Topics in Tractate Makkot, Chapter 3 – Lesson 7 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the previous lecture we began talking about prohibitions and positive commandments, and I said that in the standard definitions, a prohibition and a positive commandment differ from one another on the practical level. Meaning, a positive commandment is an obligation placed on me to do something, and a prohibition is an obligation that tells me to refrain, as if not to do. And therefore a positive commandment is fulfilled through positive action and violated through passive omission, while a prohibition is fulfilled through passive omission and violated through positive action. Okay? That’s the standard definition. We saw that this doesn’t stand up to the test of the halakhic facts. For example, Maimonides in the sixth root, when he talks about overlap between a prohibition and a positive commandment, the moment you’re talking about overlap between a prohibition and a positive commandment, you’ve already said that the action-based definition cannot be correct. Because according to the action-based definition, it can’t be that there is both a positive commandment and a prohibition imposing the same obligation on me. Say, for example, a positive commandment and a prohibition that both impose on me the obligation to rest on the Sabbath, not to do labor. Okay? So from the practical standpoint that obligation is a prohibition-obligation, not to do labor. Okay? So how can there also be a positive commandment with the same content? Meaning, if the definition is an action-based definition, then there can’t be a positive commandment that imposes on me an obligation to refrain. And conversely, yes? If there’s, say, a parapet, then there is לא תשים דמים בביתך (“you shall not place blood in your house”) – that’s the prohibition – and ועשית מעקה לגגך (“you shall make a parapet for your roof”) – that’s the positive commandment. Now the content of the commandment is to build a parapet, a commandment that imposes on me the duty to do something, the opposite of Sabbath. So here, the moment there’s both a prohibition and a positive commandment on the same matter – that’s a dispute among the medieval authorities, but at least according to some of them it’s a prohibition and a positive commandment on the same matter – that basically means that the prohibition לא תשים דמים בביתך is fulfilled if I build a parapet. It’s fulfilled through positive action, not through passive omission; and it’s violated through passive omission. We also spoke about לא תעמוד על דם רעך (“do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood”), for example. There too the prohibition is fulfilled by my saving my friend, and so on. There are other examples. In the end, my claim was that the distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment is not connected to the way we perform the commandment or violate it, but to the question of what the Torah means when it commands. Is it marking out for me a positive state, a state I ought to be in, or is it marking out for me a negative state, meaning a state I should not be in, must avoid being in? Okay? That’s basically a prohibition. Now when I speak here about a state, it’s a state that can involve action or omission, non-action. Doesn’t matter. A positive state can be a state of action that is positive; it can be a state of omission that is positive. A negative bad state can be a state of action that is negative; it can be a state of omission that is negative. Okay? So there’s really no connection to the character of the performance or the transgression. The question is whether the Torah is defining here how to be righteous or how not to be wicked, in simpler language. So when the Torah tells me, say, the positive commandment to put on tefillin, it’s telling me that the state in which I wear tefillin is a positive state. By contrast, if it had forbidden me through a prohibition to be without tefillin – if there were a prohibition against being without tefillin – then being with tefillin would not be a positive state; it would merely be an escape from the state of being without tefillin, which is a negative state. Okay? Therefore there is a difference between telling me “put on tefillin” and telling me “there is a prohibition against being without tefillin.” Even though it seems equivalent, it isn’t. It isn’t equivalent. And we already talked about this also on the logical level. I asked the question on the logical level too: how can two statements that are logically equivalent constitute different commandments? Yes? “I do not want you to be without tefillin” – that’s the same thing as “I want you to be with tefillin,” no? So if the second is a positive commandment, then the first should also have to be a positive commandment. But the first is written “I do not want you to be without tefillin,” and words like לא, השמר, פן, ואל are prohibitions. Okay? How can that be? So I said these statements are not equivalent. It’s a mistake to think they are logically equivalent. When I say to you, “I don’t want you to be without tefillin,” that’s not the same thing as saying to you, “I want you to be with—”

[Speaker B] tefillin.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not because of the “ever.” Say ever, even if I say ever. I don’t want you to be without tefillin for even one moment, and on the other hand I want you to be with tefillin at every moment. Okay? So my claim is that this is not equivalent. These are not logically equivalent statements. If I say, “I don’t want you to be without tefillin,” it means that the state of being without tefillin is a negative state; don’t be there. What should you be in? Either with tefillin, or if I can find some situation that is neither this nor that. Fine? Theoretically, yes? Then that’s also okay. I don’t have to be with tefillin. Being with tefillin is only so that I not be without tefillin. That’s all. But it has no positive value; it only has avoidance of negative value, if I formulate it that way. Therefore these two statements are not logically equivalent. It’s just not true.

[Speaker C] But what about someone of whom it says, קרקפתא דלא מנח תפילין?קרקפתא דלא מנח תפילין isn’t a halakhic category. You can’t learn from there when it’s considered neglecting a positive commandment or violating it. That’s some spiritual idea, I don’t know, something else.

[Speaker D] So I’ll give you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] you an example. Say I tell you, “I don’t want your house to be without a parapet.” That’s a prohibition, right? And if I say, “I want you to build a parapet,” that’s a positive commandment. Okay? Now suppose I was compelled and didn’t build a parapet, okay? So if this were a prohibition – “I don’t want you to be without a parapet,” okay? – then I violated the prohibition, but under coercion, okay? So that’s not considered violation of the prohibition. But if it’s a positive commandment, then coercion isn’t as if one did it. The positive commandment I didn’t fulfill. True, it wasn’t my fault, but bottom line, I didn’t fulfill the positive commandment. Okay? So in the previous language I would say: if you ask whether I am wicked – no, I am not wicked. Because I violated the prohibition under coercion; I’m not to blame for that; it isn’t wickedness that I violated the prohibition. You ask if I’m righteous? No, I’m not righteous. Because I didn’t fulfill the commandment. True, under coercion, but bottom line, I didn’t fulfill the commandment. Coercion is not as if one did it. Okay? So you can’t say I’m righteous. I can say it isn’t true that I’m wicked. That’s really the same contrast as between a positive commandment and a prohibition. It’s basically the contrast between righteous and wicked. When I say someone is not righteous, I haven’t thereby said he is wicked. He may be average, right? He may not be wicked, but who says he’s righteous? What, everyone who isn’t wicked is righteous? There is an intermediate state too, right? I think I spoke about – yes, I think I did – the concepts of negation. Light and darkness, or cold and heat. Didn’t I talk about that? Okay, in Aristotelian philosophy they already distinguish between two kinds of negation: contrary negation and privative negation. Privative with an aleph – from the sense of non-being. To nullify something is to remove it. Okay? Say when I say that the opposite of light is darkness, yes? So what kind of opposite is that? A contrary opposite or a privative opposite? In other words, is darkness the absence of light, or is darkness something that is the opposite of light?

[Speaker E] Do people understand the difference?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, in numerical terms, if I say the contrary opposite of one is minus one, and the privative opposite of one is zero. The absence of one. Minus one is not just the absence of one; it’s something with opposite properties, something positive but opposite in its characteristics. Okay? I think that’s a good model for contrary and privative opposites. So, for example, the relation between light and darkness – is that contrary or privative? What do you say?

[Speaker E] Darkness is absence of light.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So is that contrary or privative? Privative. Not contrary; you say privative. Agreed? And what about cold and heat?

[Speaker F] Cold and heat…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Contrary or privative?

