An Overview of Positive and Negative Commandments and Their Application to the Commandments of Chametz

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lecture

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I’ll get to that in just a moment. Those who still haven’t done this, pay attention—there’s a commandment here. I’ll talk about it in a moment. In any case, this is Maimonides’ approach: there are four types of positive commandments. A few qualifications or comments so as to avoid confusion. A lot of times people identify a positive commandment of a merely optional-fulfilling kind, like tzitzit. Right, tzitzit—if you want to wear a four-cornered garment and put fringes on it, then put fringes on it. That’s a commandment, you fulfill a positive commandment. But if you don’t wear a four-cornered garment and you don’t have tzitzit on you, nothing happened. Therefore, some later authorities also refer to this as though the commandment of tzitzit were an optional positive commandment. That is a mistake, of course. Why is that a mistake? Because an optional-fulfilling commandment is one that you cannot neglect in the sense of violating it—you can only fulfill it. With tzitzit that’s not true. There is a case in which I neglect the positive commandment of tzitzit. How? If I wear a four-cornered garment and I didn’t put fringes on it, then I have neglected the positive commandment of tzitzit. And with an optional-fulfilling positive commandment there is no such thing as neglecting the positive commandment. You can’t neglect it, even if you want to. Therefore tzitzit is not a good example. So what is tzitzit? Tzitzit is a conditional obligatory positive commandment. Meaning, it is an obligatory positive commandment—you are required to fulfill it—but that obligation depends on the existence of certain circumstances. In other words, if you wear a four-cornered garment, that’s the circumstance, then the commandment of tzitzit takes effect upon you. In that state it is an obligatory positive commandment, you must put on tzitzit, and if you didn’t put on tzitzit then you have neglected a positive commandment. Therefore it is an obligatory positive commandment in every respect. It’s just a commandment that applies to you only under certain circumstances. There are prior conditions or requirements that condition the application of the commandment. Therefore it is more correct to say that this is a conditional obligatory positive commandment. By the way, Grace after Meals is like that too. Someone who ate a garment of… someone who ate to the point of satiety is obligated to recite Grace after Meals. Someone who didn’t eat and didn’t recite it—did he neglect a positive commandment? No. Would anyone even think of saying that Grace after Meals is an optional-fulfilling positive commandment? Of course not. It’s an obligatory positive commandment; it just applies to you when you ate to the point of satiety. That’s all. And what is the indication? The indication is whether there is a situation in which you are considered to have neglected a positive commandment. In Grace after Meals and in tzitzit there is such a situation. If you ate to the point of satiety and didn’t recite Grace after Meals, you neglected that positive commandment. If you wore a four-cornered garment and didn’t put tzitzit on it, you neglected that positive commandment. If it is possible to neglect that commandment, that means it is an obligatory commandment, not an optional one. It’s just a conditional obligatory commandment. Okay? By the way, the same goes for divorce. With divorce, people usually understand it—yes, Professor Turkel’s question—people usually understand it not as an optional-fulfilling positive commandment but as a definitional commandment, a commandment of definition. Basically, with the commandment of divorce there is no obligation to divorce and no prohibition against divorcing, and no prohibition against not divorcing. If you decide to divorce, this is how you do it. Seemingly this is like annulment of vows and like impurity. But if you read Sefer HaChinukh in the portion of Ki Tetze, at the end of the commandment of divorce, you’ll see that he writes this: that it is a commandment to send one’s wife away with a bill of divorce, and one who neglects this has a great punishment. There is neglect of a positive commandment. So my claim—and this needs expansion, I can do that, it has many, many fascinating implications—my claim is that this really is a conditional obligatory positive commandment. It’s not an optional-fulfilling positive commandment; it’s not a definitional commandment, sorry. It’s a conditional obligatory positive commandment. What does that mean? If you are already in the state called “divorced in heart,” so to speak, you’ve already decided to separate, you’re no longer really living as a couple, then you have an obligatory commandment to divorce your wife with a bill of divorce.

[Speaker B] So that she won’t remain an agunah. Yes, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s how Sefer HaChinukh writes there too. Why is his punishment great when he has neglected this positive commandment? Because he leaves her an agunah. That’s how he explains the neglect of the positive commandment here. Meaning that this is really a conditional obligatory positive commandment. It is conditioned on circumstances in which you have already de facto dismantled the marital unit. So if you dismantled the marital unit, then do it properly and release her. Therefore this is a conditional obligatory positive commandment and not a procedural commandment.

[Speaker E] Rabbi, excuse me, Rabbi, this issue of impurity that you brought as Maimonides’ fourth possibility—I don’t really understand it. After all, with a transgression, and I assume also with a commandment, there are two elements. There’s mens rea and there’s actus reus. In the matter of impurity there is only actus reus. There is nothing in my awareness, nothing in my will. So how can that be?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Can you translate that only into spoken Turkish—what does that mean?

[Speaker E] Mens rea means that when you commit a transgression, you need to commit it with intent, with awareness, with thought. Actus reus has to be an action. An action—meaning, you have the desire to perform that act, and with these two elements the transgression is carried out.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, so what? What did you just say?

[Speaker E] With impurity you don’t have mens rea. You just became impure by accident, and that’s the end of it. It’s not that you’re doing something with thought, with a will to do something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Impurity is much more than that. It’s not a transgression at all to become impure. Forget for now whether criminal intent is missing here or whether the act is missing. You need neither intent nor act, because there is no transgression here at all. It’s a definition.

[Speaker E] But why put that among the commandments?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly what I’m saying. Because for Maimonides, the concept of a commandment is essentially equivalent to the term “law.” The Book of Commandments is the law book. Now in a law book there are also definitional sections. For example, there could be a law that says: a minor, for the purpose of such-and-such law, is someone whose age is such-and-such, or who meets such-and-such conditions. And that can be a section in the law book. For Maimonides, a section in the law book is called a commandment.

