Duties of the Heart
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 essence of the commandments as commandments of the heart, and the intention behind practical commandments
- Duties of the heart and duties of the limbs according to Rabbeinu Bahya, and the implication of “Love your fellow as yourself”
- Questions on Maimonides: Torah-level in the heart and rabbinic in implementation
- The difficulty of definition in positive commandments and sources in the Talmud
- Whether commandments require intention versus “intention” as a psychological foundation
- The distinction between the halakhic obligation and the value or purpose
- Heart-centered commandments without a clear practical expression, and the principled problem
- The essence of transgressions in the heart: evil thought, attempt, and the condition of action
- A discussion of the rabbi of Brisk on intention in a transgression and practical ramifications of a prohibition
- Rav Safra, “and speaks truth in his heart,” and falsehood as violating an inner commitment
- “Do not covet,” Ibn Ezra, and Recanati: desire as the root of theft and inner control
- Critique of attributing a commandment to the subconscious: Rabbi Kook and the pioneers
- Rabbi Nachman’s story of the turkey prince: behavior and consciousness
- Healing as exposing an inner will, and the parallel to “we compel him until he says, ‘I want to’”
- The need to say “I want to” and the demand for external expression
- The limits of coercion and the underlying assumption of a desire to serve God
Summary
General Overview
The text presents an approach attributed to Rabbi Dessler in Michtav MeEliyahu, according to which the essence of commandments and transgressions lies in the heart, while Jewish law relates to actions as a way of expressing and clarifying a person’s inner state. He uses Rabbeinu Bahya’s distinction between duties of the heart and duties of the limbs to explain that heart-based commandments are not defined by fixed acts, even though in practice they can be realized in many ways. He challenges this understanding through Maimonides on “Love your fellow as yourself” and through the dispute over whether commandments require intention. Throughout, he develops a distinction between the demand for action as a halakhic condition and the value-based, psychological core of the commandment or transgression. He brings examples from evil thought, Rav Safra, “and speaks truth in his heart,” “Do not covet,” Rabbi Nachman’s story of the turkey prince, and Maimonides on “we compel him until he says, ‘I want to’” in order to show that mechanisms of coercion and behavioral change work only when there is an authentic inner will that needs to move from potential into actuality.
The essence of the commandments as commandments of the heart, and the intention behind practical commandments
He states that the core and content of all commandments are the commandments of the heart, and that even the essence of practical commandments is the intention with which they are done. He places the heart at the center of the commandment’s content, and the action as the tool that brings that inner content into practice. He explains that “the Merciful One wants the heart” expresses the goal of inner transformation that stands behind the practical definitions of Jewish law.
Duties of the heart and duties of the limbs according to Rabbeinu Bahya, and the implication of “Love your fellow as yourself”
He explains that Rabbeinu Bahya distinguishes between duties of the heart and duties of the limbs because there are commandments of the heart that are not defined by fixed acts and can come to expression in practice in several ways. He presents “Love your fellow as yourself” as an example of a heart-based commandment that has many practical translations, and brings Maimonides in the laws of mourning about accompanying the dead, bringing in a bride, and visiting the sick as actions included in “Love your fellow as yourself.” He argues that according to this explanation there is no one concrete action that is required, and therefore the commandment is called a duty of the heart even though it is realized through varied actions.
Questions on Maimonides: Torah-level in the heart and rabbinic in implementation
He notes a contradiction in Maimonides’ words between the phrase “the sages commanded” and the inclusion of “Love your fellow as yourself” among Torah-level positive commandments. He suggests that the simple reading of Maimonides is that the Torah-level obligation is a commandment placed on the heart to love, whereas the practical expressions are rabbinic obligations that the sages translated into a practical pattern. He illustrates that someone who visits the sick only in order to fulfill an obligation fulfills the rabbinic commandment of visiting the sick, but does not fulfill the Torah-level commandment of loving another person when there is no love in the heart. He uses this to reject the assumption that all duties of the heart are really duties of the limbs that are merely hard to define, and emphasizes the difference between “there is no definition” and “the definition is difficult.”
The difficulty of definition in positive commandments and sources in the Talmud
He cites the Talmud in tractate Kiddushin on “it is better to perform the commandment oneself than through an agent,” and the reason for not marrying through an agent so that the woman should not become repulsive in his eyes and lead him to violate “Love your fellow as yourself.” He argues that the usage there is the “spirit” of the commandment, not a defined halakhic measure of how much love or how much action is required, and therefore one cannot establish “love” as a duty of the limbs in the sense of a fixed act. He sharpens the point that “Love your fellow as yourself” is an obligatory positive commandment, not merely an optional or situational one, and asks what it even means to neglect such a commandment in a context where it is impossible to define how long a sick visit must be or how much effort is required.
Whether commandments require intention versus “intention” as a psychological foundation
He asks how one can say that the essence of a commandment is intention when there is a dispute over whether commandments require intention in order to fulfill one’s obligation. He suggests that the intention under discussion here is not the technical halakhic intention of fulfilling one’s duty, but rather a psychological foundation behind the act, and that the commandment is aimed mainly at the psychological effect of the action. He presents duties of the limbs as actions meant to generate change in the heart, and links this to the Sefer HaChinukh’s formulation that “hearts are drawn after actions” as an explanation for why action is required when there is no direct access to the heart.
The distinction between the halakhic obligation and the value or purpose
He presents a dichotomy between the question of what is halakhically required and the question of what value underlies that requirement. He gives as an example the commandment to be fruitful and multiply, and the discussion over whether it is a commandment about the result or about the act. He explains that Jewish law demands what is in a person’s power even though the purpose is a result not fully in that person’s control. He applies this both to heart-based and practical commandments: the goal is an inner state of the heart, but the requirement is directed at action because that is the tool available to the person.
Heart-centered commandments without a clear practical expression, and the principled problem
He raises examples such as love of God and hatred of the wicked as states that seem to be obligations of the heart with no defined system of actions in standard halakhic literature. He argues that the explanation that duties of the heart are called that only because it is hard to define the act does not fit commandments where there is no binding practical translation at all. He asks how it can be that Jewish law supposedly avoids addressing the heart directly because the heart is not in our control, and yet still sets out obligations that are defined as purely heart-based.
The essence of transgressions in the heart: evil thought, attempt, and the condition of action
He quotes that just as the essence of commandments is in the heart, so too the essence of transgressions is in the heart, and even though “the Holy One, blessed be He, does not combine an evil thought with action,” the transgression still exists in the heart. He explains that evil thought is not judged as though it had become an action, but it still exists as a transgression in the heart, and action is a condition for definition and for legal-halakhic treatment. He illustrates this through a failed attempted murder in order to sharpen the gap between moral-psychological guilt and the laws of punishment and legal definitions of transgression.
A discussion of the rabbi of Brisk on intention in a transgression and practical ramifications of a prohibition
He brings a position attributed to the rabbi of Brisk regarding someone who intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb, and says the position is far-fetched, though he clarifies the proposal to see this as a violation of the prohibition without lashes. He emphasizes that the practical ramification of defining the matter as a Torah-level prohibition relates to the pathways of atonement and the “four categories of atonement,” and to practical consequences for repentance. He uses this discussion to distinguish between action as a condition for punishment and action as a condition for defining a transgression at all.
Rav Safra, “and speaks truth in his heart,” and falsehood as violating an inner commitment
He brings the sages’ interpretation of “and speaks truth in his heart” through the example of Rav Safra, who accepted from a non-Jew the first amount he had inwardly agreed to, even though the non-Jew later wanted to offer more. He asks what falsehood has to do with this if no verbal promise was ever made, and explains that a spoken promise is only the expression of a promise in the heart, and therefore taking more after inwardly agreeing is considered falsehood in the heart. He presents the action as a tool that reveals and realizes the state of the heart, not as the focal point of moral truth.
“Do not covet,” Ibn Ezra, and Recanati: desire as the root of theft and inner control
He presents “Do not covet” as a heart-based prohibition and asks how it can make sense to warn against a natural feeling. He cites Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, who says that if the thought of theft is completely impossible in a person’s eyes, then coveting does not arise, and concludes that coveting stems from seeing theft as a possibility. He quotes Recanati in the name of the sages that all the commandments are included in “Do not covet,” and emphasizes that a person does have control through building a psychological framework that pushes certain possibilities beyond the boundary line. He brings an example attributed to Beit HaLevi concerning sexual prohibitions, using the image of walking on a high rope in a way that leaves no room for distraction, in order to show how psychological framing creates control over the emergence of desire.
Critique of attributing a commandment to the subconscious: Rabbi Kook and the pioneers
He distinguishes between Rabbi Dessler, who focuses on conscious thoughts that have not yet been acted upon, and an approach attributed to Rabbi Kook regarding atheist pioneers as fulfilling the commandment of settling the Land of Israel in a state of unintentional involvement, because inside them there is a point that longs for the service of God. He rejects categorical knowledge of unconscious faith as “speculation” and asks how one could know such a thing. He argues that even if such a point exists in the subconscious, that does not amount to fulfilling a commandment, because a commandment is a response to a command and a conscious decision attributable to the person, not an action retroactively explained by hidden contents. He frames the claim that “commandments require faith” as a basic assumption, according to which consciousness and response are part of the definition of fulfilling a commandment.
Rabbi Nachman’s story of the turkey prince: behavior and consciousness
He tells Rabbi Nachman’s story of the turkey prince, about a king’s son who declares that he is a turkey, strips, goes under the table, and eats crumbs and bones, and a wise man who heals him by joining him there and then gradually persuading him that one can wear a shirt and pants, eat human food, and sit by the table and still be a “turkey.” He raises the question whether the king’s son was really healed or merely changed symptoms, and connects this to the debate between defining illness as behavior and defining it as consciousness, including a mention of behaviorism. He points to the moment in the story when the son asks the wise man, “Who are you?” as a hint that he recognizes the wise man is not really a turkey, and from there develops the question whether the illness is a full delusion or a rationalization that permits the behavior.