[Speaker G] That already depends whether you’re a doctor or a physicist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even just an ordinary person. Come on, an ordinary person, forget the physicist. For a physicist there is no such thing as cold at all, only different levels of heat. No, no, I’m talking about our sensation of cold and heat, not the physical temperature scale. Contrary. Let’s assume here cold and heat. Look, the criterion is very simple; I gave you the numerical model. If you add cold to heat, what do you get? Lukewarm, right? They offset one another. If you add darkness to light, what do you get? Light. And there is no offsetting. So that means darkness is the absence of light. It’s a privative opposite. Cold and heat are contrary opposites. That’s one and minus one, and therefore they offset one another. Okay? So this is a criterion that can help us decide about different opposites, whether they are privative or contrary. Fine? Now what I actually want to claim is that when you say – when we are commanded in positive commandments – then a positive commandment tells us: be in state one, a positive state. A prohibition tells us: do not be in minus one, in a negative state. But in the middle there can be a zero state. Right? Not everything that isn’t minus one is one. Zero too is not minus one. And likewise, not everything that isn’t one is minus one. Zero too is not one. Okay? When I negate one, I don’t necessarily get the other in the case of one and minus one. Because if something has a positive state and a negative state, the negative state is a contrary opposite of the positive state, not a privative opposite. The privative opposite of a positive state is a neutral state. Right? So when I say there is a commandment to put on tefillin, if I was in a neutral state, I did not fulfill the commandment, because I was not in state one; I was in state zero. Right? But if there were a prohibition on being without tefillin, and I am without tefillin, then I violated the prohibition. Even if I did it under coercion, I violated the prohibition, only under coercion. Okay? Meaning, the zero state is basically some kind of wall separating the righteous from the wicked, or the positive from the negative. The zero state separates the positive from the negative; mathematically that’s how it is, right? So the claim is that the existence of the zero state is exactly what makes the difference. Because the moment you negate one, you can’t say you are in minus one; maybe you are in zero. Okay? And conversely, if you negate minus one, you can’t say you are in one, because maybe you are in zero. Meaning, saying “I don’t want you to be in minus one” and saying “I want you to be in one” are not the same thing. Saying “I want you to be in one” means specifically one, not zero. Saying “I don’t want you to be in minus one” – I have no problem, be either in zero or in one, as long as you are not in minus one. Right? So there is a difference. That’s why I said that from this one can derive all the halakhic differences between a positive commandment and a prohibition. Why? A positive commandment earns reward, right? Avoiding a prohibition does not earn reward. This reminds me – I always remember this when I speak about it – of the Gadi in Bnei Brak restaurant, where I was, and on the wall it said: everyone here should intend to fulfill five commandments, have intention to fulfill five commandments. What are the commandments? The commandments are ביומו תיתן שכרו (“you shall give him his wages on that day”), yes, לא תלין and so on, pay him on time, and לא תקיפו פאת ראשכם (“you shall not round off the corners of your heads”), I don’t remember, there were a few more there. Now לא תקיפו פאת ראשכם is a prohibition. What does it mean to intend to fulfill a prohibition? I don’t fulfill… there is no such thing as fulfilling a prohibition. You can avoid violating a prohibition. But in order not to violate it, I don’t need intentions. If I didn’t violate it, then I didn’t violate it. For a positive commandment, for the commandment to count as a commandment, you need intention. Commandments require intention. Even if it’s not indispensable, ideally you still need intention. But you need intention. What does that mean? That even if you did it, if you did it without intention, you don’t have a positive commandment. For prohibitions it makes no sense to demand intention. A prohibition – if you didn’t violate it, then you didn’t violate it. What difference does it make whether you didn’t violate it intentionally or didn’t violate it unintentionally? That’s interesting.

[Speaker B] I didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Deliberate or accidental. No, not important, but it’s still a transgression.

[Speaker D] True, factually. Meaning if you have temptation and you don’t violate it, then you get reward.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. Ask the Holy One, blessed be He. I have no idea; I never asked Him.

[Speaker D] There’s a Mishnah that a person sits—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and refrains. He thought of doing a transgression and didn’t do it; Scripture credits him – I don’t remember, something like that. Or no, it’s if he thought of doing a commandment and didn’t do it, Scripture credits him as if he did it. No, but there is some parallel midrash on a prohibition too. Someone who was in… I don’t remember anymore. Forget it, these are homiletic sayings. In the end I’m talking now about Jewish law, not cute sayings. No, that’s not Jewish law. What is Jewish law? Jewish law says nothing. Do you get reward? Ask the Holy One, blessed be He, whether you get reward or not. I don’t know. From a halakhic standpoint it has no significance at all that you stood before temptation and did not give in. You fulfilled no commandment. Nothing happened; you just didn’t fail, that’s all. Maybe you exerted yourself more in order not to fail; maybe the Holy One, blessed be He, will give you reward for that. But in the halakhic definition all I can say is simply that you didn’t fail, that’s all. Therefore, the distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment – the distinction I described before, positive state and negative state – explains the halakhic differences between them. For example, that a positive commandment requires intention and a prohibition does not. So that’s very clear. In order to be righteous, if you do it intentionally, you are righteous. In order not to be wicked, if you didn’t commit the transgression, then you are not wicked. What difference does it make whether you intended or didn’t intend? That’s why there is reward for positive commandments and no reward for refraining from a prohibition. Great reward if you are righteous; you don’t get reward for not being wicked. You don’t get punished, because the opposite of reward here is punishment. Why is there punishment only for a prohibition and no punishment for a positive commandment? For neglecting a positive commandment? Court punishment. Why is there no punishment for neglect of a positive commandment? Because there is no punishment for the fact that you are not righteous. You won’t get reward. But if you are wicked, you deserve punishment. I think all these things fall very naturally into place once we understand the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. Why must one spend all his money in order not to violate a prohibition, but only one-fifth of his money in order to fulfill a positive commandment? Because being righteous is a great virtue; it isn’t a basic obligation. You can spend all your money in order to be righteous, but not being wicked is a basic demand. Meaning, for that you spend all your money as long as you do not become wicked. I think once you understand that, if you tried to hang all this on the action-based difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment, it doesn’t work so well. What difference does it make whether you do it through action or through passive omission? So why should reward depend on that? Why should it matter whether it was done through an act or an omission? You’d have to come to all sorts of twisted ideas like: a transgression through action is more severe than a transgression without action, because it’s some blunter rebellion against God’s will, or something like that. The way I’m presenting it here, it has nothing at all to do with the level of performance, whether by act or omission. The whole question is whether you are wicked or righteous. That’s all. If you neglected a positive commandment, you are not righteous. If you violated a prohibition, you are wicked. If you refrained from violating a prohibition, then you are average. If you fulfilled a positive commandment, then you are righteous. The zero is what I call here average. So really all these implications are a consequence of this distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment. Now let’s see Nachmanides. Nachmanides on the Ten Commandments in parashat Yitro says this. Indeed, he too says that the commandment of זכור is alluded to in a positive commandment: זכור את יום השבת לקדשו and שמור את יום השבת לקדשו. That is, זכור is alluded to in a positive commandment, and it proceeds from the attribute of love and belongs to the attribute of mercy, because one who performs his master’s commandments is beloved to him, and his master has mercy on him. The attribute of שמור is in prohibitions, and it belongs to the attribute of judgment and proceeds from the attribute of fear. Now notice: he is speaking here about זכור and שמור, both concerning observance of the Sabbath. Meaning, we are talking here about a positive commandment and a prohibition that are doubled, that have the same content. They both command me to keep the Sabbath. Therefore, specifically here Nachmanides sees fit to explain: so why really is there a difference between them? What is the difference between זכור and שמור? Both impose the same obligation on me. Precisely because we are speaking about overlap between a prohibition and a positive commandment, this is the place where Nachmanides needs to explain: so wait, what exactly is the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment? After all, both command me the same thing. So why is one a positive commandment and the other a prohibition? So he says this: he says a positive commandment proceeds from the attribute of love, mercy, because one who performs his master’s commandments is beloved to him and his master has mercy on him. Or translated into my language: he is righteous. One who fulfills a positive commandment is righteous. And the attribute of שמור is a prohibition and belongs to the attribute of judgment and proceeds from fear. What does that mean? If you guard yourself from violating a prohibition, then you have the attribute of fear. Meaning what? You don’t want to be wicked. Therefore you do it. When you fulfill a positive commandment, you want to be righteous. When you refrain from a prohibition, you only don’t want to be wicked. Therefore it is called the attribute of fear. You are afraid of being wicked. This isn’t just fear of punishment; fear of punishment is also here, but it’s more than that. It’s simply fear of being in a negative state. Fear of Heaven – real fear – not because I’m going to get punished. I don’t want to be wicked. I don’t want to be wicked before God. But righteous? That’s not for me. No, that’s not my level, okay? It reminds me of a story about the rabbi of Brisk, who was once seen drinking water outside the sukkah. They saw him drinking water outside the sukkah. Now the Shulchan Arukh says that one who fears Heaven should not drink even water outside the sukkah. So they said to him: you’re very strict – how could you drink water outside the sukkah? You are stringent like every opinion among the medieval and later authorities, and here you drink water outside the sukkah? Where are all your stringencies? And I am stringent? I’m not stringent in anything. What are you talking about? He says, meaning: if there is a medieval authority who says that if I did such-and-such I didn’t fulfill my obligation, then obviously I will worry about that. I don’t want not to fulfill my obligation. Or if there is a prohibition according to one of the medieval authorities, I will be careful about it so as not to violate a prohibition. But if there is an act that according to everyone is neither a commandment nor a transgression, and there is some little spiritual notion of a higher level – I’m not at that level. That isn’t the same kind of stringency. When I speak about stringency, the rabbi of Brisk’s stringencies are stringencies in order to fulfill the halakhic obligation, not to violate a prohibition, and to fulfill the positive commandment according to all views. So that there not be any view according to which I neglected the positive commandment or violated the prohibition. Okay? But here we are speaking about something that is pious conduct by its very nature. It’s not at all a stringency in the same sense as those stringencies. Here this is something for people of a high spiritual level. I’m not at that level. And that’s piety, yes exactly. Okay, so that’s a bit of an expression of this point. In any case, I think what is written here in Nachmanides, where he speaks about the commandment to keep the Sabbath, זכור and שמור, and here precisely he sees fit to explain the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment – and his explanation seems to me, in his terms, to mean what I said. A positive commandment is to be righteous, to love the Holy One, blessed be He, to be righteous, to be beloved by Him. A prohibition is not to be wicked. Okay? That’s love and fear, and so on. Because one who guards himself from doing evil in his master’s eyes fears him, and therefore a positive commandment is greater than a prohibition, just as love is greater than fear, because one who fulfills and does his master’s will with his body and his money is greater than one who merely guards himself from doing what is evil in his eyes. And therefore they said that a positive commandment comes and overrides a prohibition. That’s the difference between the doer and the non-doer – one who guards himself from doing a transgression, yes. Fine. So what is he basically saying? A positive commandment is greater than a prohibition. Why? Because if I fulfill the positive commandment, then I do the will of my Master, I love Him, He loves me, I am righteous, in my language, okay? If I guard myself from doing a transgression, that is fear, then I am not wicked. So obviously righteous is more than not wicked, more than average, okay? Therefore a positive commandment is greater than a prohibition. So far, everything is fine. It’s just the last five words that I don’t understand, or seven: “and therefore they said that a positive commandment comes and overrides a prohibition.” How does that conclusion follow from what he explained until now? A positive commandment is more severe than a prohibition, right? More important.