[Speaker E] And it enters the count of the 613?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s his novelty. Even though it commands you nothing, that’s what he writes there explicitly. He says: know that this commands you nothing, it does not prohibit you from anything, and it does not obligate you to do anything. It’s a definition. Yes, that’s his claim. Okay, let’s continue because this is taking me a bit of time. Maybe just one final qualification—for example, the commandment of tekhelet. We know that the tekhelet does not hold back the white, and the white does not hold back the tekhelet. That’s a Mishnah in tractate Menachot. Okay? Now there are those who think that the commandment of tekhelet is voluntary, because it doesn’t hold things up, basically—it’s up to you, an optional-fulfilling positive commandment. If you did tekhelet, then it’s a positive commandment, and if you didn’t, nothing happened, because it doesn’t hold back the white. A big mistake, of course. The commandment of tekhelet is an obligatory positive commandment. Obligatory, and not even conditional—well, conditional the way all tzitzit is conditional, but not beyond that. So what, then? If you didn’t put in tekhelet, that doesn’t hold back the white. Meaning, the commandment of the white remains in force, but clearly you neglected the positive commandment of tekhelet. So the fact that it doesn’t hold things up does not mean that it is voluntary. It doesn’t hold back the commandment of the white, another commandment that depends on it—or that you might have thought depends on it. But clearly, if you didn’t put in tekhelet, you neglected the positive commandment of tekhelet.

[Speaker B] Why is it two commandments? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Maimonides writes that tekhelet and white are two commandments, while the arm-tefillin and head-tefillin are one commandment, even though in both cases neither one holds back the other. It appears in that same Mishnah, and Maimonides in Principle 11 says there is a difference between them with respect to the commandments. In any case, this is also true regarding beautifying a commandment. People think beautifying a commandment is voluntary. If you want, take a beautiful etrog, it’ll be nicer. If you didn’t take a beautiful etrog, nothing happened. I think that’s not correct. Here I don’t have so many proofs, but it seems to me simple logic. Clearly, if you didn’t take a beautiful etrog, you neglected the commandment of “this is my God and I will beautify Him.” It doesn’t invalidate the commandment of the etrog—the commandment of the etrog still stands. But there is a commandment to beautify the other commandments. If you didn’t do that, then you neglected the commandment of beautification. It just doesn’t invalidate the commandment itself. Beautification does not invalidate the commandment, yes, like what I said about tekhelet. Many times when we say that one thing doesn’t hold back another, we get the feeling that it’s just some optional commandment—but it isn’t. It can be an obligatory commandment; it just doesn’t hold back something else. But if you yourself did not fulfill it, then you neglected a positive commandment. It is an obligatory commandment. Okay. Let’s move on. Now I return—those were the general preliminaries. Now I return to the prohibition of leaven and the prohibitions of “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found,” as against the positive commandment of “you shall remove it.” In principle, one can understand the relation between those prohibitions and the positive commandment concerning leaven in many different ways. One could understand it as a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment—yes, like theft. Or, a prohibition attached to a positive commandment, sorry, like theft. Meaning, you steal, and then there is the positive commandment, “and he shall return the stolen item that he stole.” That is a positive commandment that comes to repair the prohibition. Or “you shall remove it” comes to prevent your violating “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found.” And if you do it after the time of prohibition—yes, the removal really ought to be done before the time of prohibition. But even after the time of prohibition, in the simple sense there is still a commandment of removal. If you found leaven after the time of prohibition, remove it. In that case it is even more similar to a prohibition attached to a positive commandment, like burning notar, leftover sacrificial meat. So that there not be a violation of “do not leave it over,” but if you did leave it over, then burn it—“and that which remains of it until morning, you shall burn in fire.” So that is one way to understand it: that this is basically a positive commandment that detaches the prohibition, or repairs the prohibition, or if you like, prevents the prohibition. That’s one possibility. A second possibility is to say that this is basically some kind of prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. Meaning, if you have leaven, then you have not—then you neglected the positive commandment of “you shall remove it,” but it’s not that there is really an active positive commandment to remove. There is also the possibility of saying that it is a doubled prohibition and positive commandment. A doubled prohibition and positive commandment means a prohibition and a positive commandment with the same content, as we saw regarding rest on the Sabbath—they essentially say the same thing, just one in the form of a prohibition and one in the form of a positive commandment. And there is yet another possibility: to say that this is a prohibition that supports a positive commandment. What is a prohibition that supports a positive commandment? This is Nachmanides’ innovation. Nachmanides argues in his novellae on page 34 that there are certain prohibitions whose whole function is basically to support a positive commandment. For example, that’s how he explains “do not place bloodguilt in your house” together with “you shall make a parapet for your roof.” So there is a positive commandment of making a parapet, and “do not place bloodguilt in your house,” the prohibition, is basically a whip meant to ensure that you fulfill the positive commandment. One of the implications, he says, is that if the commandment of a parapet were time-bound, women would be exempt also from the prohibition, not only from the positive commandment. Since the whole purpose of the prohibition is to make sure you fulfill the positive commandment—but from a time-bound positive commandment women are exempt—so automatically the prohibition also is not relevant to them, because the prohibition comes to ensure that the positive commandment is fulfilled. And there are various implications of this; later authorities bring various implications of this matter. So there is also the possibility with leaven to say that the prohibitions support the positive commandment, or that the positive commandment supports the prohibitions, depending on the direction—but these are two additional ways to understand the relation between them.

[Speaker D] And there’s a question—I didn’t understand. We said there’s no Torah-level fence, so what is the difference between a fence and something supportive?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who said there is none? It could be that this too is an example of a Torah-level fence, like we saw regarding seclusion, like we saw regarding removal.