Healing as exposing an inner will, and the parallel to “we compel him until he says, ‘I want to’”
He brings the Mishnah in Arakhin and the law of divorce, that “we compel him until he says, ‘I want to,’” and Maimonides’ explanation in the laws of divorce that the person “really wants” to comply, but “the evil inclination” prevents him. He rejects an understanding according to which it is enough that the will arises from fear of beating, and emphasizes that Maimonides sees coercion as a way of exposing an authentic inner desire to fulfill Jewish law. He explains the mechanism psychologically: a person builds theories to justify refusal that really stems from impulse or revenge, and coercion breaks the usefulness of that delusion and thereby restores him to his deeper will.
The need to say “I want to” and the demand for external expression
He asks why the inner will alone is not enough if it already exists before the coercion, and concludes that an unconscious or unexpressed will is not enough to attribute a halakhic act to a person. He presents the requirement that he say “I want to” as the requirement that the will move into the foreground of consciousness and come to expression in practice, and only then is he treated as someone who truly wants. He ties this back to Rabbi Dessler: the essence is in the heart, but practical or verbal realization is still required as a condition for taking the inner state seriously.
The limits of coercion and the underlying assumption of a desire to serve God
He argues that coercion will not help where there is no presumption of an inner desire to serve God, and connects this to criticism of religious courts that either do coerce or refrain from coercion in cases of divorce. He presents coercion as effective only when the person’s deep will accords with Jewish law and the refusal stems from a temporary distortion of impulse and theory. He concludes with the distinction that in order for an act to count as fulfillment of a commandment, there must be a relation to the command and a conscious will that becomes outwardly manifest; it is not enough to attribute inner points to a person when those points do not appear in the person’s declared consciousness.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s some passage here from Rabbi Dessler. Something got messed up for me, I couldn’t print it from my software, so I didn’t print it. But there’s some passage here from Rabbi Dessler speaking about the power of evil in the heart, in volume 1 of Michtav MeEliyahu. So I’m not really going to read it all inside, but I’ll start and then expand a bit. The essence and content of all commandments are the commandments of the heart. Even the essence of practical commandments is the intention with which they are done. And what led Rabbeinu Bahya to distinguish between duties of the heart and duties of the limbs is that there are commandments of the heart that are not defined by fixed acts, but can come to expression through action in several ways. But the very essence of all commandments is what exists of them in a person’s heart, and all commandments of the heart must come into actuality through action in some way. Meaning, he begins by saying that the essence and content of all commandments is the heart, yes, the commandments of the heart. Then he continues and says that even the practical commandments, really their essence is the intention with which they are done. And then of course the distinction made by Rabbeinu Bahya and also the Sefer HaChinukh becomes necessary—well, actually Rabbeinu Bahya and the Sefer HaChinukh make a somewhat different distinction. Rabbeinu Bahya distinguishes between duties of the heart and duties of the limbs. His book is called Duties of the Heart, and the definition of duties of the heart is duties imposed on the heart, which are a minority of the commandments. Most commandments are duties of the limbs; those are what appear in the regular halakhic books. Some duties of the heart are actual enumerated commandments—love of God, love of one’s fellow, love of the convert, and so on. And some duties of the heart are not enumerated commandments, like character refinement, humility, and the like. But that’s what’s called duties of the heart. Now if he says that the essence of all commandments is intention, commandments of the heart, then what is the meaning of the distinction between practical commandments and commandments of the heart, between duties of the heart and duties of the limbs? So he says that this distinction is basically that duties of the heart are commandments of the heart that are not defined by fixed acts, but can come to expression through action in a number of ways. What does he mean? For example, “Love your fellow as yourself.” So that’s called a duty of the heart, even though the thing comes to practical expression. I think I already mentioned this Maimonides in the laws of mourning, where Maimonides says that the sages commanded us to accompany the dead, bring in the bride, visit the sick, and so on. And all of these are included in the positive commandment of “Love your fellow as yourself.” So there is here, in effect, a translation of that commandment of the heart into practical commandments. So why is this called a duty of the heart? That’s what he claims: because there is no concrete action required of me. Any action that expresses my love for another is the realization of that commandment, so you can’t define it as a duty of the limbs because there is no specific obligation or specific act imposed on me. But on the principled level there is really no distinction here between commandments imposed on the heart and commandments imposed on the limbs. Rather, according to this, it comes out that all commandments are commandments imposed on the limbs; it’s just that there are commandments that do not impose specific acts on the limbs, so they are called duties of the heart. So that’s his claim. But there’s a lot to comment on here, because first of all, “Love your fellow as yourself”—I already commented on these things when I brought this Maimonides, remember? I think I brought this up before. Maimonides has a contradiction within his own words. He says this is a command of the sages, it’s all rabbinic, and then he says that all of this is included in “Love your fellow as yourself,” which is a Torah-level positive commandment. So decide: is it a rabbinic commandment or a Torah-level positive commandment? So the simple reading, it seems to me, is really that in Maimonides the Torah-level commandment is indeed a commandment imposed on the heart, not on the limbs. The commandment is to love another person. The practical expressions of that commandment are rabbinic obligations. For example, if someone visits the sick but doesn’t do it because he loves the person, but just because—I don’t know—just because there’s a commandment to do it, so he does it in order to discharge his obligation, or to rack up another merit, I don’t know exactly, something like that. Then he isn’t really doing it as an expression of some love he feels toward him.
[Speaker B] The teacher made him do it. What? The teacher made him do it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Whether the teacher made him do it or the Shulchan Arukh made him do it, it doesn’t matter. So what does that mean? It means that he did not fulfill the positive commandment of “Love your fellow as yourself,” because that commandment is a commandment to love in the heart. But he did fulfill the rabbinic commandment of visiting the sick, because the sages translated it into a practical pattern, they inserted it into a practical framework. Now it’s true that usually, when you do actions that express love, then you’re doing two things. That’s of course both the fulfillment of the Torah-level commandment to love and also the fulfillment of the rabbinic commandment, which is the practical realization of that Torah-level obligation to love. Now if that really is Maimonides’ view, then it seems to me that what Rabbi Dessler says isn’t right. Because he defines “Love your fellow as yourself” as a duty of the heart because it is really a duty of the limbs. Since there are no specific actions I can point to and say they are my obligation—rather, the obligation is any action that expresses that love—therefore it’s called a duty of the heart, but it isn’t really a duty of the heart.
[Speaker B] Let’s ask the opposite question on Maimonides: if I love him in my heart but I don’t do anything.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you fulfilled the Torah-level commandment and not the rabbinic one. But I fulfilled—it, I didn’t understand?
[Speaker B] No, he fulfilled the Torah-level commandment, right? And didn’t do the rabbinic one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The sages commanded to turn it into something practical.
[Speaker B] So according to that it comes out I didn’t fulfill it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, exactly. Meaning, he basically assumes that everything is duties of the limbs. In other words, duties of the heart are just a definition—and by the way this is a common definition among quite a few later authorities. There are these sort of basket-commandments like “Love your fellow as yourself,” where basically everything can be put in there—what doesn’t fit in there? And you can really show from explicit Talmudic passages that not everything called a fulfillment of “Love your fellow as yourself” really constitutes performance of a positive commandment, or that if someone didn’t do it he has therefore neglected a Torah-level positive commandment. For example, the Talmud at the beginning of the second chapter of Kiddushin says that it is better to perform the commandment oneself than through an agent. A man should betroth the woman himself, not through an agent. Why? Because he should see her when he betroths her. And if he does it through an agent, it could be that he won’t see her. Why does he have to see her? Because if he doesn’t see her, and betroths through an agent, then afterward, when they meet, she may become repulsive in his eyes, and then he’ll violate “Love your fellow as yourself.” Fine? Now the question is whether someone who doesn’t do this—someone who betroths through an agent—has certainly not violated “Love your fellow as yourself,” because it all depends on where he ends up when he sees the woman. Meaning, only if in the end he comes to that state of not… But even if he does reach that point, it doesn’t mean that every time someone finds his wife repulsive or she finds him repulsive, they are violating “Love your fellow as yourself.” Rather, that’s the spirit of the commandment of “Love your fellow as yourself.” It doesn’t tell you what level of love counts as fulfilling the obligation. Can anyone define such a thing? What level of investment in an act do I need in order to fulfill my obligation? Or alternatively—after all, this is not an optional commandment, it’s an obligatory one, the commandment of “Love your fellow as yourself.” Yes, that’s obvious. It’s not a commandment such that if I do it, fine, and if not, nothing happened. Meaning, it is possible to neglect this commandment, unlike optional-style commandments. Optional commandments are commandments that can only be fulfilled; they can’t really be neglected. The commandment “Love your fellow as yourself” is an obligatory commandment according to everyone. Now how do you neglect it? When is it called that I neglected the positive commandment of “Love your fellow as yourself”? When what? If I didn’t come visit him, then I neglected a positive commandment? Or if I came to visit him for two minutes and not ten minutes? You can’t define such a thing. Right? So there really arises here a feeling that this commandment is indeed a duty of the limbs. Meaning, it requires me to do things, but it’s impossible to define what is required of me, so it’s therefore defined as a duty of the heart. But if we look carefully, it may actually be precisely because of that that the definition is that this really is not a duty of the limbs—not really. The obligation is an obligation to love. How much to love, how much to bring it into expression—not how much to love, but how to bring it into expression: do it however you want. The obligation is to love in the heart, and we really do not define the practical side because in fact one is not obligated in that. Not because it’s hard to define, but because there is no definition. Meaning, there’s a difference between saying there is no definition and saying the definition is complicated or difficult or complex. So that’s the first comment. He assumes that even duties of the heart are really duties of the limbs, except that it’s difficult to define the precise practical obligations, so that’s why they’re called duties of the heart. In Maimonides, it doesn’t seem that way to me. It seems that the obligation really is an obligation on the heart, an obligation to love. Another thing: what exactly is he saying? On the one hand he starts by saying that the essence of all commandments is commandments of the heart. And also that the essence of practical commandments is really what is in the heart, the intention with which they are performed. So here of course the question immediately arises: after all, commandments do not require intention—or at least there is a dispute whether commandments require intention or not. So how can he state so clearly that the essence of the commandment is the intention with which it is done? According to some opinions, even in Jewish law—not just in the Talmud, even in practical halakhah—there are authorities who say commandments do not require intention. So if I performed the commandment without intention, I fulfilled my obligation. He says that if I only had good intention without the commandment, then certainly I have no commandment, according to everyone. There’s no dispute there. If someone only intended to do a commandment and didn’t do it, Scripture credits him as though he had done it.