[Speaker I] There is no obligation here to be righteous.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obligation to be righteous? No, there is no obligation to be righteous. What do you mean obligation? You should be righteous, but it’s a softer obligation than the obligation not to be wicked. It’s more basic. That’s exactly the point. Look, he says that from here it follows that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. At first glance, that’s not right. Let’s try to do the math for a moment, because in simple language it sounds like that is what follows, since you say a positive commandment is more important than a prohibition, right? Therefore a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. No, that isn’t the necessary conclusion.

[Speaker C] It’s not one against the other here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. When he compares and says a positive commandment is greater than a prohibition, he means that fulfilling the positive commandment is greater than refraining from the prohibition. Right? But when a positive commandment overrides a prohibition, fulfilling the positive commandment requires you to violate the prohibition. You’re not comparing a positive commandment with refraining from a prohibition; you are performing the positive commandment at the price of violating the prohibition. Where did you get that from? Or in other words, let me put it this way: the Sdei Chemed explains this Nachmanides. And he says – the Sdei Chemed, kind of a halakhic encyclopedia, by Rabbi Hezekiah Medini, who lived in Hebron at the end of the nineteenth century or beginning of the twentieth, something like that – in any case, he says that there is here a coin with two sides that seem opposite, but really they are not. For example, he says – indeed I think even Nachmanides says this later. You see? Let’s read Nachmanides a bit further and then come back. And because of this – look at the bottom line – “and because of this, the punishment for prohibitions will be greater, and judgment is carried out in them, such as lashes and death; whereas no judgment at all is carried out for positive commandments, except in the case of those who rebel, such as one who says: I will not make a lulav, I will not make tzitzit, I will not make a sukkah – for the Sanhedrin would beat him until he accepted upon himself to do it, or until his life departed.” By the way, here you see that this is only by the Sanhedrin. That’s the dispute between Ketzot HaChoshen and Netivot HaMishpat in section 3: whether coercing him until death is only by a court or by anyone. Here in Nachmanides it says only by a court, which is like Netivot, not Ketzot. In any case, for our purposes, what is he basically saying? He says therefore they punish for a prohibition and not for a positive commandment. But a positive commandment is more severe, no? A positive commandment is more important. So why punish for a prohibition and not for a positive commandment? Doesn’t that reverse what we said before?

[Speaker J] It’s not the opposite on their side. Huh? The one who violates it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. When you’re comparing the side of fulfillment – fulfillment of a positive commandment makes you righteous. Fulfillment of a prohibition, meaning avoiding stumbling in the prohibition, makes you average. Obviously righteous is more important than average, right? That’s the fulfillment side. Now let’s look at the side of neglect. On the side of neglect, when you negate the prohibition, meaning you violate the prohibition, then you are wicked. When you neglect the positive commandment, you are average. So who is worse? The one who violates the prohibition, right? Meaning, there are two sides here that seem opposite, but that’s only apparently so; they’re really two sides of the same coin. If on the side of fulfillment the positive commandment is greater than the fulfillment side of the prohibition, then on the side of neglect the relation flips. Neglecting the prohibition will be more severe than neglecting the positive commandment. Therefore Nachmanides says that the positive commandment is higher than the prohibition, and therefore they punish for the prohibition and not for the positive commandment. At first glance that’s the opposite. If a positive commandment is more important than a prohibition, then why punish for the prohibition? The answer is no: because the positive commandment is more important than the prohibition, therefore if you violate the prohibition, you are worse than if you fail to fulfill the positive commandment, if you neglect the positive commandment. And therefore they punish for a prohibition and not for a positive commandment. Or in other words, what I said before: to fulfill a positive commandment is to be righteous; to violate a prohibition is to be wicked. Fine? And not to fulfill the positive commandment – you are average. Not to violate the prohibition – sorry – you are also average. Okay? “Be as careful with a light commandment as with a severe one”—

[Speaker K] If they didn’t say positive commandment and prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s two positive commandments. It’s really two positive commandments.

[Speaker K] Right.

[Speaker C] Rabbi, can one say that a positive commandment overriding a prohibition is not a matter of the force of positive and negative commandments, but really of the methods of Torah interpretation? If the Torah writes a positive commandment and writes a prohibition, then what—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a second I’ll get to a positive commandment overriding a prohibition, and then we’ll come back to your comment, okay? I just want to finish the introduction here, and then I’ll get there. So what he’s basically saying is this: we actually have two opposite sides of the same coin. A positive commandment is more important than a prohibition on the side of fulfillment; on the side of neglect, violating the prohibition is more severe than neglecting the positive commandment. As for punishment, that’s no problem. They punish for a prohibition because one who violated a prohibition is wicked. A wicked person is punished. One who neglected a positive commandment is not righteous. Someone who isn’t righteous won’t get reward, but he doesn’t deserve punishment. You’re just not righteous; you’re not wicked. So if that’s the case, the conclusion is correct. And now I return to the question of a positive commandment overriding a prohibition. At first glance, the conclusion that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition seems to follow from what he said above, that a positive commandment is more important than a prohibition. Therefore a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. But that’s not right. Because we just discussed it. On the side of fulfillment, a positive commandment is more important than fulfilling the prohibition, meaning than not failing in the prohibition. But on the side of neglect, violating the prohibition is more severe than neglecting a positive commandment. So let’s do the math now. Say I need to eat matzah, and all I have is grain from the new crop before the omer. Okay? Because the waving day is the day after Passover. I want to eat matzah on the night of Passover, and I have no old grain, only grain from the new crop. It’s forbidden to eat it; that’s a prohibition. Okay? Now the question is what to do. I have no other matzah. I have a positive commandment to eat matzah on the first night; that’s a full positive commandment. Okay? A positive commandment overrides a prohibition. So you are actually supposed to take matzah from the new grain, bake it, and eat the matzah. Because a positive commandment overrides a prohibition – that’s the rule. Okay? Now let’s do the calculation for a moment. He says that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition because a positive commandment is more important than a prohibition.