[Speaker D] But we said there’s no such thing as a fence from the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I brought the Lekach Tov, who says that’s not true—there are examples where there are. He could perhaps also have brought this Nachmanides. It’s only Nachmanides; other medieval authorities there disagree with him. But it is Nachmanides’ innovation, and there are later authorities who make various uses of it. So it may very well be that this is yet another example of something that is a kind of fence—basically yes, it comes to ensure something else. It has no independent value; it comes to serve something outside itself. Fair enough. So now, these things actually depend on the question of how one defines the positive commandment of removal itself. How do you define it? And of course that’s connected to the question of its relation to the prohibition. Because I can define this in two principal ways, each of which splits in two. One can say that “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found” basically tell me—maybe I’ll formulate it this way—that the prohibition and the positive commandment are basically a doubled prohibition and positive commandment. “It shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found” tell me that a state in which there is leaven is a bad state; the positive commandment of “you shall remove it” tells me that a state without leaven is a good state. It comes to define a good state, and you must strive toward that state, okay? That’s one possibility. A second possibility is that the positive commandment, unlike the prohibitions, says that there is a law to perform an act of destruction—not merely that I need to be in a state in which I have no leaven, but a commandment of action, to carry out an act of destruction. Now each of these two possibilities can itself be subdivided. Say I am talking about a positive commandment regarding the state, about the result that I have no leaven, not about the act of destroying the leaven but about the state in which I have no leaven. One can understand this as a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. What does that mean? If I don’t have leaven—sorry, if I do have leaven on Passover, then besides having violated “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found,” I also neglected the positive commandment of “you shall remove it”—I did not remove the leaven. So I do not have an obligation to remove the leaven, but if I have leaven then I have neglected the positive commandment of “you shall remove it,” really like a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. That’s one possibility. A second possibility: no, actually if I do not have leaven on Passover, then I have fulfilled the positive commandment of “you shall remove it.” Again, this is not an obligation to remove it with my hands; it is a positive commandment concerning the result, not the action. But if the result indeed occurred, then I have fulfilled the commandment. This is a commandment that can be fulfilled and not only neglected. That is basically the difference between an optional-fulfilling commandment and an obligatory commandment. Meaning, the commandment of “you shall remove it” could be understood as a commandment of result that basically wants there not to be leaven in my possession. But that itself can be defined in two ways: either this is an obligatory commandment, meaning that if I have leaven on Passover then I neglected this positive commandment, and if I do not have leaven on Passover then I fulfilled the positive commandment of “you shall remove it” even though I did not actively remove it, but bottom line I have no leaven on Passover, because that state itself is the fulfillment of the positive commandment, as we saw regarding resting on the Sabbath, that one can fulfill a positive commandment by passive omission—to rest, okay? A second possibility is that this is an optional-fulfilling positive commandment, a positive commandment of the type of a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment—meaning that if I have no leaven on Passover, then all is fine. I did not fulfill a positive commandment, but all is fine. If I do have leaven on Passover, then I committed a transgression, I neglected the positive commandment of “you shall remove it”; it is a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. Here the question is, when I speak about a commandment of result: is there also a positive commandment in the fact that I have no leaven, or only in the fact that if I do have leaven there is neglect of the positive commandment? Those are the two possibilities if I define it as a commandment about a state or a result. If I define it as a commandment about an action, not a result, then that too can be understood in two ways. One can understand that we are talking about an action that is optional-fulfilling—or conditional, if you prefer, not optional. What does that mean? If you have leaven, you must destroy it—a positive commandment. But if you have no leaven, nothing happened; then you are under no obligation to destroy. Like a parapet. Someone who has no house does not need to build a parapet, right? That is a conditional positive commandment. Meaning, the commandment of “you shall remove it” is a commandment to perform an act of removal, but this depends on the question whether I have leaven or not. If I have leaven, I am obligated to remove it. If I don’t have leaven, nothing happened. A second possibility—and this is what some later authorities say—is that no, this is an obligatory positive commandment. What does that mean? An obligatory positive commandment concerning the action. If I don’t have leaven, then buy leaven and remove it in order to fulfill the commandment of “you shall remove it.” Then it is really an obligatory positive commandment, not a conditional one. You have to make sure you have leaven and remove it. The point is not that you should not have leaven, but rather that you should perform an act of removing leaven. Now, I’m saying all these possibilities because I see that we don’t have much time left, so I’m just saying that once you take all these possibilities into account, you can see that a great many of the arguments made by later authorities collapse. Because they assume—they ignore some of the possibilities for defining the commandment of “you shall remove it.” For example, there are those who argue that if it is a commandment of action, the practical consequence is that one must buy leaven even if he doesn’t have any. But that’s not true. It could be a commandment of action that is a conditional obligatory commandment. If I have leaven, then I remove it. And they understand that if I don’t need to buy leaven, but only if I have it I must remove it, then that must mean it’s a commandment of result: I need to make sure I have no leaven, but there is no law to perform an act of removal. And that is not true. It can be—or rather, it is not necessary. It could be a דין on the action, the act of removal. It is a commandment of action, but conditioned on my having leaven. That doesn’t mean I’m obligated to buy leaven if I don’t have any. Therefore all these possibilities exist, and many of the analyses and difficulties that later authorities raise here—once one understands the full range of possibilities that I have outlined up to this point—one sees that those arguments fall away. For example, first example: Maimonides, in the law that brings the removal—I read it earlier—and Maimonides says, sorry, not in the law, in commandment 156, Maimonides says there, citing the Jerusalem Talmud if you remember, that with leaven there is the positive commandment and the prohibition. It very much sounds from Maimonides as though this is a positive and negative commandment with overlapping content. And if the content overlaps, that means that basically the positive commandment too concerns only the fact that I should not have leaven, just like “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found.” And the relation between the prohibition and the positive commandment is like in the sixth principle, like the prohibition and positive commandment of resting on the Sabbath. Okay? Not that there really is a commandment to remove. Fine, I’m really only doing this briefly so that you see the range of possibilities, because there is a lot to expand on here, and a lot of fine distinctions in the later and medieval authorities, and so on. Now for our purposes, there is a well-known teaching of Rabbi Chaim that I want to discuss a little. I’ll share the file. The Mishnah in tractate Pesachim, on page 21, at the end of the Mishnah, says as follows: Rabbi Yehuda says: leaven may only be destroyed by burning. And the Sages say: one may even crumble it and scatter it to the wind, or cast it into the sea. Okay? So Rabbi Yehuda says only by burning, and the Sages say however you want. Okay? So seemingly according to Rabbi Yehuda it is quite clear that this is a commandment of action, right? There are two ways to define a commandment of action, as we saw above, but according to Rabbi Yehuda it is quite clear that this is a commandment of action. Why? Because if the commandment were only about the result—that I should not have leaven—then why should I care whether I burn it or crumble it and scatter it to the wind or throw it into the sea? The main thing is that I shouldn’t have leaven. If Rabbi Yehuda specifically requires an act of burning, that means the Torah is clearly interested in the act of removal of the leaven, not in the final result that I no longer have leaven. And the Torah wants specifically an act of burning. So in Rabbi Yehuda it is quite clear that this is an obligation of action and not an obligation of result. As I said before, there are still two ways to understand it if it is an obligation of action. Am I required to buy leaven in order to burn it? Or only if I have leaven, then I must burn it, but if not then not? So there are two opinions within Rabbi Yehuda.

