is something on this, distinguish between the expression “liable in the judgment of Heaven” and the expression “to satisfy one’s obligation before Heaven” and “beyond the letter of the law,” and several other expressions—these are different things. What’s the difference? There are things such as, for example, death at the hand of Heaven. Death at the hand of Heaven, such as someone who eats terumah—he is liable to death at the hand of Heaven. Death at the hand of Heaven is a full-fledged halakhic punishment. It’s just not imposed by a court; Heaven does it. But it appears as one of the punishments in Maimonides’ list of punishments. It’s one of the punishments. It’s not some moral reckoning, that you weren’t okay so God will roast you a little upstairs. No, no, that’s not what this is about. We’re talking here about a transgression where the punishment for carrying it out is not imposed by a court, but by God. Similarly, when they say “one must satisfy his obligation before Heaven,” they mean you are fully obligated. It’s not beyond the letter of the law; it is the actual letter of the law. You are obligated. Only what? The court is not charged with this, meaning the court is not supposed to enforce it. God will settle accounts with you if you don’t do it.
[Speaker B] Some say that seizure is effective in such a case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. That’s one of the explanations for why seizure is effective. In contrast, if someone is told, “Look, beyond the letter of the law it is fitting that you pay,” that’s something else. You’re not obligated—not even in the judgment of Heaven. It’s true that if you want to be righteous, then pay. And maybe if you don’t pay, God will even ask you, “Tell me, why didn’t you pay?” Meaning, there’s room to discuss it with you. It’s not that you’re perfectly clean. But there is no obligation on you. Meaning, even on the plane of the judgment of Heaven there are two kinds of obligation. There is an obligation where when you say “in the judgment of Heaven,” what you really mean is that you are not obligated. God may perhaps examine whether there was still something improper. But you’re not obligated even in the judgment of Heaven. Because even in the judgment of Heaven there is such a thing as being obligated. And there is a concept called “liable in the judgment of Heaven,” and that is a complete halakhic obligation. It’s just that its enforcement is not assigned to a court. God deals with it. That is called “liable in the judgment of Heaven,” and it has a very great practical difference. Because the four things where one who does them is exempt in human courts but liable in the judgment of Heaven—the meaning is that you are completely obligated to pay, halakhically obligated. It’s not beyond the letter of the law, and it’s not some pious virtue, and not saintliness, and nothing of the sort. And whether you are poor or rich makes no difference at all. You must pay. Only the court is not responsible for it, that’s all. So you are fully obligated. It’s like death at the hand of Heaven. Death at the hand of Heaven is a halakhic punishment in every respect. It’s just that the court does not carry it out; God does. But it is a defined punishment in Jewish law. For some transgressions the punishment is death at the hand of Heaven. So if that’s the case, I would perhaps understand that the Or HaChayim is really saying—if he were speaking about the first situation, where I only thought about eating pork—then what does he mean when he says, “You are innocent in the judgment of Heaven”? That there isn’t even a trace of transgression here. Atonement, perhaps, you need. You were not okay; of course you were not okay. These are moral matters. But on the halakhic plane you are completely innocent; you are not liable in the judgment of Heaven. That is what he means by saying you are innocent. I don’t think it ever crossed his mind to say that they were totally clean. There’s no such thing. What do you mean—after what they did there, that afterward they should be entirely clean? Rather, what? He means to say there isn’t even a splinter of transgression here in the halakhic sense, not even in the judgment of Heaven. There is a moral problem here; that’s a different story.
Now, that would be if he were talking about the first situation, where someone only thought. But it could very well be that once we understand it that way, we can also understand it regarding the second situation. The Or HaChayim comes and says this: what does the Talmud say in tractate Nazir? The baraita says that if one intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb in his hand, then it says he needs forgiveness and atonement, “and the Lord shall forgive her.” What does that mean? Does it mean there is a transgression here, only there’s no punishment, no court-imposed punishment? Or no—there is no transgression here at all? There is a moral problem, and God must forgive you. That’s a big question. The Or HaChayim wants to say: “you are innocent in the judgment of Heaven.” What does that mean? There’s no transgression here at all. Without the act actually being what was forbidden, it isn’t a transgression at all. He doesn’t mean to say they’re righteous. “Am I in the place of God?”—that’s what he says at the beginning. What does he mean by that? Of course you deserve reckoning—you intended evil against me, and God will deal with you. But there was no transgression here, because if in the end it did not materialize, then there was no transgression. So he says this also about the second case. And this is basically one way of reading the Talmud in Nazir. When the Talmud in Nazir says that one who intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb requires forgiveness and atonement, what is it saying? That this is a transgression, only without punishment? Or is it saying that this is not a transgression at all, rather you were not okay, God will settle accounts with you, you were not okay, but there is no transgression here whatsoever? You did not commit the transgression of pork. The Or HaChayim wants to say no—it’s the second option, there is no transgression here at all. Atonement is needed because moral matters also require atonement and forgiveness. Not because this is a halakhic transgression, but because you were not okay. You were jealous of someone—did you violate a prohibition? No, but still it’s not okay. There are things that are not okay but are not a transgression in the halakhic sense. That’s how he reads the Talmud. He intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb—this is not okay, but there is no transgression here in the halakhic sense. So God—“the Lord shall forgive her”; “am I in the place of God?” God will do it, not I. Exactly the same thing, these two statements. That’s one direction, and then you can also understand the relation between his two statements. “Am I in the place of God?” refers to the moral reckoning, while “you intended evil against me, but God intended it for good” is just the explanation for why there is no transgression here, only moral reckoning. So it follows that it’s not my business; it’s God’s business.