[Speaker I] But now—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, I really need to compare two options, not a positive commandment against a prohibition. That’s the wrong way to frame it. Is it better to bake and eat matzah from the new grain, or not to eat matzah at all? Right? Those are my two options, and I now need to decide which is better. If I decide to eat matzah from the new grain, what are the prices? I fulfilled the positive commandment of eating matzah, and I violated a prohibition. Right?

[Speaker C] One—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I gained one, and violating the prohibition is minus one. So in the end I’m at zero.

[Speaker C] Suppose there is—

[Speaker D] an assumption here that they’re equal, the positive commandment and the prohibition, let’s say.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Almost like a distilled summary of…

[Speaker C] And it’s not karet, and a positive commandment isn’t… wait, soon. Just a second.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The comment is indeed correct, but without karet. So that’s one thing. Second, option two: to eat nothing. What happens when I eat nothing? I didn’t fulfill the commandment, right? Zero. But I also didn’t violate the prohibition. Also zero. So what’s the result? Zero. On both sides I have zero. So why does a positive commandment override a prohibition? A positive commandment overriding a prohibition means that I should prefer eating the matzah at the price of eating new grain over not eating matzah at all. But when I do the calculation, on both the side of fulfillment and the side of neglect – because I have to weigh both sides – on each side I either have violation of the prohibition and fulfillment of the positive commandment, or neglect of the positive commandment and avoidance of the prohibition. Right? Those are the two sides. So I have to total the two gains in each of the two sides.

[Speaker D] You violate a prohibition, you’re wicked, right? Right. And if you don’t neglect the positive commandment, then you’re at zero? That’s not right, not right, not right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you eat… let’s see. When you eat matzah from the new grain, did you fulfill the positive commandment of eating matzah? That’s one, right? Wait. You violated the prohibition of new grain, that’s minus one, right? So bottom line, how much did you gain? Zero. Neglecting the positive commandment – not fulfilling a positive commandment – neglecting a positive commandment, fulfilling a positive commandment, that’s not severe at all, that’s good. Good, good. So neglecting a positive commandment is zero, and violating a prohibition is minus one, right? That’s more severe. Now I say: but I’m not neglecting the positive commandment, I’m fulfilling it. I fulfill the positive commandment and violate the prohibition. So fulfilling the positive commandment and violating the prohibition – one plus minus one – I’m at zero, right? The other side is not to eat matzah at all. So I don’t violate the prohibition, zero, but I also don’t fulfill the commandment – again zero. So the sum is still zero. So why is this zero better than that zero? How do you reach the conclusion that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition from Nachmanides’ calculation? And here we enter something that will raise a problem for us later, but the answer is very simple. When you refrain from violating a prohibition, that really is zero; you’re just not wicked. But when you neglect a positive commandment, that’s not zero. That’s minus one-half. Neglecting a positive commandment is a transgression. A lighter transgression – it’s not the transgression of a prohibition – but it’s a lighter transgression, right? Neglecting a positive commandment is not something neutral. Not violating a prohibition is a neutral act. Neglecting a positive commandment – when I’m talking about a full positive commandment – then neglecting the positive commandment is a transgression, a lighter transgression. Later we’ll have to understand why, because in the scheme I described until now that isn’t clear. But I’m saying, first of all factually this is certainly so, right? So if that’s the case, then it does work. Because if I now eat the matzah, then I’m at zero, right? I have one commandment, I have a transgression of minus one, bottom line zero. If I eat nothing, then from the standpoint of the transgression I have zero – I didn’t violate the prohibition, I didn’t eat new grain. But I didn’t fulfill the commandment, so I have minus one-half. Zero is preferable to minus one-half. Therefore a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. An interesting question, for example, is what happens with an existential positive commandment. According to this explanation, an existential positive commandment would not override a prohibition, right? Because if you neglect an existential positive commandment, that’s not a transgression at all. When I say it’s a light transgression, I’m talking about a full positive commandment. But neglecting an existential positive commandment isn’t a transgression at all. The Ra’avad, for example, at the beginning of Sifra, claims that even an existential positive commandment overrides a prohibition. So that doesn’t fit the model I described here. But in Nachmanides I think that’s what is written. Because otherwise you can’t understand how he derives from what he said above that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. How do you derive that? Therefore I think the claim is that you have to do the calculation on both the side of fulfillment and the side of neglect, and the total has to be greater on the side where you eat the matzah than on the side where you don’t eat the matzah. And that happens only if you take into account that neglecting a positive commandment is also a transgression. A lighter transgression, but still a transgression. It’s not minus one; it’s minus a quarter, minus a half, I don’t know. Fine?

[Speaker H] And with matzah it really is karet if we don’t eat.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It changes nothing. Neglecting a positive commandment is always a transgression. The fact that here it is karet is—

[Speaker H] even more severe. Doesn’t matter, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] neglecting a positive commandment is always a transgression. Is neglecting a positive commandment not a transgression? Of course it is. What? A full-fledged transgression. You neglected a positive commandment – what do you mean? There is a positive commandment to eat matzah on the night of Passover. I’m talking about the first night, not the whole festival. Like eating in the sukkah on the first night. That’s a complete commandment. If you didn’t eat it, that’s neglect of a positive commandment. So it seems to me that this is what Nachmanides is writing. And if so, then indeed in the Ten Commandments, when he speaks about the commandment of the Sabbath, where there is this overlap between a positive commandment and a prohibition, the question arises there. And there precisely Nachmanides finds it necessary to explain it. The explanation he offers – that this is love versus fear – I translate into righteous versus wicked, and that’s exactly what we discussed before. And from here he indeed derives all the derivatives we discussed. Therefore they punish for a prohibition and not for a positive commandment. They give reward for a positive commandment; they don’t give reward for a prohibition. He adds also that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. That too is derived from this picture. But for it to be derived from this picture, we now have an additional player on the board: neglect of a positive commandment is not a neutral thing; neglect of a positive commandment is a kind of transgression. Okay, and that’s a big question – why. Because if indeed a positive commandment by definition is a commandment that marks out for me a positive state, then I simply was not in the positive state. Why is that called negative? I wasn’t in the positive state – true, that’s how we defined it. Negative is when there is a prohibition, when you are in a negative state. Of course there are prohibitions that are more severe and less severe. I called it minus one, but no – there is minus one, minus two, minus three. There are prohibitions punishable by court death, prohibitions punishable by karet, prohibitions punishable by death at the hands of Heaven, prohibitions punishable by lashes, prohibitions where there aren’t even lashes. There are different levels of severity among prohibitions, that’s fine. But still, it has to be a negative state, and the negative state is the prohibition. Neglecting a positive commandment is only not being in the positive state, according to my definition. So why does it have some small negative value? That’s really the question. And one has to remember that almost all the positive commandments we know in Jewish law are full positive commandments; there are almost no existential positive commandments. So this question is not some side-question that arises with one special positive commandment or another. No – almost all positive commandments are full positive commandments. And a full positive commandment means that if you don’t fulfill it, then you have committed a transgression, the transgression of neglecting a positive commandment. An existential commandment, if you don’t fulfill it, then nothing happened.