[Speaker B] Is this during Passover itself? Also before, also during the day?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not getting into that—that’s the beginning of the Mishnah. And it’s an extremely complicated issue among the medieval authorities. The question of what happens before the time for its destruction and after the time for its destruction—I’m not going into it here; I don’t have time. The Sages say, one may even crumble it and scatter it to the wind—what does that mean? Seemingly, that this is a commandment of result. What are they basically saying? I don’t care—crumble it and scatter it to the wind, burn it—the main thing is that in the end you won’t have leaven. So seemingly, the question whether this is a commandment of action or a commandment of result is a tannaitic dispute. Of course, within each such possibility—commandment of action or commandment of result—there are the two possibilities I defined above, but still, seemingly this is a tannaitic dispute. Already here I’ll say that this is not necessary. In Rabbi Yehuda’s view it is pretty clear that it is a commandment of action. But in the view of the Sages it is by no means necessary to say that this is a commandment of result. It could be that the Sages say there is a commandment of action to remove the leaven—not only that I should not have leaven, but a commandment to perform an act of removing the leaven. It’s just that the Sages maintain that this need not be done specifically by burning; it can also be done in other ways, so long as you perform an act of removal. A practical implication, for example—I can even formulate it in the most extreme way—is that even if I have no leaven, I am obligated to buy leaven and then perform an act of removal. What act of removal? Burning, crumbling and scattering to the wind, throwing into the sea—whatever you want. According to the Sages, it’s open; according to Rabbi Yehuda, it’s fairly clear. Okay? Why are these things significant? Maimonides writes in chapter 3, law 11: How does one destroy leaven? He burns it, or crumbles it and scatters it to the wind, or throws it into the sea. Meaning, according to the Sages—and that is the plain reading—you either burn it, or crumble it and scatter it to the wind, or throw it into the sea. But of course burning is also permitted—all the possibilities, whatever you want, the main thing being that in the end you perform the act of removal, or that in the end you don’t have leaven. Okay? Moving on. But if he burned it—from the sixth hour onward, at the end of the law—since it is forbidden for benefit, one may not use it to heat an oven or stove, nor bake with it, nor cook with it. Right—the coals after you burned the leaven, it is forbidden to use them. Now this raises a question among the later authorities, because the rule in tractate Temurah is as follows: everything that is to be buried may not be burned, and everything that is to be burned may not be buried. Rabbi Yehuda says that if one wishes to be stringent on himself and burn those things that are to be buried, he may do so; the Sages said to him: one is not permitted to alter the required manner. The law is decided in accordance with the Sages and not Rabbi Yehuda. But what do the Sages say? There are two types of prohibitions of benefit. There are prohibitions of benefit that have to be burned, and there are prohibitions of benefit that may be buried and need not be burned. There is a halakhic difference between them. The Talmud there explains: what is the halakhic difference between them? If you burned those prohibited-benefit items that are meant to be burned, then their commandment has been fulfilled—they were burned, and that is what the Torah wanted. Therefore the ashes are permitted for benefit, because its commandment has been fulfilled. In contrast, if you burned those prohibited-benefit items that are meant to be buried, then the ashes are forbidden for benefit. Why? Because its commandment has not been fulfilled—there is no commandment to burn it. Therefore if you burned it, that is not considered that its commandment was fulfilled; it is still just another form of the same prohibited-benefit item, and it is forbidden, therefore the ashes are forbidden. So there is a difference between things to be buried and things to be burned: things to be buried, their ashes are forbidden; things to be burned, their ashes are permitted. Yes, that is what is written there in the Talmud. Because things to be buried, their ashes are forbidden, and things to be burned, their ashes are permitted. So what follows? Therefore I am forbidden to burn things to be buried—that is a rabbinic prohibition. I am forbidden to burn things to be buried—why? Because if I burn them there will be ashes, and people may come to use them. They won’t see that they came from something forbidden for benefit. So the Sages decreed not to burn them. With things to be burned there is no problem to burn, why? Because their ashes are permitted, so why should I care that there will be ashes and that people may use them? That’s perfectly fine. But to bury them is forbidden. Why is it forbidden to bury them? Because there is a commandment to burn them, and there is concern that one may come to use them. Okay? The commandment is to burn them. That is what the Talmud says. Now notice what comes out of this: things to be burned, their ashes are permitted; things to be buried, their ashes are forbidden. Now what about leaven? Seemingly this is a dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and the Sages, right? Rabbi Yehuda says leaven is burned, so it belongs to the things that are burned; therefore its ashes should be permitted. According to the Sages, leaven belongs to the things to be buried—it is not specifically to be burned. Therefore its ashes should be forbidden. But Maimonides, whom we just read, did not say that. He said the ashes are forbidden but it is permitted to burn it. But if the ashes are forbidden, then it is forbidden to burn it, because if you burn it people may come to use the ashes. So how can that be? Some later authorities want to argue that there is a difference between coals and ashes. Maimonides here is speaking about the coals, but if you burned it completely and it became ashes, then that would indeed be permitted. The coals still have something of the form of leaven, and therefore one may not use them. And then, of course, the question falls away—indeed the ashes are permitted, and it is permitted to burn leaven, and everything is fine. But many later authorities did not learn it that way, and so they raise the question: so what, how does this work in Maimonides? Now look, I’ll do this briefly. The Tur in section 445 argues: but to derive benefit from its ashes after it has been burned depends on the dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and the Sages. According to Rabbi Yehuda, who requires burning, it is permitted, because we hold that everything that is burned, its ashes are permitted. And according to the Sages it is forbidden, because everything that is to be buried, its ashes are forbidden. And if one cooked a dish with it or baked bread with it, and so on—yes, this is that law of Maimonides. Now he says at the end, at the end of his words: and Maimonides wrote simply, if one baked bread with it or cooked a dish with it, they are forbidden. And he follows his own view, according to which he rules like the Sages. Since he rules like the Sages, that leaven is not among those things to be burned but among those things to be buried, therefore the ashes are forbidden, and if you cooked with them then the dish becomes forbidden. That is how he explains Maimonides. Now this is very puzzling. Because if that were really Maimonides’ view in understanding the Sages, that leaven is among those things to be buried and not among those things to be burned, then why does Maimonides say that it is permitted to burn leaven? After all, things to be buried are forbidden to be burned. Not only is one not obligated to burn