[Speaker B] I want to argue in Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. So I once saw someone who wanted to claim that this is literally called doing the commandment. There is some rabbi from Brisk, the son of a nazirite—he says something similar, not exactly this. He says there that someone who intended to eat pork—
[Speaker C] And—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’s talking about transgressions, not commandments. He intended to eat pork and what ended up in his hand was lamb. He says: here’s a piece of meat, I was sure it was pork and I wanted to eat this pork, and in the end it turned out I’m a bungler and it was kosher. It wasn’t pork, right. So he needs atonement; that’s what the Talmud says. The rabbi of Brisk wants to claim—and I think it’s completely far-fetched, but that’s what he claims—he wants to claim that the person violated the prohibition. He violated the prohibition of pork, even though he ate veal.
[Speaker D] But did he intend it as a prohibition, or as pork? Did he intend it as something forbidden? Or only the act he was going to do? Because with commandments too, do you only need to intend to do the act, or do you need to intend that it be for the sake of the commandment? Here he didn’t intend it to be for the sake of a transgression, he only intended that it be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This act, and what came out was a different act.
[Speaker D] That’s intention… why? Did he intend to eat pork in order to do what is forbidden? In order to defy God? Does that matter for commandments? For commandments it matters.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but for transgressions it doesn’t matter. For transgressions without action—for transgressions with action, nothing matters at all. If you actually ate pork, you committed a transgression regardless. We’re talking only about a case where in the end you did not eat pork. When does intention become a transgression? Intention becomes a transgression if you intended to eat pork.
[Speaker C] He’s not liable for lashes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. He claims this is a Torah-level prohibition but there are no lashes. Rabbi Akiva says there’s no action involved, or I don’t know, something like that. No, the act is not a transgressive act. I could dance while violating a prohibition that has no action. That’s not the act by which I committed the transgression. The transgression is that I wanted to eat pork. So fine, one can explain why there are no lashes. There are examples of cases where I violate a Torah-level prohibition and still am not lashed. Half a measure—yes, there are a few examples. Or a prohibition that can be violated with an act or without an act; there are disputes among the medieval authorities about what happens if I violate it without an act—whether I’m not lashed or I am.
[Speaker C] And what about “and it shall be if you do not do”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there there are no lashes at all. But I’m saying there are prohibitions for which lashes are generally defined, and in certain cases you can still violate a Torah-level prohibition and not be lashed. There are a few examples.
[Speaker E] Is there any practical ramification to that determination?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a Torah-level prohibition—what do you mean? A very major ramification.
[Speaker E] It’s a Torah-level prohibition and not just generally forbidden? Meaning…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—what do you mean, not just generally forbidden? There’s no prohibition in that at all.
[Speaker E] Meaning, in any case it’s forbidden from the outset to try to commit a transgression because presumably you’ll actually commit it. Meaning, it’s only obvious after the fact that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So he doesn’t need to repent for anything?
[Speaker D] There’s nothing to repent for. Why?
[Speaker E] The Talmud says he does need to repent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is whether he has to repent for a prohibition. For example, the path of repentance for a prohibition is a defined path. The Talmud defines how one repents for a prohibition, which stages one must go through, and depending on the severity of the prohibition, what kind of repentance is needed. For example, the four categories of atonement. The four categories of atonement define what must be done in order for something to be atoned for. Now there is one definition for a prohibition, and another for a prohibition carrying karet, and another for a prohibition carrying death by religious court, and things like that. And if this is a prohibition, then there is a definition of how exactly atonement works for it. If it’s just some issue, then it’s some issue, and I don’t know what to do with that.
[Speaker E] What do you mean? The four categories of atonement—aren’t those things like suffering comes upon him, Yom Kippur atones, until he dies?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It depends what is needed in order for atonement to occur.
[Speaker E] But what’s needed isn’t something I have to do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not true, not true.
[Speaker E] I need to bring it on myself?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly. In many books—there’s a responsum of the Noda B’Yehuda on this matter. Sure. The Noda B’Yehuda, after all, was just a Jew not connected to mystical matters and Hasidism and the like—not suspect of Hasidism at all. And he brings there from the Rokeach and from various others what kinds of rolling in snow one must do and exactly what is needed in order to gain atonement for a transgression. If not—if suffering does not come upon you, then make sure it does. Fine, there are various practical ramifications to this, but that’s not the point right now. That’s the claim. But for our purposes—good, for our purposes. So here, basically, how did we get to this? I had one comment on the definition of what duties of the heart are. Is it really on the heart, or is it a practical obligation that simply can’t be defined? And this is a common definition; it’s not only Michtav MeEliyahu. There are quite a few medieval and later authorities who really define things in that way. But I’m saying it’s not necessary. In Maimonides it doesn’t seem to be the plain meaning, and I think in the Torah too it isn’t the plain meaning. Meaning, when the Torah says “Love your fellow as yourself,” it means love. That’s what it means. But then how does that connect to what he opened with—that the essence of all commandments is what happens in the heart? I was speaking about whether commandments require intention, right? That the essence of commandments is the intention in the heart. So what does it mean that the essence of commandments is the intention in the heart? After all, there is a dispute whether commandments require intention or not. According to the one who says commandments do not require intention, how can you say that the essence of the commandment is intention in the heart? And as I said, this is a dispute even in practical halakhah, not only in the Talmud. It has not been decided unequivocally. So it seems to me that he doesn’t really mean the kind of intention discussed in the topic of whether commandments require intention—the intention to fulfill one’s obligation. What he means is that there is some psychological foundation at the base of the act, and that foundation is really the essence of the commandment or the transgression. Here he’s talking about commandment; I assume for transgression the same point applies. Meaning, even a commandment performed physically by an action—its real foundation is what psychological point stands behind that action. Excuse me. That’s really the point. And the action is meant to achieve not the action, or not only the action, but mainly the psychological effect of performing that action. And then he says that with duties—what he says there about duties of the heart—is that these are commandments of the heart that are not defined by fixed acts. But the very essence of all commandments is what exists of them in a person’s heart. Here he is no longer talking about intention in the sense of intention to fulfill one’s obligation, but, say, when I perform a commandment—I don’t know—lighting Hanukkah candles, fine? So I light Hanukkah candles. Behind that there is supposed to be some psychological orientation. It’s not just an act of lighting, even though that is the halakhic definition. The halakhic definition is that one has to perform an act of lighting. But behind that there is publicizing the miracle, the feeling, gratitude to the Holy One, blessed be He, whatever—many things that stand behind the act of lighting. His claim is that this is really the main content of the commandment, this point in the heart that underlies the act, or the effect of the act, and not the action itself. Even though Jewish law defines the action, and perhaps duties of the heart in this sense are a more fundamental principle than duties of the limbs, because even duties of the limbs are really a kind of duties of the heart according to this definition. Because duties of the limbs are simply to do certain actions so that something will happen inside my heart, something will change. Therefore Jewish law indeed speaks not about what happens in the heart, because that is not in our hands. Jewish law tells us what to do. But the goal of the matter is what in the end happens in the heart behind that action. The Merciful One wants the heart. And all commandments of the heart must come to expression through action in some way. This too can be read in a few ways or interpreted in a few ways. You could say that really the main thing is the heart, but it has to be brought into practical expression. Or you could say the opposite: that the practical expression is required because that is my way to work on the heart; otherwise I have no direct access to what’s happening in my heart. So I perform practical actions, and “hearts are drawn after actions,” as the Sefer HaChinukh says, and that is basically the way to work on the heart. But the goal is the work on the heart, not the action. So there is here a very dichotomous definition between the question of what the halakhic obligation is and the question of what value underlies it. Those are two entirely different questions. These questions come up even in halakhic contexts. I don’t want to go too deeply into halakhic discussions here, but in many halakhic contexts this issue comes up. For example, the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. There are discussions among the authorities whether it is a commandment about the result—that I should have a son and a daughter, at least a son and a daughter—or whether it is a commandment about the act. It is obvious that the commandment concerning the act is intended to achieve the result. You’d have to be very formalistic to say that the act is required of me not because the Holy One, blessed be He, wants the result, but only the act. On the other hand, among the authorities there are those who define the commandment as one about the act and not about the result. The logic is very clear, since the result is not in our hands. If we succeed, we succeed; and if we don’t, we don’t. So what Jewish law demands of me is what is in my hands, even though the real purpose, meaning where we want to get, is the result. It’s just that since the result is not in my hands, what Jewish law demands—Jewish law means what is required of me—is the action. In that sense, maybe here too it is the same. What is really wanted is the effect on the heart, the psychological effect, let’s call it that. But then why is Jewish law defined as an obligation to perform an action? Because that is the thing in my power. Meaning, I can’t address the heart directly; I have to do it through actions. By the way, exactly in the same way, “Love your fellow as yourself” too—according to this approach I’m saying—the actions the sages told us to do are simply ways to succeed in creating that love that is supposed to arise in the heart, when that is really the goal. Okay, so it could be that this is simply a technical matter: since the heart is not in my control, Jewish law tells me, fine, if the heart is not in your control, do actions. But the goal in the end is really a goal in the heart. Which of course means that all the obligations we understand to be duties of the heart really are duties—for example, I don’t know, there are those who say there is an obligation to hate the wicked in certain contexts. There are some disputes there, but in the simple sense, “Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord?” Meaning, there is some kind of obligation to hate the wicked. I don’t know examples of what one is supposed to do as a practical expression of that hatred. There it appears plainly to be an obligation on the heart. Maybe I just don’t know.