[Speaker M] Like desecrating the Sabbath? Of course. And if you don’t keep it. Of course.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, desecrating is already the prohibition. And if you don’t keep it? Yes, then it’s a full positive commandment. A full positive commandment means that in effect, if you didn’t keep it, then beyond the prohibition – apart from the prohibition, you also violated the prohibition – but also on the side of neglecting the positive commandment, you’ve committed a transgression here. And the question is how to explain that. Look, I have some formulation, but it really sounds a bit ad hoc; I’m not fully at peace with it. I want to claim that in full positive commandments, true, they mark out for me a positive state, but there is also a demand to be in the positive state. It’s not voluntary – if you’re there, you’ll be righteous. No. There are certain aspects in which the Torah expects us to be righteous. It isn’t enough just to be average. No, I want you to be righteous, not just ועמך כולם צדיקים. Okay? Not just average. In existential positive commandments, the Torah does not require us to be righteous. If we do it, then we’re righteous, but it’s voluntary. That’s usually what is understood as “righteous” in everyday language: if he was righteous, it means that someone who isn’t like that is not a bad person. He’s not righteous, but there is no expectation, no demand on you to be righteous, right? There is a demand on you not to be wicked. That is certainly a demand. There is no demand on you to be righteous. I am saying that in full positive commandments, Jewish law in effect does demand of us to be in the positive state, to be righteous. That’s a demand. And if we didn’t fulfill that, then I don’t know if that means we are in a negative state, but it is some sort of transgression, because here there is a demand to be righteous – not just that if you do it you are righteous. קדושים תהיו? “You shall be holy” is not an enumerated commandment, so it is hard to bring it into a halakhic discussion.

[Speaker C] No, I mean that if you become impure, then you’re doing an act in order not to be righteous. If you become impure and you’re—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a priest, because an Israelite is allowed to become impure. If you’re a priest, you’ve committed a transgression, but not because of קדושים תהיו; you’ve committed a transgression because it’s forbidden to become impure. Because כי אם לשארו הקרוב אליו, at the beginning of parashat Emor.

[Speaker L] What is he saying? What’s the mechanism? What does it mean? Like rebellion – they flog him because he is rebelling against society.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who is rebelling? I didn’t understand. Rebelling – if you don’t fulfill it, then you are rebelling.

[Speaker L] Yes, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s all if you are commanded.

[Speaker L] And therefore—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying there is a demand to be righteous. The formulation is a little problematic, because righteous אצלנו usually means, once again, if you do this we will look at you with admiration, you’ll get a certificate of appreciation from the chief of staff. But if you didn’t do it, nothing happened. You’re a good soldier, everything’s fine, okay? You’re just not an outstanding volunteer, no big deal. Here the claim is that people come to you with complaints even for not doing a positive action, not only for doing a negative action. Okay? That’s roughly the formulation I manage to formulate. I don’t know; it’s a formulation.

[Speaker D] That’s basically the problem of all our Judaism in short. What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, in Judaism there are positive commandments, and if we don’t do them, then are we rebelling against the Kingship?

[Speaker D] Right.

[Speaker G] So?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So—

[Speaker D] Obviously that’s negative.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but the question is how that… Obviously it’s negative; that’s exactly my question. After all, it’s obviously negative, so how does that fit with the picture I described earlier, that neglecting a positive commandment is only not being righteous? That’s my question. Because obviously it’s negative. Here you say righteous is the maximum and it’s like… okay, you understand that there is still a problem with the picture I described before. This basically means that not being in the positive state is itself some kind of negative state. Okay? So is there still any difference left between a positive commandment and a prohibition? That’s why I prefer the formulation that there is a demand to be in the positive state. It’s not that you are in a negative state, but that you failed to fulfill the demand to be in the positive state. An existential commandment is only the sketching of a positive state: if you are in it, you will be righteous; if not, then not. There is no demand.

[Speaker C] Maybe replace the word “righteous” with “loyal,” and then it will work better? Because when you don’t fulfill it, you’re not entirely loyal to the one who commanded you. But if you act against it, then you’re certainly not loyal, though it’s not on the same level.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, if that’s semantically more comfortable, fine. That’s just terminology. Let me sharpen it a bit. You know, with positive commandments people don’t pay much attention, but there are several different kinds of positive commandment. There is a full positive commandment. What is a full positive commandment? To eat matzah on the night of Passover – that’s a full positive commandment. What does that mean? If I ate the matzah, then I fulfilled a commandment. And if I didn’t eat it on the first night of Passover, then I committed a transgression – I neglected a positive commandment. That’s the transgression of neglecting a positive commandment. Okay, that’s a full positive commandment. What is an existential positive commandment? Well, an existential positive commandment is a commandment such that if one fulfills it, then one has a positive commandment, but if one does not fulfill it, nothing happened.

[— second half / part 2 of 2 —]

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you fulfill it, you gained a commandment. If you didn’t fulfill it, then no – you’re not obligated. That’s an existential commandment. In fact, it isn’t clear that there are any existential commandments in Jewish law at all in the full sense. I mentioned some time ago – I don’t remember where. What? No, no, tzitzit is not an existential commandment. The only existential commandment I know is, according to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, living in the Land of Israel. Moshe Feinstein claimed – he remained outside the Land, and they always asked him what about the commandment of settling the Land – so he said that settling the Land is an existential commandment. If you do it, you have a commandment; and if you don’t do it, nothing happened, there is no claim against you. And Rabbi Avraham Shapira came out strongly against this idea. And his claim was that there is no such thing as an existential commandment. Not specifically regarding settling the Land; he said there is no such thing as an existential commandment. What is an existential commandment? If you are obligated to fulfill it and didn’t fulfill it, then you’re not okay. What kind of commandment is it that you need to fulfill, but if you don’t fulfill it nothing happens? And that’s a misunderstanding. Of course there is such a thing. An existential commandment really means you are not obligated to fulfill it, only that if you do fulfill it, then you have a virtue, you are righteous. And yes, you really are not obligated to fulfill it. It’s not a positive commandment that you must fulfill. He already assumes that every positive commandment is a full commandment and that you are obligated to fulfill it, and then obviously if you’re obligated and didn’t fulfill it – no, not every positive commandment you are obligated to fulfill. A positive commandment is a definition, a definition of a positive state. If you are there, you are in a positive state. And with an existential commandment we remain at the level of definition: if you did it, you are in a positive state; if you didn’t, nothing happened. And with a full positive commandment there is a demand to be in the positive state. It’s not only that I mark a positive state, but I also kick you upward toward it so that you’ll be there, okay? And if you won’t be there, then you’re not okay. Wait a second. So therefore the claim is, first of all, that the concept is a defined concept. There is no problem with the definition of the concept, because Rabbi Avraham Shapira’s claim is that this is an undefined concept, just an oxymoron. If you must fulfill it, then if you didn’t fulfill it, obviously you’re not okay. How can there be something that you have to fulfill, but if you didn’t fulfill it nothing happened? No – not that you have to fulfill it, but that if you fulfilled it, you have a commandment; if you didn’t, nothing happened. That’s the whole point: a commandment is not necessarily something that you are obligated to fulfill. Because the concept of commandment really sounds like we are commanded, right? There’s a novelty here. The claim is that the concept of commandment is broader than things we are commanded to do; it is a definition. And that fits very well with what I said before: it marks a positive state. If you are there, then you are righteous, you are in a positive state, and if not, then not. If there is a demand to be in the positive state, then that really is a full positive commandment, okay? That’s the difference. So we already have a full positive commandment – if you fulfill it, you have a commandment; and if you didn’t fulfill it, you have the transgression of neglecting a positive commandment. Then there is an existential commandment – if you fulfilled it, you have a commandment; if you didn’t fulfill it, nothing happened, and it isn’t a transgression. You asked for examples of existential commandments. There are existential commandments that are not full, but where from some threshold onward they are existential. For example, giving charity. Maimonides says a third of a shekel a year is obligatory. If you didn’t find a poor person, go look for one. Meaning, you have to give at least a third of a shekel a year. Beyond that, up to a tenth, say, or up to a fifth if you like – if there is a poor person and he happens to be here, then give him. But if not, you are not required to go chase after him; nothing happened, okay? Right, but there it’s more delicate, because if a poor person comes and asks, then apparently you do have to give him up to a tenth or up to a fifth. You’re not required to look for poor people, but if a poor person comes and asks, you have to give him up to a tenth or a fifth. “You shall not harden your heart”? No, the question is whether in the positive commandment both things are there, because there is also פתוח תפתח and לא תקפוץ. So the question is whether that also exists on the side of the positive commandment. Or take Torah study. Torah study is a chapter in the morning and a chapter in the evening, the morning Shema and evening Shema. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says that’s enough; you have discharged Torah study. What about the rest? The rest of the whole day? If you studied, then you have a commandment. If you didn’t study, nothing happened. Torah study is an existential commandment. Okay? People asked, then what is “neglect of Torah study”? People do complain to a person about neglect of Torah study. You’re not obligated? What, I recited Shema morning and evening – what’s the problem? No. The concept of neglect of Torah study is not a halakhic concept. There is a special expectation to study Torah as much as you can all the time, but the commandment itself is an existential commandment beyond a chapter morning and evening, beyond the threshold.