them—one is rabbinically forbidden to burn them. But forbidden. So that is the question: how does Maimonides permit burning? Now the truth is that in the Mishnah itself that I read earlier, this Mishnah has two textual versions among the medieval authorities. “And the Sages say: one may even crumble it and scatter it”—what does “even” mean? “Even” means that he may burn it, but also crumble it and scatter it to the wind. But there are medieval authorities—the Rif, for example, and others—who read: “The Sages say: one crumbles it and scatters it to the wind,” not “one may even crumble it.” Why? Because burning is forbidden. It is not “even crumble it.” Burning is forbidden; only crumble it and scatter it to the wind. Why? Because it is among the things to be buried, and things to be buried are forbidden to be burned. But Maimonides reads: “one may even crumble it and scatter it to the wind,” and therefore he writes that according to the Sages, whose view is the practical law, one may burn, crumble, and scatter into the sea—no problem, everything is possible. And then the question arises: if it belongs to the things to be buried, how is burning permitted? That is basically the question. Here we enter all the definitions I brought earlier. Really I’m doing this very briefly. As I said before, there are those who distinguish between coals and ashes. Rabbi Akiva Eiger asks the opposite question on the Tur. The Tur indeed links it to the dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and the Sages, and basically says that according to the Sages it belongs to the things to be buried, therefore the ashes are forbidden, as Maimonides says, but burning is forbidden—because things to be buried are forbidden to be burned, contrary to what Maimonides says, who permits burning because he has the version with “even.” So according to the Tur’s view, burning is forbidden. Rabbi Akiva Eiger says to the Tur: I don’t understand. After all, there is the commandment of “you shall remove it.” Right? If there is a commandment of “you shall remove it,” that means that unlike all other prohibitions of benefit, with leaven there is an obligation to remove it. Now if someone burned the leaven, then he removed it, so clearly he fulfilled this positive commandment. So why are the ashes forbidden? The opposite of what we asked on Maimonides, he asks on the Tur. We asked on Maimonides: if you tell me this belongs to the things to be buried, whose ashes are forbidden, then why do you permit burning? According to the Tur, Rabbi Akiva Eiger asks the opposite question: why do you forbid burning? After all there is a positive commandment of “you shall remove it.” Ordinary prohibited-benefit items do not require removal; one is only forbidden to benefit from them. So if they are not among the things to be burned, it is forbidden to burn them. But with leaven it is not only forbidden to benefit from it; there is also “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found,” and prohibition of benefit—but I also have an obligation to remove it. So if I burned it, did I not fulfill the positive commandment of removal? Of course I did. So if I fulfilled the positive commandment of removal, the ashes ought to be permitted. It should be permitted to burn it, and the ashes ought to be permitted—which of course does not fit either the Tur or Maimonides. According to the Tur it doesn’t fit because the Tur claims that burning is forbidden. Why? It should be permitted to burn; there is the positive commandment of “you shall remove it.” And it also doesn’t fit Maimonides, because although Maimonides claims that burning is permitted, he says that the ashes are forbidden. But why? If it is permitted to burn and its commandment has been fulfilled, then the ashes ought to be permitted. So why does Maimonides say the ashes are forbidden? That is basically the core of the question on both the Tur and Maimonides. And the answers—and here I’ll really do this only telegraphically—bring us back to all the definitions I suggested earlier. Because those who raise these difficulties often assume assumptions about the nature of the commandments. For example, if this is a commandment of result, then there is no issue—in that case there is really only a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. But that’s not true; it could be that he does fulfill a commandment. Or if this is a commandment of action, then some say one must buy leaven in order to burn it. But no—it could be a positive commandment, a commandment of action, but one that applies only if you have leaven. And so on, all the definitions I suggested earlier. In our context, for example, some argue like this: it could be that with the commandment concerning leaven there really is a commandment to remove it—sorry, to destroy it. But that commandment is a commandment of result. You only need to make sure that you do not have leaven. So one cannot say that the burning is “its commandment having been fulfilled.” There is no commandment to burn the leaven; you only need to make sure you do not have it. Therefore Maimonides says that indeed it is permitted to burn, because in the end the main thing is that you should not have leaven, but still the ashes will be forbidden, because that burning is not the fulfillment of the commandment. The fulfillment of the commandment lies in what happens after the burning—that after the burning you no longer have leaven. This is a commandment of result, not a commandment of action. And therefore, although it would be permitted to burn and there would be fulfillment of the commandment of “you shall remove it,” still the ashes would be forbidden for benefit. Also under the second definition of a commandment of result, I think this can be understood. For example, if I say that the commandment of result is fulfilled by the fact that I do not have leaven, or that it is only a prohibition if I do have leaven—either way it doesn’t matter, because the act of burning is still not itself the performance of a commandment. Therefore one cannot say that this leaven which was burned is leaven whose ashes are permitted because its commandment was fulfilled. Its commandment was not fulfilled, because there is no commandment on the leaven at all. Its commandment was not fulfilled, because the commandment is on me—that I should not have leaven. That’s all. But the leaven itself has no commandment upon it to be burned. And therefore, in such a situation, it is permitted to burn and the ashes will be forbidden, unlike all the other prohibited-benefit items. According to the Tur—so what Rabbi Akiva Eiger asked—Rabbi Akiva Eiger asked on the Tur: according to the Tur, why is burning forbidden? After all there is the commandment of “you shall remove it,” and as long as in the end you don’t have leaven, then you removed it, so what’s the problem? Why is burning forbidden? He is of course assuming this is a commandment of result. But if according to the Tur this is a commandment of action, then according to the Tur and Rabbi Yehuda, where this is a commandment of action, the Torah said that the action has to be done only by burning according to Rabbi Yehuda, or according to the Sages not by burning. Fine? That is how one performs the action. But still it is a commandment of action, and therefore there is no room for Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s difficulty—so why, so why not by burning? Or sorry, why not by burning according to the Tur? What do you mean, why not by burning? Because the commandment is a commandment regarding the action. True, in the end after I burn it I won’t have leaven, but in not having leaven I fulfilled “it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found.” But the positive commandment of “you shall remove it” is not merely that I should not have leaven; it is a commandment regarding the action, the act of removal. And regarding the act of removal, the Sages say this belongs to the things to be buried and not to the things to be burned. One may not burn it, but only bury it.