[Speaker E] Why? There’s supposedly an example in the Talmud of beating the wicked and things like that, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or to protest. There’s “we lower and do not raise” regarding a certain type of wicked people, but I’m not talking only about those extreme levels. No, I don’t know of any example—maybe I’m forgetting, I can’t think of any example. Not something one is obligated to do, again. Maybe what?
[Speaker E] Tosafot writes somewhere—what? In the law of an old sinful man, on the discussion of “and you shall honor the face of the old,” that maybe there’s some opinion that if it’s an old sinful man then one has to—or if an old man who sins then…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, there’s a certain example about an old sinful man, because there you have the matter of honoring the elderly. But in general, for every wicked person, is there an example of a duty of the limbs toward a wicked person?
[Speaker E] Not only that you don’t have to honor him; some say there that if he sins then you have to shame him or beat him or something like that. I don’t remember exactly what.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I don’t know. Let’s say I’m not familiar, in standard halakhic literature, with the practical commandments of “Love your fellow as yourself” they appear. The practical commandments of hating the sinner—hatred of the sinner itself does not appear in most places, and certainly not the practical obligations that derive from it. There are things like love of God, for example. Love of God too—what is love of God? What is the practical expression? In Maimonides he ties to it the matter of sanctifying God’s name, dying for the sanctification of God’s name. That is basically a practical expression of love of God. But obviously no one expects all of us to go actively looking for ways to die for the sanctification of God’s name. Clearly that is not a necessary condition for fulfilling the commandment of “Love your fellow as yourself”—sorry, of love of God. Quite the contrary: what was said to Rabbi Akiva was, up to here—meaning, it can get that far, but not that now every person should be looking for where he can die for the sanctification of God’s name. So I once saw in Kli Chemdah, in the name of the Rebbe of Gur, he says something there—not important in what context, I don’t even remember—in which he wonders about the fact that we celebrate Purim, I think, because on Purim we were saved; we could have died for the sanctification of God’s name and were saved, something like that. So what is there to celebrate? Or about Hanukkah—I don’t remember, there’s some little Hasidic teaching there. Kindness or something like that? Right—that is, there is already some approach that says, on the contrary, you should even take initiative. Fine, but of course that’s just an anecdote. In the end, clearly the commandment of love of God is not merely a heading for the obligation to die for the sanctification of God’s name. Love of God is something that is supposed to accompany us throughout life in all kinds of ways. But I don’t know of a practical implication where they tell me what this means in practice. What do I need to do? I need to feel love for the Holy One, blessed be He—that’s what I need to do. There is no practical expression of that. So what then, that too is called duties of the heart only because the actions can’t be defined? That’s a problematic definition. No, this is a duty of the heart, and it really is an obligation on the heart, period. But if in fact the heart is not in our control—if the view is that all actions are imposed on us only because through them we work on the heart, while the heart itself is not in our control—then how can it be that there are certain obligations that do address the heart, not through actions? Decide. Either Jewish law is not willing to do such a thing, or it is. So there is something a little problematic here. He says: and just as the essence of commandments is in the heart, so too the essence of transgressions is in the heart. And even though the sages said, “The Holy One, blessed be He, does not combine an evil thought with action,” that means that it is not judged as though it came into actual action, but in the heart the transgression is there. What does he mean to say? The transgression, in its very basis, is a transgression in the heart, and we do not judge a transgression in the heart until it has materialized in action. When it does materialize in action, we judge the thing that was in the heart. Therefore, for example—I don’t know—even more than that, even things that almost… an attempted murder that failed. So that even did materialize in action, meaning I tried the action I needed to do, I decided to murder. That’s the psychological and heartfelt problem, fine? And I pulled the trigger, except the firing pin was broken. Fine? So once again I’m just a bungler, right? There’s no righteousness at all in the fact that I failed to murder, and still they don’t impose the full liability on me because the practical result didn’t happen, even though the psychological problem that found expression in that transgression was certainly present here in full, with all the stringency. Meaning, morally and psychologically I am a murderer in the fullest sense.
[Speaker E] Is that what the sages were talking about when they said, “The Holy One, blessed be He, does not combine an evil thought with action”? They meant an evil thought that is only a thought. This attempt here—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so what I say there is even more than that. There I say more than that: even a bad thought that comes to some practical expression, that too—some kind of practical expression—even if in the end it didn’t succeed, but somehow I carried it out in practice. If it didn’t succeed, then we still don’t judge him as a murderer.
[Speaker E] In human courts we don’t judge him, but in divine judgment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even in divine judgment, simply speaking, we also don’t judge him as a murderer. Again, I don’t know what moral punishment he’ll get, but even divine judgment, in the conception we receive at least from the Sages, works within the framework of transgressions and commandments; there too it’s divine judgment. How does the Rabbi of Brisk fit with that?
[Speaker C] The Rabbi of Brisk you mentioned earlier—the case of someone who intended to eat pork and it turned out to be lamb. How does he fit with that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fit with what?
[Speaker C] There it wasn’t just a thought, and it didn’t come to an act?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he needs atonement. Obviously. That’s why he says we don’t punish. Of course we don’t punish—certainly not—but he needs atonement. He needs atonement, right. It happened through him; we don’t punish. He claims that this is a category in punishment, not in the prohibition itself.
[Speaker C] In divine judgment he did transgress, didn’t he?
[Speaker B] Yes, it says he needs atonement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not just in his heart—in divine judgment he transgressed it. A person also transgressed it; he just doesn’t get lashes.
[Speaker C] Someone who wanted to murder—did he transgress the prohibition of “You shall not murder”? Huh? Someone who tried to murder and didn’t succeed, and carried it out—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —carried it out in practice, he just failed—did he transgress “You shall not murder”? I think that according to the Rabbi of Brisk, the answer is yes. According to the Rabbi of Brisk? Yes. Why? Say he shot—he shot at a person, and then it turned out it was a cat. Okay? He shot and killed it; according to the Rabbi of Brisk he transgressed “You shall not murder.” Yes, strange, but that’s what he says. Anyway, the claim here is that there really is something to the fact that an act is required in order for us to define something as a prohibition. Let’s leave the Rabbi of Brisk aside for a moment. The simple definition is that you need practical expression in order for it to be defined as a prohibition, not only in order to punish. Okay? But that still doesn’t mean that the prohibition is the act. It could be that the act is a condition for the inner mental act to count as a prohibition. In essence, the mental act is the prohibition; there is just a condition that it come to practical expression. A mental act by itself doesn’t count—for many reasons, you can explain it in various ways—but first of all, by definition, that is really what he wants to argue. He wants to argue that the main thing is really the inner, psychological matter. So then why does all of Jewish law constantly require that it be realized? Thoughts don’t interest anyone. Why? Because it’s a condition—not because the transgression is the act, but because there is a condition that there be an act in order for the inner criminality to count as a transgression. The transgression in the heart is the bad character trait that is the root of the sinful deed, and the Sages, who knew that the essence of a person’s service is in the heart, said that sinful thoughts are harder than sin itself. And the Sages already explained what is written, “and speaks truth in his heart,” such as Rav Safra, who took from the gentile the first amount—the end of tractate Makkot—the first amount he had agreed to. Even though the gentile wanted to give much more—they made some kind of deal, he had thought of taking a certain price, the gentile gave him more, and he said, no, no, I had in mind a smaller amount, a bit like Dama ben Netina. Even though the gentile wanted to give him much more, one has to understand: where is the falsehood here? Rav Safra hadn’t promised the gentile any price beforehand, so that his word should be considered false. He didn’t promise to do it at a certain price and then take more. He thought of a lower price, but he didn’t say it, he promised him nothing—so why is that called falsehood? His claim is that the verbal act of promising is only the practical expression of the promise in the heart. And therefore if you now violate the promise that you, so to speak, gave him in your heart, then you are essentially a liar. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t hear it, because in essence the problem is the problem in the heart; the problem is not the practical act that you perform. Yes, Rav Safra did not want to falsify the thought in his heart, because once he had already agreed in his heart to the first sum, it would already have been falsehood in his heart if he took more. Then he goes on to bring other examples, and I won’t get into that now. He speaks, for example, about the prohibition of “You shall not covet.” Although even with “You shall not covet,” we have to discuss what exactly that prohibition is—there are disputes about it—but he assumes that it is a purely inward prohibition. And what he says, essentially, is this: how can it be that coveting should not arise in a person’s heart when he sees the wealth and success of his fellow? And how can there be a warning about that? However, as Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra wrote, if the thought of theft were completely absurd to him, then coveting would not apply, because the coveting comes from… The coveting you have in your heart is basically the prohibition of theft. In other words, his claim is that “You shall not covet” is really about “You shall not steal.” Meaning, even in “You shall not steal,” the problem is really “You shall not covet.” Then the Talmud itself asks: why do we need both? Fine, the Talmud makes a necessity argument, and specifically this I think can indeed be understood in light of the Talmud, but okay, that requires entering a bit into the definitions of what “You shall not covet” means. Coveting is theft in the heart. And Recanati wrote in the name of the Sages that all the commandments are included in “You shall not covet.” In short, the point is that in the end, at the root of the transgression, the essential point is what lies in the heart.