[Speaker D] And והגית בו יומם ולילה, that’s the same thing. No, that’s in Joshua, not in the Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does that make?

[Speaker D] והגית בו—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] יומם ולילה, exactly. That’s why I say it’s not a halakhic obligation. “Neglect of Torah study” is based on והגית בו יומם ולילה, which the Talmud in Menachot says is really a promise, not a command. But no matter; for our purposes that is not part of the definition of the commandment of Torah study. Torah study…

[Speaker E] And ולימדתם אותם את בניכם, so that’s teaching the sons.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the sons – that is Torah study for yourselves. ושיננתם לבניך… where in Maimonides, which verse does Maimonides bring for Torah study? I don’t remember.

[Speaker E] No, no, no, no. That’s a commandment; it’s not just a preparatory step for a commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Torah study is a commandment; it isn’t just a preparatory step.

[Speaker E] Regarding putting on tefillin, there is a certain claim that for a considerable period only Torah scholars put them on. Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Do you know that? I’ve heard it, but I have no idea whether it’s true.

[Speaker E] Also Rabbeinu Tam. What about Rabbeinu Tam?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbeinu Tam and Rashi.

[Speaker E] There is some… okay, maybe. There is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is also a claim that once upon a time they didn’t put on tefillin at all, not even Torah scholars; that tefillin is some later development. There are a lot of such claims. Fine, I don’t know. In any case, I don’t rule it out. It doesn’t really matter to me either. In the end the tradition established what it established, and that’s what is halakhically binding. What was three thousand years ago? I have no idea. Anyway, for our purposes. So I began, yes – there is a full positive commandment, which one can fulfill and negate. There is an existential positive commandment, which one can fulfill but not negate. Combinatorially there are two more kinds of commandment, right? A commandment that one can negate but not fulfill, and a commandment that one can neither negate nor fulfill. What is a commandment that one can negate but not fulfill? A positive commandment – a positive commandment such that if you violate it, you have the transgression of neglecting a positive commandment, but if you fulfill it, you don’t have a commandment. The opposite of an existential commandment, yes? An existential commandment has only the side of fulfillment. This has only the side of negation. A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. Exactly that. A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment is written in the Torah in the language of a positive commandment; that’s why the Talmud also says that a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment is a positive commandment. And its halakhic status is a positive commandment, not a prohibition. When you look at what it means halakhically, it forbids you to do something. For example, והיה לכם פירות הארץ לאכלה – “the fruits of the land shall be for you to eat,” and not for commerce. From “to eat” they derive: and not for commerce. That is a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. Because someone who eats Sabbatical-year produce did not thereby fulfill a commandment. But someone who trades in Sabbatical-year produce committed a transgression. What kind of transgression? Not a prohibition. He neglected the positive commandment of והיה לכם פירות הארץ לאכלה. But with the positive commandment of והיה לכם פירות הארץ לאכלה, you don’t need to eat at all. You just need to make sure that you do not not-eat, if you will. You can see exactly the logic I’m talking about. Meaning, if you traded, then you are held accountable for the fact that you did not eat. Because otherwise this would have been a prohibition. The prohibition would have forbidden you to trade. But no, you don’t have a prohibition against trading. Rather, if you traded, then you did not eat. Right? And you are held accountable for that, not for the fact that you traded. You are held accountable for the fact that you did not eat. But in practice, if you ate, you have no commandment. Only if you did not eat are you held accountable. Fine? Meaning, a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment is a positive commandment that can be negated but cannot be fulfilled. You can’t fulfill this positive commandment. If you eat the produce, you didn’t fulfill the positive commandment… There are claims that according to Nachmanides there is a commandment to eat Sabbatical-year produce. I think that’s incorrect. Even according to Nachmanides there isn’t. But in any case, according to the standard views there is no commandment to eat Sabbatical-year produce. But clearly there is a prohibition against trading in it. There are many prohibitions inferred from a positive commandment. Examining the signs of animals and birds, for example. Fine? So if you ate without checking, then you violated this, but that doesn’t mean that if you checked you have a commandment – the commandment of checking. These are discussions around Maimonides, because Maimonides counts it. And there are many, many prohibitions inferred from a positive commandment. Now that leaves us only with the final type. So we’ve seen positive commandments with fulfillment and negation – that’s a full positive commandment. We’ve seen positive commandments with fulfillment and no negation – that’s an existential positive commandment. We’ve seen positive commandments with negation and no fulfillment – that’s a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment. What remains is a positive commandment with neither fulfillment nor negation. You can neither fail to fulfill it nor negate it. There are such commandments too. Maimonides, in positive commandment 95, and afterward also in 96, says explicitly: commandment 95 is the commandment of annulment of vows, that a husband should annul his wife’s vows. Maimonides says, when you read me, don’t think there is an obligation to annul vows or a prohibition not to annul them. There is nothing. It’s a definition. If you annul the vows according to the law, then the vow is annulled. And if you did not annul it, then it is not annulled. Just a definition. But there is no obligation to annul, no prohibition to annul, no prohibition not to annul. Nothing. This imposes no obligation on you at all. It’s just a halakhic definition of how one annuls vows. That’s how vows are annulled, and not—

[Speaker C] otherwise. Okay?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The same thing with impurity. When you touch a creeping thing, you become impure. If you’re an Israelite, there is no prohibition on becoming impure. Right? So this imposes no obligation, no prohibition, nothing. So why is it a positive commandment? It’s a definition that someone who touches a creeping thing is considered impure. That has many halakhic consequences. One who is impure may not enter the Temple, may not eat terumah, and things like that. But that’s just a definition. Because the rule that an impure person may not enter the Temple is a commandment in its own right. And that an impure person may not eat terumah is also a commandment in its own right. I don’t need the commandment that establishes that he is impure. The commandment that establishes that he is impure is only the definition of when you are impure. All the halakhic consequences of the state of being impure are separately enumerated commandments. So this definition of who is impure – and in all the impurity commandments this is so – about this too Maimonides says that this is a definitional commandment. It is not a commandment that imposes any obligation or prohibition. It is a definitional commandment. What does that mean? It is a positive commandment that cannot be either fulfilled or negated. That’s the fourth type.