[Speaker B] So therefore—wait—why did you bring leaven into the categories of things burned and things buried? If the removal according to Maimonides is that he says, “I nullify all the leaven I have,” what is removal? That he nullifies it in his heart and says all leaven is like dust of the earth. I didn’t understand. The moment I said that, I fulfilled the positive commandment of removal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Things to be buried” doesn’t mean—maybe I didn’t say this. “Things to be buried” does not mean that one is obligated to bury them. “Things to be buried” means prohibited-benefit items for which there is no obligation to burn.

[Speaker B] Okay, so then the whole discussion of burning or burial is not relevant if I said, “All leaven that is in my possession shall be nullified and be like the dust of the earth”—then I fulfilled the positive commandment of removal?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you nullified the leaven, then you discharged your obligation even though you didn’t burn it. Right? You didn’t burn it. Correct. That means it is among the things to be buried. No, it means nothing of the sort. It means that if I nullified it, then I fulfilled—

[Speaker B] There’s no need to bury and no need to burn. Wait, listen. “Things to be buried” does not mean that you have to bury. Okay. “Things to be buried” means prohibited-benefit items of the sort that there is no obligation to burn. That’s all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leaven is a prohibited-benefit item for which there is no obligation to burn it, because the fact is that nullifying is enough, right? Yes. So it is among the things to be buried. That’s it. That’s what the Sages call “things to be buried.” What the Sages call “things to be buried” are not things that one must bury, but things that there is no obligation to burn. It is called “things to be buried” because there is a rabbinic rule to bury them so that you won’t come to eat them. But from the standpoint of Torah law there is no such thing as an obligation to bury a prohibited-benefit item. There are prohibited-benefit items that must be burned, and there are prohibited-benefit items for which there is no obligation to burn. The second category is called “things to be buried.”

[Speaker B] Notar is something that has to be burned according to that definition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Okay. Understood? Good. We really did this briefly, but perhaps you managed to see at least some of the possible nuances. By the way, there are still quite a few nuances here. There is really a wealth of possibilities here for defining this positive commandment and its relation to the prohibition. I don’t know of anything like this anywhere else in Jewish law. And I don’t know of so many mistakes that people make because they ignore additional possibilities that exist here, precisely because of this richness. Good. More power to you, happy holiday. A kosher and happy holiday, goodbye.

[Speaker F] Rabbi, can I ask a question? Yes. Regarding what the Rabbi said at the beginning—that a positive commandment is basically a desirable state, and a prohibition is an undesirable state—what do we do with cases like a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment? For example, “to the foreigner you may lend with interest.” It comes out that the desirable state is that if I come to lend, I should not lend to a Jew but to a non-Jew, or something like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second. A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment and an optional-fulfilling positive commandment both challenge my assumption, my definition. A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment basically means there is a positive commandment—no, sorry—a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment means there is a positive commandment that basically wants from me only that I not be in a certain state, which is basically the definition of a prohibition. So why is a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment a positive commandment? Okay. But I want to argue that that’s not correct. A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment does not mean that when you lend with interest to a foreigner that is something positive. Rather, it means you are not… you are not in the other state. Not that the nonexistence is negative, but that not being found in the other state is negative. And that is not the same thing as a prohibition. If you want, look at my article on the sixth principle; there I explain this.

[Speaker F] So it’s not really true that every positive commandment is a desirable state.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, yes. Every positive commandment points to a desirable state, it’s just that a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment tells me there is no point in being in the “desirable” state, in quotation marks—there is no point in being in the desirable state. It is forbidden to not be… it is forbidden not to be in the desirable state. Not that it is forbidden to be in an undesirable state, but that it is forbidden not to be in the desirable state. “Desirable” in quotation marks, yes? A state in which it is forbidden not to be. Okay? In that sense it is desirable. But not that that state itself is an undesirable state. That would already be a prohibition.