[Speaker F] But does he have control over what arises in his heart? He may not—but he does have control over the inner discussion that takes place within him after it comes up. He suddenly realizes he’s coveting. From that point on there’s a discussion inside you: do I tell myself various things so that I’ll reach a state of not coveting?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says more than that—even beforehand, you have control so that it won’t arise. If it’s absurd, as he brings from Ibn Ezra—if it’s absurd in your eyes, meaning it’s simply not even on the spectrum at all to lay a hand on someone else’s property or take something from someone else—then coveting won’t arise. In other words, there are things that are outside the boundaries of the arena. If you set the boundaries of the arena correctly, then yes. What does Beit HaLevi write?
[Speaker G] Yehuda Halevi talks about the queen of India—not even occurring to you to covet her.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. Beit HaLevi writes there, in the portion of Genesis I think, in his commentary on the Torah, he writes there: how can a person overcome urges, sexual urges? So he says, look, imagine you’re standing on a rope in a circus, fifty meters high, I don’t know, okay? Walking with that balancing pole up there. Now all the most beautiful women in the world can pass below. You won’t move your gaze at all, right? Because the moment you move your gaze, you’re dead. He says: if you live that way, no urge will even arise in you. Fine, whether one ought to live that way is another question, but clearly it’s not true. In a life-threatening situation, yes—that’s it. We understand where Rabbi Chaim came from. In any case, how Rabbi Chaim got there, I honestly don’t know right now. Fine, that’s another question—how Rabbi Chaim got there physically. Okay, but that’s a different discussion. The point is that we really do have some kind of control even over thoughts that arise; if we build the psychological infrastructure in a certain way, then we can also prevent things that are seemingly instinctive, things that supposedly don’t depend on us, and so on. He goes on with other examples. There’s something connected to this—I think I once spoke about it, I don’t remember anymore, but who knows, it’s been many years already. The story of the turkey—I’m almost sure I spoke about it. Rabbi Nachman’s story of the turkey, yes? And there, I think the story gives very interesting expression to this point that Rabbi Dessler is talking about. Rabbi Dessler’s claim, if I just summarize, is basically that deeds are only a reflection of souls. And when Jewish law relates to deeds, what it really wants is the inner psychological state. It’s just that because that isn’t in our hands—or, I would add, I don’t know, Jewish law chose to focus on deeds—but really its goal is the psychological dimension that underlies the deed or stands behind the deed, and that is what is called the commandment or the transgression in the matter. Now why is practical expression needed? Because it is a condition. In other words, only an inner problem that has some practical expression counts as a transgression—or one is punished for it according to the Rabbi of Brisk—but it counts as a transgression. But that’s not because the transgression is the action. The transgression is the psychological thing; the action is only a condition without which I cannot relate to that psychological state as a transgression. As I said, this can be explained in several ways, but that is his definition. I want to touch on this connection here from a somewhat different angle. Even when we speak about the psychological state, there are several levels at which we can deal with it. There really is something within us somehow in the subconscious, or not under control at all. I don’t think that’s what’s being discussed here at all. What’s being discussed here is conscious thoughts—they haven’t yet become action, but they are conscious thoughts. Over those thoughts we may also have a certain degree of control, at least if we build the proper infrastructure; then over conscious thoughts we have some level of control. What about our subconscious—something that we aren’t even… “The heart does not reveal to the mouth,” yes? Or that we’re not even aware of at all? There, whatever is there is there. That cannot be defined as either a commandment or a transgression.
[Speaker D] Maybe it’s the same level of control? What? The same level of control—if it’s like topography, the way the Rabbi defines it, then the same control by which you can shape your soul, maybe you can somehow also change your subconscious.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but I don’t know that.
[Speaker D] That doesn’t matter; even at the conscious level it doesn’t matter. The control you have, according to what the Rabbi is saying… right. No, your control is earlier. Your control is earlier.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not earlier. If I see certain thoughts and fantasies arising in me, then I know I need to work on the psychological infrastructure so that they won’t arise.
[Speaker D] No, in the subconscious I don’t know anything. No, the point is to change the psychological infrastructure so it won’t get there in the first place—that’s what the Rabbi…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but I’m saying that… I have the possibility of working on it because I have indications that I have a problem there. If it comes up.
[Speaker D] Yes, to identify the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —the problem. So I’m saying, that’s part of the matter. I identify that I have a problem, and I work on it. With the subconscious it’s a bit hard to speak in those terms. Meaning, how do I know whether I succeeded, whether I’m in that state or not in that state? Did I succeed in working? Did I not? Should I work on it at all? Should I not? It’s all there somewhere inside. And why do I say this? Because we’ve already discussed this in several contexts—the view of Rabbi Kook regarding the pioneers, the atheists who drained the swamps. Yes—did they fulfill the commandment of settling the Land of Israel? Rabbi Kook wanted to claim that yes, with his kindly eye, his optimistic eye, they in fact fulfilled the commandment of settling the Land of Israel unintentionally. They weren’t even aware of it; some of them were atheists, yes, they truly did not intend to fulfill a commandment in this matter. But they fulfilled it because inwardly, in every Jew, there is some point that aspires to the service of God.
[Speaker B] Then they’re not atheists.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So in their innermost heart, they’re not atheists. There is no atheist Jew—that’s what he claims. Yes.
[Speaker E] And maybe it could be that there isn’t—that an atheist Jew won’t be an idealistic Jew in reality. Meaning, if a Jew has some kind of… a Jew who has certain traits…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I’m willing to accept that correction. I’m willing to accept that correction,
[Speaker E] although I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —don’t think that’s correct, that that’s what Rabbi Kook means, but… that’s a dispute that isn’t important for our purposes. I don’t think so. I think he meant that truly within every Jew there is something, regardless of what he does. But that’s another discussion. Meaning, if he does something, it comes from there, and if he doesn’t, then it doesn’t come to practical expression. We were talking about the practical implication of what is in the heart. Now that’s not what Rabbi Dessler is talking about. Rabbi Dessler is talking about what is in the conscious heart, the question being whether it comes to practical expression. Rabbi Kook is talking about what is in the unconscious. Now here I can’t accept this view at all, for two reasons. One reason is that it’s speculation, and I don’t know where from… where not? How does he know this? That within every Jew there is some unconscious faith, and without anyone knowing it, I know what is in his heart? Maybe. I don’t know. I have no idea, in any case. Maybe he knows it prophetically; I don’t—
[Speaker B] —know where he knows it from. No, but many times you see atheistic people and all that, and when the moment of truth comes, they do—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, and many times you also don’t see that, so what? Fine. This legend that there are no atheists in foxholes—I think there are atheists in foxholes too. In wartime foxholes. There too there are atheists. There are fewer, fine, but…
[Speaker E] Okay, but that means that in some people there is something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but I’m saying that to state categorically that in every person there is—that is, first of all, problematic speculation. And the question is whether that is where he comes from. That’s one thing. But beyond that, I think my main disagreement isn’t there. There it’s in the realm of metaphysical speculation—or okay, the subconscious. It could be yes and it could be no. Even if it’s true, there is no fulfillment of the commandment of settling the Land of Israel here. Meaning, even if he is right in this speculation and there is some inner aspiration there that they are not aware of to fulfill a commandment, I don’t think that this is called fulfilling the commandment of settling the Land of Israel. In what sense?
[Speaker C] The subconscious fulfills a commandment. Yes, exactly. Maybe in some sense.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe in some sense, yes. But I’m saying: fulfilling a commandment is something that I’m supposed to decide to do and then realize. It’s not… it’s not something that just exists.
[Speaker B] You don’t need to intend—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t need to intend to do the commandment, but—
[Speaker B] —you need to intend to do the action.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the category of unintentional involvement. I’m talking now about something else. Not only because of the category of unintentional involvement. But I’m not talking about the category of unintentional involvement—that’s the halakhic category. I’m not talking about that category. I’m talking about a category even before I get into the question of whether commandments require intention and unintentional involvement and things of that sort. Commandments require belief. Meaning, there is something so basic that it cannot be that a person has something in his subconscious and does various things for entirely different reasons, and that counts for him as fulfilling a commandment. An action attributed to a person is an action that he decided to do for such-and-such reasons, and then I say: okay, he did that act, and it is credited to him, or held against him, or whatever it may be. In other words, even on the conceptual plane—even if I accept this metaphysical speculation—I’m not willing to accept the implication he derives from it.
[Speaker C] So if that’s the case, then it isn’t to say that intention isn’t needed—it’s simply settling the Land of Israel. No, it has nothing to do with intention. So you settled it; you did it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you don’t need to get to intentions at all. But he explains it because of the intentions. You want to suggest another possibility—that commandments simply don’t require intention. So what’s the problem? Why should I care what is in their hearts? Atheists who established settlement, who settled the Land of Israel, fulfilled the commandment of settling the Land by definition. You don’t need to reach metaphysical speculations.
[Speaker B] But according to Maimonides, what does that mean? Someone who denies the Holy One, blessed be He—he is wicked. A wicked person who fulfills a commandment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So he’s a wicked person who fulfills a commandment—what difference does that make? I’m asking whether he fulfills a commandment, not whether he is wicked. That’s a different matter.
[Speaker C] What if they didn’t know it was a commandment? If I give charity to a poor person without knowing there is a commandment of charity—I see a poor person, I have no idea that such a commandment exists, I simply want to help him—did I fulfill the commandment or not?