In contrast to that, there’s Rabbi Soloveitchik of Brisk, well known, in the stencil notes on this sugya in Nazir. He’s famous for this, an enormous novelty, and it really is hard to accept. He argues—he brings Maimonides, which is your next source: “If a woman made a vow, and the father or husband annulled it, and she did not know that he had annulled it, and she violated her vow or oath intentionally, then she is exempt. And although she intended what was forbidden, since it had become permitted, she is exempt. And regarding this it is said: ‘And the Lord shall forgive her, because her father had disallowed her.’ And they give her disciplinary lashes because she intended what was forbidden.” So Rabbi Soloveitchik of Brisk says that from Maimonides’ words two points are precise—he infers them. In my humble opinion, neither one is a necessary inference, but what he says is that in two points in Maimonides it is precise that this thing is a full transgression. Someone who intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb violated the prohibition of pork; even if he ended up with lamb, he violated the prohibition of pork. Except what? He won’t receive punishment, and that’s why Maimonides says “exempt.” In Maimonides, “exempt” consistently means exempt but forbidden. Meaning, such a thing is a transgression—apparently, from his wording, a Torah-level transgression, a Torah-level transgression of eating pork even though you ate lamb. There is no punishment, because there is a condition that in order for there to be punishment, there also has to be a result, a halakhic result, and that result is not here. But the prohibition—you did violate. He also infers this from the disciplinary lashes. He says: they give her disciplinary lashes, and from this you see that there is something here—although that too, I’m not convinced. Disciplinary lashes are also given for rabbinic prohibitions, so I don’t know how necessary that inference really is. And in the Talmud itself it really is a tremendous novelty.
[Speaker B] Where does Maimonides get this from, that they give her disciplinary lashes? What? Where does Maimonides get it from?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Great question. That’s another nice question that can join the inference, to say that Maimonides is saying something educational here and not some punishment in the formal halakhic sense.
[Speaker B] No.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Specifically about this? Maimonides doesn’t say it only here; in other places too Maimonides says that they administer disciplinary lashes. What do you mean? According to his view, I think Maimonides holds that for every neglect of a positive commandment they administer disciplinary lashes.
[Speaker B] There is the idea that the court—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Court compels—no, no, not compels; afterward, after you have already transgressed. As a punishment, like with rabbinic transgressions. Disciplinary lashes are for rabbinic transgressions, but according to Maimonides also for every positive commandment and every prohibition for which one does not receive biblical lashes. That is, straightforwardly, Maimonides’ view. There’s some discussion about this; I won’t get into it here. In any event, that’s what he says, and then the outcome really is an enormous novelty. Meaning, you can eat—commit the prohibition of pork without eating pork.
[Speaker B] What practical difference does it make?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What practical difference? You violated a prohibition—what do you mean? The practical difference concerns the categories of atonement. Someone who violated a prohibition, there are categories of atonement—what must he undergo, in the baraita in Yoma, right, what must he undergo in order to gain atonement for that prohibition.
[Speaker B] How is it a prohibition? Huh?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The prohibition of pork? No—but how did you get from Maimonides to a prohibition? What do you mean? “Exempt but forbidden.”
[Speaker B] Exempt—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But “forbidden” means—what Rabbi Soloveitchik of Brisk infers there—is that someone who intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb violated the prohibition—
[Speaker B] Of pork—meaning, he violated the prohibition of pork. That’s what he claims.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now this—I’m only bringing it because I think it’s really far-fetched to say such a thing. I hardly think anyone reads that Talmud that way. But I’m bringing it only in order to sharpen what exactly the Talmud is teaching according to the Or HaChayim. The Or HaChayim says that when the Talmud says he needs only forgiveness, it means Rabbi Soloveitchik of Brisk is not right—meaning that there is no halakhic transgression here; this is something moral, something not okay, disciplinary lashes, I don’t know what, but there is no real halakhic transgression here. That’s what is written in the Talmud. And that’s also what Yosef says to his brothers: all there is here is perhaps moral accounting, vengeance, God—but not an actual transgression in the halakhic sense. Why? Because “God intended it for good,” because in the end something good came out; I ate lamb. That is one direction for understanding the Or HaChayim.
[Speaker B] The question is how you can say atonement and forgiveness. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so that’s the question: whether it’s for the transgression itself or for moral matters. If it’s about service of God, in the end it is moral.
[Speaker B] But it’s not only Rabbi Soloveitchik of Brisk who says it; Maimonides also goes in that direction.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t think so. He infers it that way from Maimonides, but I don’t think that inference is necessary. Fine, that’s already another dispute.