[Speaker G] People disagreed with Maimonides about this, right? Nachmanides…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t remember that Nachmanides disagreed with him about this. Maybe on other points, other tools, I think… I don’t recall Nachmanides disagreeing with him about this. Maybe—

[Speaker G] It may be he has no choice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case… since we’re already in this general introduction… you mentioned tzitzit. Why is tzitzit not an existential commandment? Usually many people say – including later authorities who write this – that the commandment of tzitzit is an existential positive commandment. Why? Because you can simply not wear a four-cornered garment, and not make tzitzit, and no one will come to you with complaints. Right? If you have a four-cornered garment, then you have to put tzitzit on it. So therefore it’s considered an existential positive commandment. Why do I think that’s not correct? How did we define an existential positive commandment? Something that can be fulfilled but cannot be negated, right? The concept of neglecting a positive commandment is not defined for an existential positive commandment, right? Is the concept of neglecting a positive commandment defined for tzitzit? Certainly. If I have a four-cornered garment and I didn’t place tzitzit on it, then I neglected the positive commandment of tzitzit. So this is not an existential commandment. An existential commandment is a commandment that cannot be negated, only fulfilled. This is a conditional full positive commandment. It is conditional on your having a four-cornered garment. But if the conditions are met, then you are obligated. It is a full positive commandment—