[Speaker B] Even if you know there is such a commandment and you do it because you pity him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re asking my personal opinion? No. In my opinion, the pioneers—those for whom Judaism was not their religion—I’m stating my opinion.
[Speaker C] The pioneers who drained the swamps and died doing it—they did it so that a few more atheists would come, so that in the end a lot of atheists would settle the Land of Israel. But not from the side of the commandment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. So they settled the Land of Israel, obviously. Obviously they settled the Land of Israel, but they did not fulfill the commandment of settling the Land of Israel. A commandment is a response to a command. There is a command upon me, and I respond to it. He did not respond to the command. He did the action—maybe the command—
[Speaker D] —the categorical imperative perhaps. Maybe he’s a moral person.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Perhaps, fine. He’s a moral person, no problem. And I’m sure there were many moral people among them. More than that, of course everyone owes them a tremendous debt of gratitude for that sacrifice. That’s completely clear. It has no connection to this; I’m speaking now in terms of definition.
[Speaker D] Why did they do it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If they did it for some ideal purpose—for me and for you—what do you mean? They did it because of values. Fine, okay, that’s another question. It’s the dispute between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehuda about the Romans. Yes, that’s it. It’s not certain that this is true, but that’s another discussion. As for the subconscious—there it seems to me he really goes outside the definition we’re talking about here, the inward definition Rabbi Dessler is speaking of here. So that’s just an introduction. I want us to look for a moment at this story of the turkey. Yes: A disaster struck the royal palace. The prince, who until now had been sane and well-mannered, sank into black melancholy and began raving in delusions, rolling around beneath the dining table on the floor and dragging around bits of bread and bones that he found there, saying that he was a turkey. The prince decided to declare himself a turkey, took off his clothes, went under the table, and began eating bones and bits of bread. And not only that, he insisted on no longer wearing clothes, emphasizing that a turkey does not wear clothes. The king suffered greatly because of this. He summoned his doctors and sages, but to no avail. The prince stood his ground: I am a turkey, and there is nothing strange about my behavior, for all turkeys behave this way. And as is well known, turkeys are very particular about consistency, and therefore if turkeys behave this way, then he is being consistent with their rules. One day, after all the doctors and sages had long since despaired of healing him, a certain wise man came from a distant city and claimed that he accepted upon himself to heal him easily. What did the wise man do? He too took off his clothes and sat under the table next to the prince, and he too began dragging around crumbs and bones with an innocent expression as though it were the most natural thing in the world. The prince stared at him in astonishment and asked: Who are you? What are you doing here? The wise man answered him: What are you doing here? I am a turkey, replied the prince innocently. I too am a turkey, the wise man echoed after him. You don’t have a monopoly on turkeys, as they say. A few days passed, even weeks, and the two grew accustomed to one another, eating together the same food without clothing on their bodies, and a strong bond was formed between them. The wise man understood that the time had come to begin real action. He signaled to those around him to throw two shirts under the table, and turning to the prince he said: Do you really think that a turkey cannot wear a shirt and continue being a turkey? And so the two of them put on shirts. Skipping a bit: after a reasonable time had passed, the wise man signaled again, and they threw trousers to them, and he put them on. And again, turning to the prince, he said: Do you think that in trousers one cannot be a turkey? Thus the prince put on one garment after another without any resistance. Again, after a considerable time, the wise man signaled to those present to throw them human food from the table. And again he said to the prince: Do you think that if one eats good food one ceases to be a turkey? It is possible to eat it and still remain a turkey. And he ate. After some time, the wise man turned to the prince and asked him to sit with him on a chair by the table. And from there it wasn’t long before he brought him back entirely to the regular course of life, without the prince sensing that he had become a turkey who in every respect behaves like human beings. And that’s it—then he was healed, and they all lived happily ever after. Now the obvious question is, of course: was the prince really healed?
[Speaker C] He wasn’t healed at all; he just remained a turkey.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Simply speaking, he wasn’t healed at all, right. If he was—
[Speaker C] Was he sick at all? Was he sick at all?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That, yes—that I did speak about once.
[Speaker C] I have no doubt that in the story here he says—because the wise man can’t tell him that a turkey goes “cock-a-doodle-doo”; he has to go “cock-a-doodle-doo.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he can also—not only does a turkey not go “cock-a-doodle-doo,” but even if you don’t go “cock-a-doodle-doo” you can still be a turkey; it’s just that there’s a prohibition on going “cock-a-doodle-doo.” After all, a turkey also doesn’t wear clothes. He told him, fine—if you wear clothes, then you won’t be a turkey? You’ll be a turkey with clothes, what’s the problem? Just now I saw some dog here with a sweater, what’s wrong with that? Perfectly fine. So the first question is of course whether the prince was healed. And apparently not, even though Rabbi Nachman writes that he definitely was—that is, he treats it as a complete healing. And Breslov people tell the parables and what they symbolize and all kinds of things like that.
[Speaker E] Wait, why does Rabbi Nachman write that? I mean, suppose I were sick with some illness and had pains and weakness, and the doctor gave me some story so that now I feel healthy and everything is fine, but really in, say, the liver there is still some inflammation—only it doesn’t affect me right now. I wouldn’t want such a treatment, because I’d say: fine, now it doesn’t affect me, next year it’ll be more serious.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re right. The question is: what is illness?
[Speaker B] The question is, if you ask the prince whether he is a turkey, does he say yes or no? That’s the question. No—if he says yes, then he wasn’t healed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, who says? You’re defining illness as consciousness. One can define the illness as behavior. If I want to—that’s behaviorism in psychology. Behaviorism is basically: I’m willing to relate only to how he behaves, yes—how the person behaves. I’m not interested in all the psychoanalysis and his subconscious and all Freud’s fantasies. What matters is what he does. And the therapeutic path also goes through—by the way, “after the actions, the hearts are drawn”—that’s exactly behaviorism. That is, if there are hearts to be drawn at all—that’s a debate there. Some extreme behaviorists say there are no hearts at all to be drawn; there are only actions. But the less extreme behaviorists say that the treatment of hearts is through performing acts. Meaning, in both diagnosis and treatment, you are supposed to relate only to what the person does. Forget the speculations about his psychological structure and all the psychoanalytic digging of one kind or another. And essentially it’s clear that if you define the prince’s illness as his behavior, then yes, he was healed. In the behaviorist sense, he is healthy. Now the question is whether that really counts as healthy. I wouldn’t define that as healthy because I tend toward a different definition of illness. But one can define him as healthy because he—
[Speaker B] —answers that he is still a turkey.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but again, someone can still come and say: why should I care what he answers? Yes. And he definitely answers, because if he were mute, yes, he wouldn’t know how to answer.
[Speaker B] No, the treatment ended before we know whether he’s mute—whether the prince—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —was healed. Nothing is written. He returned to behaving like a human being, fine. So that’s one question: whether there was really healing here. The second question is the opposite one, and I think it’s the other side of the same coin. This is the point at the center of the story: when the wise man takes off his clothes and goes under the table, the prince asks him, tell me, what are you doing here? What, can’t he understand that another turkey came here to eat crumbs? What’s the problem? Clearly, then, he knows that someone who looks like that is not a turkey, right? It was obvious to him that this wise man was not a turkey. But the wise man was wise. He said: I’m a turkey just like you, of course. Now he has nothing to say. He understands that this wise man isn’t a turkey, but what can he say? If he says to him that he isn’t a turkey, then he’ll also have to admit it regarding himself. So he says, ah, fine, both of us are turkeys, and we continue eating. I think that question is a hint to the answer to the first question. Meaning, now the opposite question arises. First I asked whether the prince was healed; now I ask whether he was ill. Was he ill at all? If he knows that someone who looks like a human being and talks like a human being and walks like a human being is a human being and not a turkey.
[Speaker B] Logical inference.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The logical proof. The consistency of turkeys is also a kind of human characteristic of turkeys. So this opposite question basically says: who says he was ill in the first place?
[Speaker C] That’s for you. No, I’m saying—that’s for you. No, that’s the question.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, look, I’m not entering now into those definitions of illness. The question is whether the problem is a behavioral problem or a psychological one. We discussed that earlier. Everyone can define for himself how he defines illness. I personally tend toward the definition that the psychological problem is the illness, and the behavior is only a reflection of the illness. By the way, very much in line with Rabbi Dessler: what is illness? It’s what is in the soul. True, when it has practical expression, then it is much more significant, and then we also begin to treat it more seriously. As long as there is practical expression, it’s less excusable or more disturbing. Okay, really parallel to the structure we saw earlier in Rabbi Dessler. So now it turns out that there are two opposite questions here. One is whether he was ill at all, and the second is: if he was ill, then was he healed? And I think there is a very interesting conception here also of mental illness—but it is a parable, of course. It is a parable for a person who does not serve God because he thinks he’s not capable, he’s an animal, he’s not a human being, he cannot meet the spiritual levels required of him. So he basically drops everything; he slacks off, yes, nothing interests him. So he says: don’t think—well, think yes, yes, even a turkey can perform commandments. That’s the approach. Start that way, and in the end you’ll understand that you’re not a turkey, and you’ll perform the commandments and stop evading them. Stop dodging them. So there is here a kind of treatment for evasion. Now I’ll try to translate this a bit.
[Speaker B] According to that, according to this approach, he isn’t sick.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, no—now I want to define it a little more precisely.