[Speaker B] Maimonides certainly not; the Or HaChayim certainly did not learn that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Or HaChayim certainly did not learn that way. Do I think anybody learned that way?
[Speaker B] But Maimonides did? From where? Why? Where do you see it? Because it says disciplinary lashes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Disciplinary lashes can also be for a rabbinic prohibition. Disciplinary lashes are from the side of educating the person; it’s not a formal matter. Fine, let’s not get into this here. “She is exempt”? Huh? “Exempt”? No—this is forbidden but exempt.
[Speaker B] Fine, it could be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That it’s rabbinically forbidden. “Exempt but forbidden” in the laws of the Sabbath means rabbinic. The question is where a rabbinic prohibition of this kind would come from; fine, that can be discussed. It doesn’t matter right now—that’s Rabbi Soloveitchik of Brisk’s view. What I want to say is that clearly the Or HaChayim did not learn that way, because the Or HaChayim claims there is no halakhic transgression here at all. At most there is some kind of reckoning in service of God, in morality, whatever it may be, but no halakhic transgression.
That’s one direction. But in truth, when you read the Or HaChayim a bit more carefully, I’m not sure that’s really so. Because go back and look at the Or HaChayim. He is clearly alluding to this Talmud, right? It’s completely obvious that this Talmud is standing in the background. This isn’t some random association. But if he’s already alluding to this Talmud, then why does he bring a different case? He says: “This is like one who intended to give his fellow a cup of death and instead gave him a cup of wine.” What’s wrong with “one who intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb”? Perfect. That’s the case the Talmud is talking about. If you’re already bringing the Talmud, bring it!
[Speaker B] Why are you bringing an example of death?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you want to bring me examples—I have an example in the Torah itself. What help is your example to me?
[Speaker B] More than the example, he also turned it from between man and God into between man and his fellow.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What he says is that it’s connected—that’s what I started with.
[Speaker B] But there is a transgression here, because you would agree that the execution, the act in practice here, is not so trivial, at least if you don’t know what to call it. So what would you say? Kidnapping a person and selling him?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no—not murder! No, no murder. No, leave that for a second. Kidnapping a person and selling him? What do you mean? That’s a clear transgression in the Ten Commandments. What, isn’t that “do not steal”? “Do not steal.”
[Speaker B] Right, but he wanted to present it on Yom Kippur, yes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Kidnapping a person and selling him.
[Speaker B] Not exactly like kidnapping a person and selling him, but really like the act itself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? Then it’s an exaggerated example; it’s not correct. The transgression is a transgression of theft—kidnapping, that is. But I’m saying: you’re bringing me an example of another transgression. There is a transgression written in the Torah of what they did, and then in the end it turned out for good. You’re bringing me another example that isn’t written anywhere, so how does it help me? So say this itself: since they intended to steal him, but in the end it came out for good, therefore they are not liable for anything.
[Speaker B] If—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you want to bring me a Talmudic source, I understand: he wanted to bring a Talmudic source in order to show us the plain meaning in the Torah. After all, it says in the Talmud: if one intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb, he is exempt. That is what Yosef said to his brothers. I understand that he’s bringing that; he’s bringing proof from the Talmud that that is what Yosef meant to say to his brothers. But if you’re bringing me the Talmud, bring the Talmud. Why are you bringing a different case?
[Speaker B] The Talmudic example he brings doesn’t appear in the sources?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t think so. Nowhere.
[Speaker B] Maybe it’s an example where it’s very easy to see that a person is exempt. I’ve never heard anywhere that he would be liable.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s no easier for me than what’s in Yosef’s own story. What’s the difference?
[Speaker B] Because kidnapping a person and selling him, as the Rabbi said, is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A wrong like killing—it’s more than theft…
[Speaker B] No, more than that: someone who intended to give his fellow a cup of poison—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nu, and they intended to steal and in the end it came out for good—so what’s the problem? Same thing. Why is that easier than this? What does it clarify? If you bring me a Talmudic source, then I understand: it’s an authoritative source. You’re telling me the plain meaning of Yosef’s words; this principle is written in the Talmud—then bring the Talmud, I understand. But if you bring me another example that isn’t written anywhere, then why is it better than the example already in the Torah itself? How does it help?
[Speaker B] There’s also a big difference, because when he intended to give him a cup of poison and gave him a cup of wine, he didn’t give him a cup of poison. In contrast, here they really did sell him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does the result matter? Maybe we’ll get to that in a minute. A transgression was committed. If, Heaven forbid, it turned out that for a certain person it was permitted to eat pork—yes, maybe in a moment we’ll get to those distinctions. There really are two directions that at least I found to explain the Or HaChayim differently—namely, that he really does contradict the Talmud; he doesn’t mean the Talmud. But in fact the case here also is not similar to the Talmud. One direction—I saw the Kli Chemdah bring this. There is some commentary, Or Bahir, I saw on the Or HaChayim, by one Rabbi Yeshaya Weiss—I hadn’t seen it until now, but he brings it—and several later authorities (Acharonim) are also mentioned there. They explain that there is a difference between a situation where I thought I was eating pork and ended up with lamb—in that case, I intended to commit a transgression, but in the end what came out was something neutral. Eating lamb is permitted; it’s not a commandment and not a prohibition, just a permitted act. I intended to commit a transgression and what resulted was a permitted act. But with Yosef, Yosef’s brothers intended to commit a transgression and something good came out, not something neutral. Meaning, something positive came of it, not neutral.