[Speaker F] So say with “to the foreigner you may lend with interest”—why not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What I’m basically saying is this: the commandment to lend with interest to a foreigner is not a desirable commandment in the sense that whoever lends with interest to a foreigner has done a commandment. But also… but also lending with interest to a Jew is not a negative state. Rather, lending with interest to a Jew is invalid because it is not the state of lending with interest to a foreigner. So in that sense lending with interest to a foreigner is a kind of positive state. Meaning, it is a state that you are forbidden not to be in. You are not obligated to be in it, but you are forbidden not to be in it.

[Speaker F] But if lending with interest to a Jew is not an undesirable state, then what is the problem with lending with interest to a Jew?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because you’re not lending with interest to a foreigner. If you are already lending with interest, you need to lend with interest to a foreigner, and if you lent with interest to a Jew, it turns out that the lending with interest was not done to a foreigner, to a non-Jew. That is a problematic state. Not a problematic state—it is non-presence in a non-problematic state.

[Speaker F] But it’s like, one way or the other, one of the states has to… one has to be desirable, or else the other has to be undesirable. Otherwise…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that is the claim. My claim is as follows. There are desirable states, and there are undesirable states. Usually, if you are not in a desirable state, nothing happened. Then you are neutral. You are neither righteous nor wicked. Let’s say, call it 1—that’s a desirable state; minus 1—an undesirable state; and 0—a neutral state. Okay? An optional-fulfilling positive commandment is basically one that says this: if you are in state 1, wonderful. If you are not in state 1, nothing happened, then you are in state 0; you are neither wicked nor righteous. A prohibition means that if you are in state minus 1, that is very bad. If you do not violate the prohibition, then you are in a neutral state; that’s fine. A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment basically says this: being in state 0 is not okay. I demand that you be in state 1.

[Speaker F] But the zero in itself is not neutral and not problematic.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is not a… it is not a desirable state in the objective definition, but it is a state that you are forbidden to be outside of. You don’t have to be in it, but you are forbidden to be outside of it. So of course that means you must be in it. But it is “you are forbidden to be outside of it.” Not because outside of it is a negative state, but because there is something negative in the fact that you are not in it. Ah, okay.

[Speaker F] Fine. Can I ask one more question? Regarding the fact that there are later authorities who assume that there cannot be… the Rabbi said at the beginning of the lesson that there cannot be some kind of fence in the Torah at the Torah level. Right. So I don’t really understand where one could draw such an assumption from in the first place. After all, even something that is a fence is some kind of… it’s some assumption that the world is supposedly perfect in a certain sense, that it can’t be that the Torah came into the world in such a state that there are commandments in the Torah that don’t need… that do need to be fenced in with other commandments.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s not what I said. That’s a common mistake, by the way, even among later authorities (Acharonim), because what the Torah says is what the Sages expound: “Make a safeguard for My safeguard.” There is an obligation to make fences. That is the mandate of the Sages. The Torah itself does not deal with that; it deals with things that are intrinsic values. They don’t serve other things. The role of the Sages is to make fences. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t fences that have existed since the giving of the Torah. Just by virtue of their being fences, I would define them as rabbinic prohibitions. After all, we know there are rabbinic prohibitions that already existed at the time of the giving of the Torah. For example, market regulation—people get very confused about that, in my opinion. I once gave a lecture on it and showed that there are all kinds of difficulties raised by later authorities that stem from this mistake. Or the oath of inducement. These are various rabbinic enactments meant to prevent problems. Now, it turns out that somehow this was prohibited even before we have documentation that the rabbis enacted it. And then all the later authorities wonder how that could be, when it was created, how it happened. My claim is that it never had to be created at any point. The moment something is problematic at the level of a fence, or that this is how it ought to be because otherwise other things will happen, then it won’t be Torah law, but it can be a rabbinic law that accompanies the Torah itself all along. You don’t need someone to come and enact it. Just by virtue of its being a fence, it cannot be considered Torah law, because the Torah deals only with values that are values in themselves, not values that serve something else. But that law itself was given to Moses at Sinai. It was given to Moses at Sinai together with the Torah. It was given to him as a rabbinic law. Sometimes people call these “the enactments of Moses our teacher,” meaning rabbinic laws created by Moses our teacher. But I don’t necessarily mean enactments, because an enactment is something positive, active. But I’m talking about prohibitions, or market regulation for example, or something like that—it can be something that simply follows from reason. So that is why it should be valid, but it is instrumental reasoning. It serves something else, so it cannot be Torah law even though it was given together with the Torah and existed from the very beginning.

[Speaker F] But that very assumption—that things which serve something else cannot be Torah law—that’s what bothers me. Because the fact that it serves something else tells me it’s not essential, but the question of what is essential and what isn’t is also something in my own head. From the Torah’s perspective, even something that serves something else is just as important as the other thing itself. After all, in order for there to be a proper state of affairs, I also need to put fences around things.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that there is such a state, the fact that the Torah expects us to do this—that’s true. The question is whether it commands us to do it. If—

[Speaker F] It’s written there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Torah also tells us, “And you shall do what is upright and good,” and “you shall do what is upright and good” is not a commandment. Even though the Torah itself sees this as something we are supposed to do, it did not command it. The claim here is not that the Torah is indifferent to problems of safeguards and boundaries—on the contrary, it says, “Make a safeguard for My safeguard,” the Torah says so. The Torah wants us to fence ourselves in. “You shall be holy,” to sanctify yourself even in what is permitted to you, all kinds of things like that. But it is not a commandment.