[Speaker E] Look, in general—yes—there is also the possibility of saying that in the parable it’s not logical, but maybe in what it symbolizes the intention is that the prince actually has a correct perception. Meaning, if that’s the point, then really we—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —really aren’t capable,
[Speaker E] we really aren’t worthy of it, but we still need to eat.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be. But let’s stay with the parable for a moment, because from this perspective it interests me more. When a psychologist treats a patient, I think at least—I don’t know, it’s not my profession—but it seems to me, my intuition says, that if that patient is sick, if something is completely broken there, you can’t treat him. The psychologist can take the point that is still healthy in the person and try to use it to expand the healthy area or to treat the sick areas. He needs some Archimedean point in order to begin working. Something that is completely broken… you can’t treat a cat. A person who has become a cat—meaning he has completely lost all his human dimensions—you won’t be able to treat him. He’s a cat and he’ll remain a cat. It’s only if some dimension remains in him that is still human and healthy, only wrapped in all kinds of problems and illnesses and defects and distortions and so on—then one can try to use that healthy point in order to heal what surrounds it, the periphery, the more external things. I think usually it’s from the inside outward. Maybe one can also go sideways, I don’t know, but only as a metaphor. Now what he is really describing here is precisely the description of an illness that is treatable. Meaning, the person basically knows that he is a human being and not a turkey. But what? He wants to eat kernels. He doesn’t have the energy to eat with a knife and fork and with all the rules of human beings—why should he care?
[Speaker H] He wants to get rid of it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I declare myself a turkey. Now what does it mean to declare myself a turkey? It means deceiving the surroundings. But what usually happens is that you begin deceiving yourself. Meaning, at some stage you already convince yourself that you’re a turkey. And why? Because a person usually looks for rationalization for what he does. A person doesn’t simply think one way and act another way, full stop. That usually doesn’t happen. I somehow need to wrap it, I need to blur a little what I think, distort it a bit: no, it’s not so bad, it’s really a good deed, because after all there is another way to interpret it, and so on. So a person finds some rationalization for himself. He builds a theory that he’s a turkey, and really who says a turkey can’t also be like this, and I too am a turkey. And then, again, it’s a somewhat banal metaphor, but I think that’s what the parable is saying: that the person, at his core, knows that he is a human being, otherwise he couldn’t be treated. That doesn’t mean he isn’t ill. Since the illness is basically a state in which a person convinces himself that he is a turkey even though deep down—by the time he has fully convinced himself—somewhere in the subconscious he still knows that he is a human being. There is some healthy point in there. But that is already really deep inside. Meaning, now he already lives—in consciousness—inside the world he built, and now he is a turkey. That is mental illness. That is mental illness, but it is an illness that by definition is an illness of the shell. Meaning, inside there is still a point that remained healthy, that grasps reality correctly. And then when the man comes under the table and says to him, tell me, what are you doing here? As if human beings aren’t supposed to be here—suddenly he himself may be able to discover some flash of the thing that he really knows is true in the depth, but he wraps it over.
[Speaker D] So that’s the Superman point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, wait, we’ll come back to that later. I just want to finish this description. So now, what does the wise man do in order to heal him? If that really is the illness, then it is treatable. What does he do? He says to him: look, let me show you that this rationalization won’t help you on the practical level. Meaning, after all, we want you to wear clothes. You don’t want to wear clothes because you’re convincing yourself that you’re a turkey. But understand: a turkey can also wear clothes. There’s nothing wrong with it. Don’t think that we dressed you. You are a turkey that we dressed. You have no answer to that, right? What will you say—that it’s forbidden for me to wear clothes? It’s not forbidden; you can, right? So I dressed you, sat you on a chair, you’re eating with knife and fork, human food. So what’s the point of staying with the theory that I’m a turkey? After all, this whole theory was built only to allow me to behave like a turkey. But if I can solve the practical results—here behaviorism works, behaviorism in the second sense—if I can change the practical outcomes in some completely technical way, without healing him inside, then he will also be healed inside. He will also be healed inside because from the outset his entire inner illness was there in order to allow the practical consequences. But if it doesn’t allow him those practical consequences, then what does he gain from the whole gimmick? He will return to the perception that already exists within him—that he is really a human being and not a turkey. Yes.
[Speaker E] Is there no way to understand it the other way around? I mean, he’s sick, let’s say, from the inside. This thought entered him and that’s what lies at the foundation. Fine, that really doesn’t fit with that opening bit where he recognizes him. So here maybe you can either say that maybe that wasn’t the original intention. Okay. But therefore I’ll try to persuade him to change his behavior technically, until from the new behavior—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —he adopts the perception.
[Speaker E] After the actions, the hearts are drawn.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then again I’ll ask: was he really healed? Because that would only be an external rationalization that he is really a human being, while inside he thinks he’s a turkey.
[Speaker E] Why? What does “inside” mean? In the subconscious he thinks he’s a turkey. Yes. But we said that the subconscious doesn’t count.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With commandments, maybe. With mental illness too? I don’t know.
[Speaker B] If you solve my public sexual transgression problem, will I no longer be an idol worshiper?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s exactly what I’m saying, exactly where I’m headed.
[Speaker C] Was he healed only from the symptoms?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. My claim is that he was healed essentially as well. Because after all, the whole reason he built within himself this consciousness that “I am a turkey” is not because he truly believes it. He knows inside that it’s not true. Rather, it allows him to behave like a turkey, and therefore he clings to that theory. People build theories for themselves all the time that inside they know are not true, but they allow them to behave the way they want to behave. So they hold onto that theory with the tips of their fingers, tightly—yes, clinging to the horns of the altar. Fine? But if I can change the outcomes, why should he remain with the theory? After all, the theory is not true. It only came to let him behave that way.
[Speaker C] Does he have that rationale?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, of course he does—that’s exactly what I’m saying.
[Speaker C] I mean, at his base is he a normal person in rational states?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. He really is. And that’s why I prefaced—no, I said beforehand—
[Speaker C] No, then he’s not sick. So he’s not sick.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Incorrect. Incorrect. That’s what I’m saying—that’s not correct. This is what is called an illness, a treatable illness. A treatable illness is still an illness. A person who convinces himself that he’s a turkey is ill, even if inside he knows he isn’t. So how… But it’s an illness that can be cured, unlike someone who all the way down inside has become convinced that he’s a turkey. He no longer understands at all—if a person came down beside him, he wouldn’t ask him at all—
[Speaker G] —what are you doing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He wouldn’t speak. He no longer speaks.
[Speaker G] The turkey doesn’t speak.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes.
[Speaker C] Someone—I told the Rabbi about a friend, never mind his name, a psychologist with a doctorate—who had a patient come to him with some syndrome where he said every word twice. “I I want want”—every word twice. And he spoke fluently like that. Within two or three sessions he eliminated it. He told him: from now—from this moment, not from today—you say every word three times. The guy started counting; suddenly he noticed he says every word twice. Was he healed or not? The syndrome left him. I don’t know. That need remained—after all, he’s counting now.
[Speaker H] Not necessarily. I don’t know.
[Speaker E] Wait, what do you mean?
[Speaker C] So even after a year he keeps counting? No, but after three or four sessions the whole thing is gone. He doesn’t care about Freud or that—some method. So he told him: no—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand. But now he says every—now he says each thing, now he says every word three times? It’s psychological. No, wait, what does counting mean? He counts up to one—what does it mean to count?
[Speaker C] The stage where he said every word… no, and therefore what? He didn’t know he was saying it twice. Okay, so when he told him to count to three—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now he doesn’t count, because he says it once. What is there to count with once? You count to one. Now you count to one—I don’t understand. Fine, guys, he inflates this with methods—
[Speaker B] He’s drilling me.
[Speaker C] That’s what he told him. Guys, let’s finish.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, there’s a Talmudic passage—the Mishnah in tractate Arakhin says that someone who does not want to bring an offering, they put pressure on him or compel him, even though the offering must be brought with his consent; they compel him until he says, “I want to.” And likewise with bills of divorce for women: they compel him until he says, “I want to.” Now the famous Maimonides, in the Laws of Divorce, explains “they compel him until he says, ‘I want to’” in a way that sounds like that same kind of mysticism as Rabbi Kook—namely, that he really does want to. Meaning, yes, that it is really a person’s true will to fulfill the commandment, the Jewish law—like the Inquisition.
[Speaker H] The Inquisition works on the same principle too—the person has to arrive at his own truth,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To my truth, not to his truth. No—what should be his truth, yes. In any case, Maimonides explains there that basically every person, deep down, wants to observe Jewish law. Except what? The yeast in the dough gets in the way—there’s an evil inclination—and we beat him, we coerce him until he says, “I am willing.” Once he says, “I am willing,” everything is fine. Why is everything fine? After all, he doesn’t really want to; he’s doing it only because you’re beating him. No, not at all—he really does want to. That is his true will; the blows only helped him uncover it. Okay, that sounds a little strange. Meaning, when we see a situation like that, it’s pretty obvious that when the person says, “I am willing,” what he really means is: stop hitting me. That’s what he means. He’s not saying that I really want this; he just wants them to stop hitting him. Now, there are those who explain “I am willing” that way, and for me that would be enough. Even if he wants to divorce his wife only so they won’t beat him, he still wants to divorce his wife so they won’t beat him. So what difference does it make? Why should I care about the reason? Bottom line, does he want to divorce her? Then he wants to. But Maimonides doesn’t say that. Maimonides says—yes, that’s the “they forced him and he sold” case in that Talmudic passage—so there are medieval authorities (Rishonim) who explain it that way. But Maimonides doesn’t explain it that way. Maimonides says this is his true will. What’s the idea here? This sounds, once again, like some weird metaphysics.
[Speaker E] According to the first opinion you mentioned, then even if they beat him not for the sake of a commandment, the divorce would still be valid? Just if some random people came, according to the first opinion?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You mean—yes—so it would seem, I think, that according to that, if it’s beatings not for the sake of a commandment, then it’s simply forbidden to do it. But theoretically, if you did do it, the divorce should still be valid.