[Speaker B] And that’s also emphasized: “you intended it for good,” yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And about that the Or HaChayim says—he doesn’t bring this explicitly, I think, but I think this inference works well in their favor—about that the Or HaChayim says: someone who intended to give his fellow a cup of death and instead gave him wine. Meaning, something good, something pleasant. Wine and not water, yes? Meaning, something good for him. Meaning, that’s what he intends to emphasize here. So that’s it: if you intended to commit a transgression and in the end something neutral was done, then you need atonement. But if in the end a commandment came out of it, or something positive, then everything is fine. Formally that’s very nice; I still think it’s problematic. It’s still problematic because what do you mean? You want to tell me that it’s completely fine? Contrary to what I said before—if you go with the previous direction, then you don’t need all this. But if you want to go not the way I said before, then it’s problematic. What do you mean? They intended to do evil. So what—because in the end God arranged it for good, they’re completely innocent even in the judgment of Heaven? Why? Everything they did was for evil. So it still seems problematic to say that they are clean even in the judgment of Heaven.
Another possibility for understanding this—and I think it fits the example he brought more—is that there may be a difference between prohibitions of action and prohibitions of result. What the Talmud speaks about is: one intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb. This brings us back to the first level I mentioned at the beginning, with the Jerusalem Talmud and terumot. One intended to eat pork and ended up with lamb—what kind of prohibition is eating pork? On the simple level, it’s a prohibition of action. It is forbidden to eat pork. There is no further result produced by the eating. The act of eating pork is a forbidden act. Now, when I intended to eat pork, I ate something, but it turned out to be lamb. So I performed an act with the intention of performing a criminal act, but somehow in the end it turned out that this was not a criminal act. Such a thing may not be a transgression in the formal sense, but it is very problematic. Very problematic, because in the end the prohibition is a prohibition of action, and an action was done—just not the forbidden action itself.
But in a commandment between man and his fellow, murder for example—if indeed we take, let’s leave aside the Jerusalem Talmud and terumot for a moment—if indeed we take it as a prohibition of result, then after all, what is forbidden to you is causing evil to another person. Some evil has to come about for the other person. Right? The act of offering poison is not itself the forbidden act. What is forbidden is that he die in the end. And if there is someone who is immune to poison, then what? Is it forbidden to give him poison? Give him poison all you want—there’s no prohibition in that act itself. The whole issue is the result. So if the result did not occur, then what was here? With a prohibition of action, you can tell me: look, if in the end the result didn’t occur, that is still problematic. It’s not a full transgression, but it is still problematic, because after all an action was done out of criminal intent; only in the end it turned out that it wasn’t what you thought—the result is not what you thought. But the result is not important; what is forbidden is the action. About such a case the Talmud in Nazir says, “and the Lord shall forgive her”; forgiveness and atonement are needed. There is still some kind of problem here, however we explain the Or HaChayim.
But in a prohibition that is in essence a prohibition of result, the action itself is not problematic at all. The whole problem is that evil comes about for the other person as a result. But if it turns out that no evil came about for him, nothing happened, that result which is the forbidden thing did not occur—then what remains? Then there is nothing. So the Or HaChayim comes to limit it. He says: what the Talmud in Nazir says, that forgiveness and atonement are needed, applies only to prohibitions of action such as eating pork. But with Yosef’s brothers we are dealing with a prohibition of result. And the analogy is this: one who intended to give his fellow a cup of death and gave him a cup of wine—so what happened? You thought to do evil to the other person; that is like thinking about eating pork without eating at all, the first situation I mentioned there, not the second. Because what happened here, basically? There is here essentially a thought that did not materialize at all. It materialized in an action, but in these prohibitions what is forbidden is the result, not the action.
[Speaker B] Why sale, like Yossi said? The sale is an action.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because the result is that he ends up in captivity, in bondage, in the hands of a gentile. The problem is not the act of sale. What is wrong with the act of sale? The problem is what you are doing to the other person through that act.
[Speaker B] What’s wrong with the act of sale? That act of sale is written in the Ten Commandments.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say it isn’t written, but what is written there? Is what is written there that the act of sale is forbidden, or that it is forbidden to bring it about that one of the brothers be owned by someone else?
[Speaker B] The act of sale is forbidden. Who says? Who says? What’s the difference between “do not murder” and “do not steal”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Same thing. Also with “do not steal” I would say the same thing. With “do not murder” too I would say the same thing. “One who kidnaps a man and sells him.”
[Speaker B] Yes, kidnaps a man—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s “do not steal”; it’s “one who kidnaps a man and sells him.”
[Speaker B] So “sells him” not what—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but it’s obvious that the Torah always forbids me by way of actions. That’s obvious.