[Speaker F] Who says? Meaning, why am I allowed to assume that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is a common assumption among the later authorities. You’re asking what the source is for that? I can explain the logic of it. What is the source? For example, it could be that the source is “Make a safeguard for My safeguard.” We see that the Torah places the obligation to make fences on the Sages. If the Torah itself were interested in the fences, then all the fences the Sages make would basically fall under “Scripture entrusted this to the Sages.” Because in essence the Torah forbids it, and the Sages are only telling me what the Torah forbids. From the very fact that the Torah tells me, no, no—this is a mandate entrusted to the Sages, and these will be rabbinic laws—we see that the Torah considers this not to be its own role, but the role of the Sages. Maybe that’s the source. I don’t know. Okay?

[Speaker F] Okay, thank you very much.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Any other questions, please?

[Speaker C] Yes, if I may. I wanted to ask: if we say there are fence-type commandments from the Torah, and that we do expound the reason for the verse, are those two principles really the same principle?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is definitely a connection between them. Once I gave two of my students in Yerucham an assignment: is every reason necessarily a fence? Then in effect, from the rule that we do not expound the reason for the verse, it follows that there are no fences in the Torah. But I think that’s not necessarily so; there can be reasons that are not fences. In other words, let’s put it this way: if we do not expound the reason for the verse, then there will not be Torah-level fences. But if there are no Torah-level fences, that still does not mean that we should not expound the reason for the verse. There can be reasons that are not fences.

[Speaker C] Wait a second, this is how I understood the Rabbi. If we say that we do not expound the reason for the verse, then that means there are no fences. Did I understand correctly?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—or at least we cannot know that these things are fences.

[Speaker C] We do not expound. I understand. And if we say we do expound—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I want to emphasize: if we say that there are no fences at the Torah level, okay? Sorry—that there are no fences at the Torah level—that still does not mean we do not expound the reason for the verse. Rather, the reason for the verse will not give me fences, but other kinds of reasons. So it does not necessarily mean that we do not expound the reason for the verse; the dependence goes only one way. There can be reasons that are not fences.

[Speaker C] Fine. Now one more thing, Rabbi, if I may. Regarding enactments of the Sages: are all enactments of the Sages basically meant to put up a fence, or can we say no—there are commandments of the Sages that are not about putting up a fence?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The later authorities also discussed that. It’s true that the role of the Sages is to put up fences, but that doesn’t mean it is only to put up fences. Here too it goes only one way. In other words, even regarding Sabbath prohibitions, Maimonides himself almost explicitly distinguishes between rabbinic prohibitions meant to serve as a fence against a Torah prohibition and rabbinic prohibitions that are intrinsic prohibitions. For example, you could say that selecting food from waste is rabbinically prohibited because there is a concern that you may come to select waste from food, or that it is rabbinically prohibited because here too there is a certain measure of selecting that is appropriate to forbid. It does not cross the threshold of Torah law, but still it is also appropriate to forbid this on the rabbinic level. In that case it is not a fence; it is simply an extension, the spirit of the matter, or whatever you want to call it.

[Speaker C] Right, so I don’t really understand. From the side that says it’s not a boundary and not a fence, I don’t understand. If it were really appropriate and necessary and right, then the Torah itself would have commanded it, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not correct. Are there things the Torah will not command?

[Speaker C] Then why would the Torah not command them? What, the Torah gave something incomplete?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not something incomplete.

[Speaker C] The Torah gave something incomplete?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. What the Torah is saying is this: for example, “And you shall do what is upright and good”—does the Torah expect us, I’ll go back to the example I gave earlier, does the Torah expect us to do that? Yes, I think so. It writes it, right? Yet no enumerator of the commandments counts this as a commandment. And also “You shall be holy.” Why? There are things that the Torah expects us to do, but they do not enter into the category of halakhic obligation at the Torah level; they do not meet the threshold, they are not critical enough for a Torah prohibition or a Torah commandment to be imposed. But still, the Torah expects us to do them. So here the Sages say, okay, this is appropriate to prohibit on the rabbinic level. Not as a fence, because it is itself prohibited. Rabbi Kook, by the way, in Musar Avikha wants to argue the opposite. He wants to argue that even fences have an intrinsic problem in them. The fact that something is a fence for something else is an indication that it has its own intrinsic problem. And then he turns even the fences into something that is not really a fence.

[Speaker C] Fine. What I still don’t fully understand in this matter is: if it was really necessary and appropriate, then why didn’t Moses say it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying again: because there are things it is appropriate to do, but not obligatory to do. Therefore you can’t put that into Jewish law. If it were in Jewish law, it would be obligatory. But the Torah wants us to do it, while it is not a minimum standard such that someone who does not do it is a transgressor. So the Torah leaves it outside Torah law. Then the Sages come and say, fine, but in order to sharpen this, we will impose a rabbinic prohibition on it.

[Speaker C] In the end I’m asking: are these the words of Moses or not the words of Moses? If they are not the words of Moses, that means—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, “the words of Moses” also includes “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Is that a Torah prohibition or a rabbinic prohibition? It’s neither.

[Speaker C] That’s not a prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. There are many words of Moses. Only a small part of the words of Moses are actually Jewish law. And these things can be words of Moses that are not law, like “And you shall do what is upright and good” or “You shall be holy.”

[Speaker C] So the Rabbi includes enactments of the Sages within the words of Moses?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not all enactments of the Sages. I said not all enactments of the Sages.

[Speaker C] I meant this part of it… yes, the part that is not fences—we include that within the words of Moses that were not counted as a commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct—the spirit of the Torah or the words of the Torah, but not important enough to enter Torah law. It does not have to appear explicitly in the Torah, but we understand that the Torah would want this. We understand it by reasoning, by one kind of interpretation or another, and the Torah would want this not because it comes to prevent something else. So there are rabbinic prohibitions like that too; at least many later authorities argue that there are. Thank you. Please. Anyone else? Okay then, have a kosher and joyous holiday, Sabbath peace. Goodbye.

[Speaker C] Thank you very much, happy holiday.