[Speaker E] There could be practical implications too.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be. Though it’s possible that here too the Sages already invalidated the divorce because they prohibited it. In the accepted approaches, there is no divorce in such a case; if it’s not according to Jewish law, then she is not divorced. But the question is whether that’s because of an annulment by the Sages, or because she really is not divorced. Okay, that’s a different discussion. In any case, Maimonides explains that this is his true will, and from a simple perspective that’s very strange.
[Speaker H] How is that different from a recalcitrant husband in a divorce case who demands a million dollars and only then divorces her? He gets a million dollars and then agrees, right? It’s like the beatings.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And then now people say the same thing. Only here the difference is between—we talked about the difference between enticement and extortion. Nozick’s paradox, right? Nozick’s paradox. He asks what the difference is between enticement and extortion. In both cases I present you with two options, where in one of them you’ll have more than in the other, right? If it’s enticement, it’s relational, yes. If it’s enticement, it’s permitted; if it’s extortion, it’s forbidden. If I say to you, do this act or else I’ll beat you—that’s forbidden, that’s extortion. If I say to you, do this act and you’ll get a hundred shekels; otherwise I won’t give you a hundred shekels—that’s certainly permitted, that’s enticement. What’s the difference? After all, relationally it’s the same thing, no? That it’s mine and that isn’t mine. Yes. Or there’s some kind of status—the question is whether you’re taking or withholding. Yes—whether you… the difference between giving and not giving, or taking and not taking. Meaning, it’s not only relational.
[Speaker B] But that’s the difference…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s the difference if you had…
[Speaker B] How much are you willing to pay so they’ll reattach your arm, or how much are you willing to pay so they won’t cut off your arm.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, same thing. So also… yes, so that’s the difference between giving a million shekels—still not the same as beating. That’s what someone who rejects the comparison would say: because giving a million shekels is enticement and that’s permitted, while this is extortion, so there is a difference. In any case, for our purposes, I think this Maimonides is completely straightforward. There is no metaphysics here at all, and it’s completely clear that he’s right. It’s exactly what I said before—that’s the turkey story. Suppose for the sake of argument that a person really wants to observe Jewish law. Overall, if a person lives his whole life as someone who keeps the commandments, the assumption is that he really does want to observe Jewish law. That’s a reasonable assumption, right? So why isn’t he doing it here? I’m talking about such a person. Now he’s not doing what
[Speaker B] he’s supposed to—he’s not giving
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the bill of divorce to the wife in a case where Jewish law says he must, or he’s not bringing the offering, or something like that. Why is he doing this? He has an evil inclination, obviously, right? He got angry at her, he wants to make her miserable—the wife—or the offering, I don’t know exactly what. He has some impulse and so he doesn’t do it. Revenge, whatever—something is mixing him up, okay? And then of course he builds theories. What are the theories? What do you mean? Here, after all, there’s no need—there’s no need to give the divorce at all. Who said Jewish law says he has to give the divorce? These judges don’t understand anything. Obviously he doesn’t have to. She’s just wicked; she should be made miserable, and that’s all. He builds the theory, and I think that anyone who knows these kinds of cases will hear this—I’m convinced. A person will explain to you with signs and wonders that he is a servant of God and a person who keeps commandments, yes? He is wholly serving God. You say, wait a second, but Jewish law says you have to give a divorce; the judges told you so. He says, they don’t understand anything. Obviously here in Jewish law there’s no obligation; Jewish law does not say that a divorce has to be given here. Obviously not. Right? Now what does that mean? It means he is building himself a theory because he needs to justify his behavior to himself. What do we do? We beat him. We tell him: listen, nothing is going to help you. This woman is going to be divorced whether you want it or not. We will beat you until you bleed and until you say, “I am willing,” and give her the divorce, and she will be divorced. Then he’ll say, what will you gain? She’s not really divorced, because I don’t really want it. And we tell him: nevertheless. Exactly—and now that’s what collapses the whole thing. Now there is no reason for him to build those theories, because again, this is all under the assumption that he really wants to serve God, of course. So I’m saying: here reason really says that this is basically just a theory that his impulse, or his anger, whatever it is, is leading him to live in a delusional world. I told him: that whole delusional world won’t help you. This woman is going to get married; you’ll dance at her wedding whether you want to or not. So nothing will help him. Meaning, in the end, why build the theory? There’s no point. So he lets it go; then he really does want to divorce.
[Speaker B] That’s why you also don’t need someone who serves God. What? Because if he doesn’t believe in it, then you can divorce him in civil court and she’ll be divorced. No, and she’ll be divorced. What—if I don’t believe in Jewish law
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and I don’t want to divorce, then
[Speaker B] from my point of view, after all, they’ll take the woman to court and do it civilly, and she’ll be divorced. I can’t prevent that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But in Jewish law, you know that Jewish law is not like that.
[Speaker B] You don’t believe in Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t believe—so what? But the law determines that Jewish law determines it here. That won’t help you. I’m saying, clearly there’s a stricter implication here—we have to understand. The implication is that, for example, coercing a person with regard to whom we do not have this presumption—that he wants to serve God—won’t help. When people criticize the religious courts for not using the option of coercion in divorce cases, or not using it enough, and certainly not with enough force—in some cases I think the criticism is justified. In a large number of cases it won’t help. Meaning, if we’re dealing with a person about whom we do not have this strange turkey-like presumption, which says that basically the person really is committed to serving God, it’s just that some impulse is confusing him—in such a case, one second, in such a case coercion will not help. It won’t help, because the whole mechanism of coercion is meant to bring us back to what the person truly wants. This is not an invention; people see this as some kind of fiction—as if he says “I am willing” and everything is fine, and we just ignore the fact that in his heart he doesn’t really want it. It’s not fiction. It’s real. It’s a real psychological mechanism. And therefore, if it works, then it works. But if that internal basis isn’t there, then nothing will help. That’s exactly the meaning of the turkey story. Now the interesting question is: why do we need to coerce him until he says, “I am willing”? So that he’ll put on clothes? So that he…
[Speaker C] No,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] you give a divorce—let’s move now to the husband who doesn’t want to divorce his wife. I beat him and beat him, but even if he gives the wife the divorce, if he didn’t say “I am willing,” that’s not enough. He has to say “I am willing” and then give it to her. Now if in his heart he really does want to—and that’s the assumption, right? Otherwise the whole mechanism of coercion can’t work—so then he wants it even without saying “I am willing,” because that really is his true will.
[Speaker B] Does he have to say “I am willing”?
[Speaker C] He dismantled the theory.
[Speaker B] Wait,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Does he have to say “I am willing”? Before the theory—I’m saying, before he dismantled the theory. Isn’t it enough on that level? No, no, no. He has to be in a state where he has been healed, where he
[Speaker B] is aware, brings it out.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, that he brought it out.
[Speaker C] Exactly like what we said—Rabbi Dessler.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s a very interesting point here. This explanation seems to me a very correct explanation of Maimonides. I think in general—I think it’s simply a correct explanation. But then it’s not clear why in the end we need to reach a point where he says, “I am willing.” And the answer is because an unconscious will is worth nothing. I’m returning to Rabbi Kook and these ideas. An unconscious will is worth nothing. It exists—it’s not that it doesn’t exist. That’s my second argument with Rabbi Kook. Even if the will exists there inside somewhere, it still doesn’t help me; it’s not something I can take into account. I need it to penetrate to the forefront of consciousness in order for this thing to count as his will. So on the one hand I assume that there is some inner will of the person, because without that the whole mechanism of coercion can’t work here. On the other hand, that inner will which already exists within him from the outset is not enough for me. I need to heal him, so that he puts on clothes, says “I am willing.” Until then he has not been healed. Until then, it is not a will that she be divorced. My teacher, nothing means nothing.
[Speaker D] My teacher, nothing means nothing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine, true, obviously I exaggerated. But I’m saying that on the principled level, here you really see this idea—which Rabbi Dessler also says—that although what matters most is what is in the heart, it has to come to expression outside in order for me to take what’s in the heart seriously. Even though what really matters is that he wants it. The main thing is not that he says it—why should I care what he said? But when he says it, that is an actual expression, an external expression, a practical expression of what exists in his heart, and only then do I relate to him as someone who truly wants it.
[Speaker F] And if he says “I am willing” but what he really means is not “I am willing,” but “I am willing not to get beaten”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s exactly it—so we claim that that is not the situation. When he says “I am willing,” he really wants to. So it’s enough that they say we
[Speaker B] complete it as him wanting.
[Speaker F] And that means despite the theories. So if it’s with your theory that he wants to invalidate the divorce and…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I want to be
[Speaker F] Jewish, I want to be a good person, I want to be an upright person, Jewish… so then you can also go back to what Rabbi Kook says—that every person has faith…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I said: I’m willing to accept the speculation that inside him there is some kind of faith. But I argued that I have another claim against that. Even if inside, in the subconscious, there is some such faith, the question still remains whether such a thing can count as the fulfillment of a commandment. Since a person’s consciousness has to be conscious in order for the thing to count as his act. And if it only exists there somewhere, deep inside his heart, planted there by the Holy One, blessed be He, then from my point of view it is valueless. Here in this context too it is valueless. You need it, because without it the mechanism of coercion won’t work if it isn’t there inside. But the fact that it exists inside, in and of itself, does not constitute will.
[Speaker B] It still doesn’t count. The analogy is: he doesn’t say “I am willing” to divorce; it’s not “I am willing” to fulfill the commandment of divorce.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “I am willing” to divorce—that’s the intention. “I am willing” to divorce—that’s the intention.
[Speaker B] So same thing here: I am willing to settle the Land of Israel.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But when we’re talking about a person who does not have the presumption that he… that he wants to observe commandments.