[Speaker B] But here too the result is that he was a slave—there’s an inference there…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, then you can simply argue against what Yosef says to them, that it’s not an argument at all. You completely committed the transgression. It’s—
[Speaker B] Not an argument at all, only in the terrible moral sense.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. But I’m saying: on the assumption that Yosef is making this argument—you can dispute him, but Yosef is making this argument. And I’m saying: the argument Yosef makes, the Or HaChayim says, is relevant to prohibitions of result and not to prohibitions of action. In prohibitions of result, when you intended to kidnap a man and sell him, and you kidnapped a man and sold him, and in the end it turned out that what you did was actually an act of rescue—then if you performed an act of rescue, you are basically in a situation—it’s not that you’re morally clean, certainly not; he doesn’t mean to say that. He means to say that this is like… someone who thought to eat pork and didn’t even eat. Not someone who never thought about eating pork at all, but like someone who thought about eating pork and didn’t even eat. He didn’t eat, but it turned out to be lamb. Rather, if the prohibitions are prohibitions of result, then a thought that materialized is parallel to what happens with prohibitions of action when a thought did not materialize. That is his parallel.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, “do not murder” is final. Meaning, he murdered—it’s over.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Murder? All the actions of stabbing someone with a knife and he wasn’t murdered—what, that can’t determine it?
[Speaker B] Wait, but if, say, we take an example: someone sold someone as a slave, he violated the prohibition of selling a slave, and then the slave ran away. So what—he won’t be liable for it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he ran away, that perhaps remains in the neutral state. But here it turned out for good. That changes the action itself into a positive action. If, say, the brothers and Yosef had planned the whole story in advance—planned the whole story together with God, as a panel of three—the brothers, Yosef, and the Holy One, blessed be He, had planned the whole story and said: we know there will be famine, and we want Yosef to get established there and become viceroy. We’ll do some maneuver like this, and then the chief cupbearer, the chief baker, I don’t know who—suppose they could plan all this. Then everything would have been fine, right? Because this is a plan to bring about good. So that is essentially what happened here.
[Speaker B] So it’s okay?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because no, it’s not a legitimate sale.
[Speaker B] No, why? A transgression for the sake of Heaven—that’s not okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A transgression for the sake of Heaven—we already talked about that. I don’t think it’s not okay.
[Speaker B] But again, we’ve gotten here to the issue of—I think this really is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yael wife of Hever the Kenite—that was after the giving of the Torah.
[Speaker B] It’s simply the act itself, selling a human being—even if he ran away five minutes later, and there were witnesses that you sold him. The very ceremony of sale is a crime.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The action made him into a slave—what are you talking about?
[Speaker B] He wasn’t a slave; he ran away.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but he was a slave for five minutes—that doesn’t matter. He was a slave. Five minutes and not a year—so what? No, there’s no quantitative definition of how long he must be a slave. Here the whole action was a positive action. You can argue with Yosef’s claim; you can analyze this endlessly. But what he claims is that the good result in the end clarified that the act was not a criminal act at all.
[Speaker B] But the Rabbi’s direction—that this is a prohibition of result and not a prohibition of action—and it seems on the face of it, this still needs to be worked through, but as I see it, it very much is an action. Selling a person—the sale. Like eating pork. Like eating pork, not the result of the sale.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here there is something else. The emotional response, the shock of a different kind, and the halakhic definition of the prohibition are something else. Because it is terribly degrading to sell a person, but the prohibition—the prohibition is the evil that comes about to the other person, not what you do. What you do is the means by which to bring about that evil, to bring evil upon the other person, and therefore of course it is forbidden. Understand: even in prohibitions of result, in the end what is forbidden to me is an action. What is forbidden to me is always an action. We talked about this in the context of “be fruitful and multiply” in the portion of Bereishit.
[Speaker B] There I distinguished between prohibitions of action—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Between commandments of action and commandments of result.
[Speaker B] There are those who explain that “be fruitful and multiply” is a commandment of result. You only have to get to the point of having children; there is no commandment on the act itself. No one disputes that what is imposed on me is only the action, because the result is not in my hands. That is obvious. The whole question is what the halakhic definition is. The halakhic definition is that all that is required here is to make an effort so that in the end the result will occur. If someone sells the kidnapped person to the neighboring Jewish community, and from the outset he does it in order to kidnap him—then there isn’t at all, from the outset he kidnaps him in order—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In order to sell him there. I assume that would also count as selling him.
[Speaker B] Maybe, if he sold him, it is still kidnapping a man and selling him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be, because that too is called kidnapping and selling. So what if it’s to the Jewish community?
[Speaker B] He sells him only in order to get money for himself. Not in order that he be a slave.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but at what price does he obtain that money? At the price of selling another person into slavery. So the problematic part is not that you obtain money; obtaining money is legitimate. The question is what the price is for that money. You obtain that money through, in exchange for, an action—or really a result—that is not okay: you are harming another person. Now, prohibitions between man and his fellow generally—and this is the simple approach, which is what I prefaced regarding murder—the simple approach is that they are prohibitions of result. The evil that comes about to the other person—that is the prohibition you violated. True, how is that connected to me, that evil came about to him? Obviously only if I did that evil to him, then the evil that happened to him is attributed to me. But the prohibition is what happened to him, not that I acted. The fact that I acted is only the reason why the fact that evil happened to him makes me liable for punishment, because I did it. But in the end, the definition—what is bad in God’s eyes? What is bad in God’s eyes is that evil came about to another person through me, not that I performed a certain action. Fine—but it’s only a suggestion. Accept it, don’t accept it, don’t accept it.
[Speaker B] To be precise in the wording of the Or HaChayim: “for this is only similar.” Nu, so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Similar” only means the same thing for our purposes. There may be differences in nuance, but—
[Speaker B] It’s just that here there’s really a difference beyond nuances. In principle, as he said, they intended to do evil and did an evil act, only in principle it turned out to be an evil act that was good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s what I said. There is a whole list of places I can bring you where the Chazon Ish says ideas like this. That’s his way. In many places that’s how the Chazon Ish speaks. There are cases—for example, there was a well-known case in Bnei Brak, it’s written in a book, but it’s known that this was בעקבות a case that happened in Bnei Brak. Someone there, near the Chazon Ish’s house, was driving a car and swerved aside and killed someone. He swerved aside to save the person in front of him, and didn’t notice that there was someone at his side, and he killed him. So the Chazon Ish discusses this case in his book, and he says there that this action is not at all an act of killing unintentionally. That is how people usually understand it: an act of killing unintentionally. What are you talking about? It was an act of rescue.
[Speaker B] Why not? Why can’t you say even more than that—killing by accident? No, no—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so—you can say anything. But the Chazon Ish says not that way. The Chazon Ish says this is an act of rescue altogether; it is not an act of killing, it is an act of rescue. Why? Because your intention determines, sometimes, the very character of the act itself. I’ll now give you examples from the Talmud where you’ll see this. And I think that’s also what happens with Yosef. There are examples—many examples. This is the Chazon Ish’s way in many places, a whole mode of thought in the Chazon Ish.
[Speaker B] Again, if we stick to Yosef’s case as—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As it is, then the fact that the result in the end came out good means that the act too was not an act of sale.
[Speaker B] If we stick to Yosef’s case in its straightforward sense, then again, there was an act which in itself only retroactively had positive implications. It’s not similar to the Chazon Ish’s case.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t say it’s similar. I said that the same mode of thought that I see there, I can claim also here. The claim is that once the prohibition is a prohibition of result, then the result simply never happened. So what? Obviously you weren’t okay—but the result never happened. You’re also not okay when you merely think about eating pork and do nothing; you’re also not okay. I think it’s not okay on the same level. In prohibitions of result, when you did the action but the result did not occur, that is the same as in prohibitions of action where you only thought and did not act. Not that it’s completely okay—obviously not.
The Talmud in Menachot 64—the Kli Chemdah raises a difficulty from there. It says as follows: Ravina said to Rav Ashi—it’s speaking about someone who offered a sin-offering, and then after he had already fulfilled his obligation, he offered the sin-offering that he was obligated to bring, he brought another sin-offering. Did he offer it?
[Speaker B] He offered a second one? Yes, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ravina said to Rav Ashi: if it turns out that the first one was emaciated in its innards, what is the law? Meaning, he offered the second one even though he had fulfilled his obligation with the first, and he was sure he had fully fulfilled it. But in the end it turned out that the first one was emaciated in its innards, and therefore he had not fulfilled his obligation. But in a case where the first one is emaciated in its innards, if you know that in advance, they tell you to bring another sin-offering. The Talmud says yes, you’re even permitted on the Sabbath to bring another fat sin-offering.
[Speaker B] But again—bring on the Sabbath? On the Sabbath you bring a sin-offering? Only communal offerings are brought.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only communal offerings. It may be that it’s talking here perhaps about non-sacred slaughter in the Temple courtyard; I need to look at the Talmud there, I no longer remember exactly. It may be that it’s talking about non-sacred slaughter in the Temple courtyard. In any event, he says there that if the first one was emaciated, then from the outset they tell you to bring the second one. But he did not know that it was emaciated, he brought the second one, and then it turned out that the first one had been emaciated. So what is the law? The Talmud says: do we follow his intention, and the man intended something forbidden, or perhaps do we follow his actions? Seemingly exactly our discussion, right? The Talmud continues and says: he said to him, is this not the same as the case of Rabbah and Rava, as was stated: if one heard that a child had drowned in the sea and spread a net to catch fish, and he caught fish—he is liable. If he spread a net to catch fish and caught fish and a child—he spread a net to catch fish and caught fish and a child. Notice: he heard that a child had drowned in the sea—the poor fellow, he heard that a child had drowned in the sea, and he goes fishing; he wants to catch fish. It turns out he also rescued the child. Doesn’t he want to rescue the child? No, he wants to catch fish. A dear Jew he is, children don’t concern him; one has to make a living. Rabbah said liable and Rava said exempt—so says the Talmud.
The Talmud says—and here, Rabbah only exempts because since he heard—what is it that Rava exempts for? Like you wanted to say: after all, he heard that a child had fallen into the sea. So how—? We therefore say that his mind was also on the child. Since he heard, we also say that his mind was on the child. But if he did not hear—then what? If he had not heard, then he would indeed be liable, even though he brought up the child.
[Speaker B] And there are those who say: fish and child.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, he brought up fish and a child.
[Speaker B] He didn’t intend fish, because if—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, we’ll see in a moment. And there are those who say, another version in the Talmud: he said to him, this is the very dispute of Rabbah and Rava, as was stated: if one heard that a child had drowned in the sea and spread a net to catch fish and caught fish, he is liable. If he spread it to catch fish and brought up a child and fish, Rava said exempt and Rabbah said liable. Rava said exempt: follow his actions. It doesn’t matter that he heard that a child had fallen into the sea; go after his actions. And Rabbah said liable: follow his intention. So here, at least according to the second version, we really have our dispute: whether we go after his actions or after his intention. He basically entertained an evil intention, and in the end something good came out of it, right? And the Talmud discusses exactly that—this is the dispute between Rava and Rabbah, whether we follow his actions or follow his intention.
[Speaker B] In our case it’s like he brought up only the child?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Oh, in just a moment. Now, the Talmud in tractate Menachot doesn’t bring that Mishnah in Nazir at all, and that itself already calls for explanation. Even if in the end the Jewish law comes out consistent, still—at least bring it. There’s a dispute here; at least cite it as evidence. The Talmud doesn’t connect these passages to each other at all. “He intended to eat pork and what came into his hand was lamb meat” does not seem to the Talmud to be connected to this dispute between Rabbah and Rava. The question is why not. So here it seems to me that one really has to distinguish: in the Menachot passage, after all, we’re talking about a case where he brought up both fish and a child; that’s not incidental. The Talmud there says he wanted to bring up fish; it could have said: and he brought up a child.
[Speaker B] It didn’t set it up in that kind of case. Does the Talmud say, “and he brought up a child”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because that’s the case of “he intended to eat pork and what came into his hand was lamb meat.” To come back to our passage, if there is
[Speaker B] some Sabbath prohibition here or what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand. No—“he intended to eat pork and what came into his hand was lamb meat.” He intended to catch fish on the Sabbath, which is forbidden. In the end he brought up a child; he didn’t catch fish. That is exactly the case of “he intended to eat pork and what came into his hand was lamb meat.” Well, no… More than that: now go with the interpretations I brought earlier—something positive came out. Something positive came out of it. Yes, maybe that connects to what we discussed earlier; it’s even something positive, like a cup of wine rather than a cup of water. But the Talmud doesn’t discuss that. Why not? Because apparently the Talmud understands that the case here is a different case; it’s not like our case.
[Speaker B] According to those halakhic decisors, in a case where only a child came up, would he be completely exempt?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, correct, that’s also what can be inferred from the Talmud.
[Speaker B] Like this, because he committed the transgression of catching fish.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, that’s what I’m saying. And the Talmud here is effectively saying: after all, you did commit the transgression—the transgression—you brought up the fish. There was an actual transgression here; it’s not that in the end only a child came up. If only a child had come up, then indeed you would be exempt, and that depends on the Talmud in Nazir. It could be that you would need forgiveness and atonement, but from a halakhic standpoint you would be exempt. But here we’re talking about a case where you brought up both fish and a child. That’s why the Talmud also doesn’t bring the Mishnah in Nazir; it’s not relevant here. And what’s the dispute? There really is reason to say that he might perhaps be liable.
[Speaker B] Do we follow his intention or his action—that’s the dispute.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is there a side saying that he would be liable? At the end of the day, he did bring up fish. Now tell me: if he had done it in order to bring up the child, and he brought up both fish and a child, then according to everyone he’s exempt, right? That’s obvious. “We follow his intention” is the side that would prohibit; but if his intention had been for the good, then it would have been permitted. So what’s the problem? He performed a permitted act—after all, it’s permitted to bring up fish in order to save the child. So what’s the issue? Because he didn’t intend that. So what if he didn’t intend that? But that’s what he did. The action he performed was a permitted action. It’s as if the intention pours content into it. Exactly—that’s the continuation of the Chazon Ish. Meaning, we see here that in a place where the act can be interpreted in two directions, sometimes the intention determines what the act will be. And here we see a definition of the act. Yes—what the definition of the act is. And since that’s so, here an act of transgression was in fact committed. Once an act of transgression was committed, then this is no longer like the Talmud in Nazir, where at the end of the day you ate lamb, you didn’t eat pork at all. It’s not the same thing. Here, after all, an act of transgression was committed. There is a side here—though that is not the Jewish law—that since you intended a transgression, the fact that in the end a child came up would not exempt you, because after all you intended a transgression and committed a transgression, even though, notice, this is a novelty, a real novelty—and it’s also not correct as a matter of Jewish law. It’s a novelty because the Jewish law is that no, he is exempt. Why? Because after all, from the outset it is certainly permitted to do this—to bring up the child even at the price of bringing up fish as well. That’s obvious. So what difference does it make whether I intended that or not? It’s a permitted action; it’s an action that was permitted from the outset. So what difference does it make if I did it inadvertently? But no—Rava argues that even in such a case I would be liable. All right? So this is exactly the principle I mentioned earlier from the Chazon Ish. By the way, what happens if a lean one was found among its innards? After all, that’s the case from which the Talmud begins. Now it’s more problematic. “A lean one was found among its innards”—after all, in the end he didn’t commit any transgression at all. That really is similar to the Talmud in Nazir. The Talmud compares the dispute between Rabbah and Rava about the child and the fish to the case of “a lean one was found among its innards.” He sacrificed another in its place, and it turned out to be lean—that is, he sacrificed a second one, and the first was found to be lean. What happened there in the end? There was no transgression at all. That is really similar to pork and what came into his hand was lamb meat. So first of all, the Talmud does compare those two cases. It says that they disagree within the dispute of Rabbah and Rava. So our whole answer collapses—that this distinction isn’t correct. It is similar, then. So once again the question returns: after all, in the end—
[Speaker B] In the fish-and-child case too, in the end you didn’t commit any transgression.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—so then the question comes back: why don’t you compare it to the Talmud in Nazir? If so, then in the Talmud in Nazir Rava should have cried out: what do you mean? He’s liable to lashes—he ate pork. According to Rava he’s liable to lashes. Or alternatively, Rava should have brought the Mishnah in Nazir against Rabbah. That’s it—either way. But you see that doesn’t happen. We have to say that with a lean animal, where in the end he brings a second animal, he did fulfill his obligation with the first one as well. It’s just “offer it, please, to your governor”—because of enhancing the offering, one is permitted to bring the animal again. But here it’s clear that an act of transgression was done, only it is permitted to do it in order to enhance the commandment. In halakhic language, we would call this “overridden,” not “fully permitted.” Meaning, there is an act of transgression here, but it is permitted because I gain a greater commandment. That is not like pork—where he intended to eat pork and what came into his hand was lamb meat. There, no act of transgression was committed at all. In the case of “a lean one was found among its innards,” this is a situation where in fact a transgression was committed, but it was permitted in order to gain “offer it, please, to your governor,” meaning to bring a finer offering. So it isn’t similar to Nazir. It is similar to the child-and-fish case, because the transgression was committed. I just want to finish with one point that really is connected, if I return to the Or HaChaim. So we said that when he says, “Am I in the place of God?” he says to them, “You intended evil against me, but God intended it for good.” Meaning, in the end it comes out that no act of transgression was committed here at all. Here one has to examine this against the child-and-fish case; I think it may be more similar either to that or to “a lean one was found among its innards,” but we won’t get into the question now of what exactly it resembles. That’s how he says it to them. So what remains? Only vengeance, or the moral issue. So he says, “Am I in the place of God?”—meaning, it’s not my issue. And when the Or HaChaim says that you are innocent even under the laws of Heaven, innocent even under the laws of Heaven, what he really wants to say is that you have no obligation under the laws of Heaven from a halakhic standpoint—but certainly an accounting will be made with you. “You intended evil against me.” In what context are these things said? There’s the story of King David. In the story of King David, after all, “whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken.” I brought you there at the end of the… What does it mean, “whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken”? An explicit verse is screaming there. Nathan the prophet brings him the parable of the poor man’s ewe, shouts at him, David repents, the Talmud describes what kind of repentance David did. What do you mean, “whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken”? How can one say such a thing? And he was also punished. How are we supposed to read that Talmudic passage? The Talmud also brings an answer. What is the answer? That everyone who went out to the wars of the house of David gave his wife a bill of divorce, and it turns out that he had relations with her when she was not a married woman. Because after he died, it became clarified that she in fact was already not… when Uriah died, it became clarified retroactively that she was not a married woman. So what? You solved the formal halakhic problem—he did not have relations with a married woman. But there is certainly a moral problem here. And about that, what do the Sages say? “Whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken.” What do they mean to say? That a halakhic transgression in the formal sense is not present here. Did anyone say he was morally innocent? Certainly not. Nathan the prophet shouts at him with the poor man’s ewe. And think about the parable itself—the parable of the poor man’s ewe. The parable doesn’t resemble the thing it stands for. He committed the transgression of a married woman—so why do you bring him a parable about the poor man’s ewe? Is the poor man’s ewe an example of a married-woman transgression? The answer is no. He did not commit the transgression of a married woman at all. That’s what “everyone who went out to the wars of the house of David gave his wife a bill of divorce” means. The problem with him is a moral problem. Why are you taking the poor man’s ewe? That’s what he brings the parable for, and in that respect he certainly sinned. “Whoever says David sinned is nothing but mistaken” means there was no formal transgression here. That is the meaning—formal halakhically. That’s what the Or HaChaim says about Joseph’s brothers. He says, “You are innocent under the laws of Heaven.” What does that mean? There was no transgression here, because in the end it is like one who intended to eat pork and what came into his hand was lamb meat. Does that mean you don’t need atonement? The Talmud says that you do need atonement.