[Speaker F] a full commandment to place the tzitzit. By the way, the same with tekhelet. What? What says that tekhelet isn’t… The Mishnah says that the tekhelet does not hold back the white, and the white does not hold back the tekhelet. So people think that tekhelet is optional. Not at all. Tekhelet is a full positive commandment. It’s just that if you don’t put on the tekhelet, that doesn’t invalidate the white, and you have fulfilled the commandment of the white strings. But the commandment of tekhelet you neglected. It isn’t voluntary, the commandment of tekhelet. It’s a full positive commandment. There too some later authorities mistakenly just get confused. It’s not… it’s not an existential commandment; it’s a full positive commandment. What if I put on tefillin? Also full. What? Full. And what about Grace after Meals? If you eat to satiety, you are obligated in Grace after Meals, right? Grace after Meals too is like tzitzit; you have to understand. People always immediately pull out tzitzit. There are many commandments like this that depend on a certain time or a certain event. Oh, only on Sukkot do I need to sit in the sukkah, so is that an existential commandment? No. If Sukkot is here, then I am obligated to sit in the sukkah. It is not an existential commandment. If the circumstances that obligate this commandment have occurred, then I am obligated in it. And it’s not… True, it is conditional on the existence of circumstances, but most commandments are conditional on the existence of circumstances. Most commandments apply only in certain circumstances. Circumstances of time, circumstances of place, other circumstances – it doesn’t matter. Right? Most commandments are like that. Therefore a conditional full positive commandment is not an existential positive commandment; it is not another category. It is a full positive commandment – a conditional full positive commandment. Fine, it’s still a full positive commandment. Okay, back to our subject. What I want to say is that after I defined positive commandments as marking out a positive state, and I explained that this description really fits mainly the existential positive commandment – a commandment such that if you fulfilled it you have a commandment, and if not, nothing happened – which is exactly what follows from my description. A full positive commandment requires an additional definition, because a full positive commandment – if I was not in the positive state – then there is a claim against me. I neglected a positive commandment. That’s the transgression of neglecting a positive commandment. So I said that there there is a demand – a demand to be in the positive state. Fine? What about a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment? A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment is: if I didn’t do it, then I have a transgression, right? The transgression of neglecting a positive commandment. And if I did do it, nothing happened. This already completely empties the concept of positive commandment of content, because it basically means that this is not a positive state at all. If you are there, it’s not positive at all. But if you are not… being there causes no problem, but if you’re not there, then you have a problem. And still, the problem is that you are not there, not that you are here. Because if the problem were that you are here, then it would be a prohibition. A prohibition inferred from a positive commandment means that when you are here there is a problem, but the problem is not that you are here; the problem is that you are not there. That’s the problem. Now translate all the kinds of positive commandment in light of the picture I described. Take a commandment that is neither full nor existential – what we called a definitional commandment. A definitional commandment – yes, slaughter too is often called a kind of existential commandment. If you want to eat, slaughter; if you don’t want to eat, don’t eat. That’s not right. It is a conditional full positive commandment. If you want to eat, you have to slaughter. If you don’t want to eat, fine. It’s conditional. But once you eat without slaughtering, then you neglected the positive commandment. Aside from the fact that you also violated the prohibition, you also neglected the positive commandment of וזבחת. Okay? So we defined the definitional commandment as one that cannot be either fulfilled or negated. There there are no complaints against you at all. So that probably has nothing at all to do with the map I described – of positive state, negative state. It’s unrelated. It’s simply a definition. That definition then has positive halakhic consequences, negative ones, all kinds. But the setting of the definition itself, in Maimonides, is mapped as a positive commandment. That doesn’t enter my scheme. There is no marking of a state there. All the others do enter. But those commandments do not enter my scheme. It is called a positive commandment because in Maimonides there are either positive commandments or prohibitions, so what are you going to do? Define it as a prohibition? It’s not. So you define it as a positive commandment. And that’s all. I really wondered why there is an existential positive commandment but no existential prohibition. What would an existential prohibition even be? You see that when you enter abstract definitions without passages and without anything, all sorts of questions come up that you don’t think about when you’re dealing with ordinary halakhic material. That’s the advantage of conceptual analysis. What would even count as an existential prohibition? Doesn’t that contradict the very definition of a prohibition? First of all let’s try to see what it would have to be, and afterward we’ll see whether it contradicts the definition of a prohibition. What is an existential positive commandment? An existential positive commandment is a positive commandment such that if you fulfill it, you have a commandment, and if you do not fulfill it, nothing happened, right? So what would an existential prohibition be? If you… then what remains in that prohibition? After all, if you refrain from it, then what? Refraining from it is not a commandment, right? So what remains? Therefore there cannot be an existential prohibition. An existential positive commandment can exist because there is positive content to fulfillment, but with a prohibition there isn’t; a prohibition is entirely on the side of negation. It is always existential, as it were. If you violated it, then you violated it, and if you didn’t violate it, then nothing happened. So that’s not a commandment. You might say in a certain sense that all prohibitions are existential. Never mind. The point is that you cannot distinguish here between two types of prohibition. Okay? Fine. Let me say one more thing. I once had a discussion about this when I wrote the article on this whole issue of positive commandments and prohibitions – an article on Maimonides’ sixth root. No, sorry, it was a book – a book on positive commandments and prohibitions. So I went to speak with some legal scholar at Hebrew University, Alon Harel. He deals with philosophy of law, and we spoke about various things. Among other things, he gave me Nozick’s example about the difference between temptation and extortion, which I brought in the previous lecture, to distinguish between a prohibition and a positive commandment. So that example I heard from him. But I asked him a question. I said: tell me, in Israeli law are there also positive commandments or only prohibitions? Or in law generally, not necessarily Israeli law. In modern legal systems. Are there also positive commandments or only prohibitions? What do you say? “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” – let’s leave that aside for the moment. But beyond that, that’s Hanan Porat’s law. Now let’s talk about citizens for a moment, because there is the principle of legality. The principle of legality says that the government is not allowed to do everything unless the law permits it. And the citizen is allowed to do everything unless the law forbids it. It works the opposite way, but that is how it should be. Okay? So let’s speak about citizens for a moment, not the government. Are there positive commandments on citizens, or only prohibitions? Paying municipal taxes, paying taxes generally – municipal tax is just one kind of tax. Okay, paying taxes. Joining the army, and things like that. Recommendations of that sort, yes? There are circles in which those recommendations are not accepted. Those two recommendations are not accepted. Is tax evasion forbidden? How many transgressors there are. So he said to me: what do you mean? Of course paying taxes, joining the army, things like that – those are positive commandments. So I told him that in my opinion these are not positive commandments; they are prohibitions. One indication is that someone who does them, nobody looks at him as righteous, right? You pay taxes or serve in the army – whether you’re a sucker is another question – but you are just a normal citizen, that’s all, right? You won’t receive a medal from the chief of staff or the president for paying taxes lawfully or serving in the army. Why? Because these are not positive commandments. They are worded in active language, but we already saw that prohibitions are sometimes worded in active language too. So what? The idea is still that if you don’t pay taxes, then you’re not okay. That’s the point. What about a stop sign at a traffic light? When someone ignores the stop sign, he is an offender. There is an obligation to stop at a stop sign. Exactly. According to the action-based definition, there are positive commandments in the law. But we already saw that the difference between a positive commandment and a prohibition is not an action-based difference. So even if the law imposes on me an obligation to do something, that does not mean it is a positive commandment. I need to examine whether the action here is required because the action is positive, or because the failure to act is negative. And now the indications – all the indications show that these are prohibitions and not positive commandments. Because in fact they punish the person who doesn’t enlist – unless he’s wearing black and doing whatever he wants – and they punish the one who doesn’t pay taxes, right? But they don’t give reward or public praise to the person who does enlist and the person who does pay taxes. That’s not… that’s normal behavior, basic citizenship, right? So you understand that conceptually this means these two things are prohibitions, not positive commandments. They are phrased in the language of positive commandments in the action-based sense – meaning you are required to do something. But really the point is that if you don’t do it, people will come to you with complaints. That’s the point. You know the legal rule that there is no law without a punishment. Every law has to have a punishment attached. Right? Why? Because the idea of law is that it consists entirely of prohibitions. Law is always a prohibition. Therefore there is no law without punishment. Because law is always prohibition, no matter whether it imposes a duty of action or a duty of omission. It doesn’t matter. In idea, it is a prohibition. And that really raises the question of “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” The law Hanan Porat wanted to pass – and did pass, yes. It is sometimes called the Good Samaritan Law. The idea is that if you see someone in distress, you must save him. If you didn’t save him – now the question is whether this is a prohibition or a positive commandment. Look, when you look at the debate that took place in the committee, the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, there was enormous opposition to this law. Part of the opposition was simply a reaction to Hanan Porat’s enthusiasm. Because why did he pass the law? Did he really want someone to save someone else? Nonsense. He passed the law in order to insert another verse into the law books, that’s all. He wanted there to be another piece of Judaism, right? Not that he felt there was some problem that people weren’t saving others and it had to be solved with new legislation. Not at all. Just look at how he danced after the law passed and you’ll understand that he wasn’t dancing for the elevation of the souls of all those who were saved. He was dancing because he succeeded in putting another Jewish element into the law books. And by the way, that was one reason – among others – why a great many people opposed the law. They said: we agree people should save others, but leave us alone; you’re stuffing religion, religious coercion, into the law books. And so many people opposed it for that reason. But that wasn’t the only reason. The deeper reason for the opposition was that they claimed there is no place for such a law in the law books. And this is a debate all over the world. There are countries that have a Good Samaritan law, but most countries do not. And the claim is that in my language this is a positive commandment. What do I mean? If you save someone, get a medal from the president. You really are righteous. Someone who didn’t save did not do anything evil. What do you want from him? He didn’t save. I didn’t drown you. What, do I owe you something? Fine, it’s not nice; we can wag our finger at you. But you can’t prohibit this by law. And more than that – I said earlier – once you prohibit it by law, there has to be punishment too, right? There is no law, no criminal offense, without punishment. Right? Now when you attach punishment to this, what are you really saying? That if you didn’t save him, then you are wicked – not merely that you’re not righteous. That is what people objected to in the Knesset. People argued no. They were in favor of saving others – nobody opposes that, right? They only claimed that this does not belong within the framework of law. Meaning, the law cannot compel you to save. There are cases where you are not to blame for what happened to him. If you are to blame, then yes, then you have to save him; there is an obligation. There is an obligation. But if you are not to blame… what? Is there the law of “do not stand”? Yes, in the Knesset, and on the road that was where the story started. On the road, by the way, I think there was even before Hanan Porat a law of “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” specifically on the road. There is something somewhat different there; I don’t remember exactly. Yes. Even if you are not connected and not at fault, you are forbidden to leave him there, I think. If you came upon an accident, you may not. But in other contexts – you see someone drowning – there was no legal obligation to save him. There was a moral obligation, but not a legal obligation. And after Hanan Porat’s law there is a legal obligation. And the opposition was to that. You cannot establish such an obligation in the law books. Now they didn’t have the right words to formulate it, I think, but if they had asked me I would have formulated it by saying: because the law books contain only prohibitions, and this thing is a positive commandment. It is a real positive commandment, not… not because it imposes an obligation to act on the practical level – taxes and the army also impose an obligation to act. The claim is that here it is also a positive commandment conceptually. Not only… not only a practical positive commandment. And the claim is: I want you to save, not that it is wrong not to save. And in the Torah it is indeed a prohibition. Exactly. My further claim against Hanan Porat’s move was – and I once wrote this in an article – that he thought he was bringing Judaism into the law books, but in fact he removed Judaism from the law books when he legislated this law. Why? Because before this law was passed, Israeli law actually fit the Torah very well. Right? What does the Torah say? לא תעמוד על דם רעך. If I did not save, what happens? I do not deserve punishment. It’s a prohibition that involves no action. Right? I do not get punished. If I did save, then fine. But if I didn’t save, I didn’t receive punishment. That was the state of Israeli law before Hanan Porat’s law. Then Hanan Porat’s law came, and now Israeli law no longer resembles Jewish law. Why? Because now if you didn’t save, you will also be punished. And in Jewish law you are not punished if you don’t save. I used that as an example in an article I wrote, showing that this whole policy of Hebrew law – of trying to insert more and more halakhot into Israeli law – is absurd, misguided. Because many times the attempts to insert halakhic principles into the law books actually lead to the result that it will not resemble Jewish law, because the context is completely different. Just taking a halakhah from here and planting it in the law books does not really mean you have implemented Judaism there. You have to look at the context. For example, if you want to take the laws of bailees from Jewish law – ostensibly something completely neutral, unrelated to religion or anything. Are there laws of bailees in the civil law? No, I don’t think so. Not that I know of anyway. I don’t think so. Why not? I say, look, if you draw the laws of bailees from Jewish law, among other things, in those laws the bailee has to swear an oath. Right? Now that is an inseparable part of the system. Meaning all those laws are built on the fact that I have some leverage against the bailee, because I can make him swear, and that deters him from swearing falsely, and therefore I also believe him if he says such-and-such and exempt him from payment if he says it was stolen and he was an unpaid bailee or something like that, because in the background there is always the oath. Now in civil law there is no oath. So once there is no oath, even if you take all the relevant rules from the laws of bailees, you still didn’t copy them properly. It’s the same words, but it’s a different thing entirely. You take it from there and move it here, but here it looks different. The context is different; the circumstances are different. So you didn’t really copy the right thing. This whole obsessive, misguided idea of taking things from Jewish law and putting as many of them as possible into the civil law is a misguided idea from so many angles. It also won’t implement Jewish law, but it will also distort the civil law. Because there is some internal logic within the halakhic system. Every legal system has one, but the halakhic system too. Details can project onto other details, and you don’t always notice. When you change one thing, something else may get distorted. There is some logic within the system, and the hope is that we succeed in making it into some organic system that functions symbiotically. Okay? Now if you just take one law from there and plant it here, you haven’t examined the implications – wait, what does that mean there, and is it even consistent with the overall conception? You are bringing things from places that are fed by entirely different foundational assumptions. These are religious assumptions; these are things determined many years ago in a totally different reality. So it’s called Torah and written in rabbinic script – so what? Does that mean it has to appear in the Israeli law books? That will just distort the law books, and it also won’t help the observance of Torah. What good is it if secular people observe Jewish law against their will because they were coerced? Do they fulfill commandments that way? What commandment are they fulfilling? They aren’t fulfilling anything. In short, it’s just pointless… The only argument left is Amichai—what’s his name? Radzyner. Amichai Radzyner wrote a response article to my article. The only thing left from that article is that maybe it has some cultural value. He wants there, after all, to convey that the State of Israel is a Jewish state, to bring verses, to educate the public so that they remain connected to their heritage. Fine. I’m not dismissing that; I’m not saying it cynically. That’s the only thing. Meaning, everything else here is misguided. No, it isn’t. If there is a solution in the religious world that really is the optimal solution, including to the legal problem before us, then of course they’ll take it. Why not? It solves the problem in the best possible way. What do you want? That even when that solution isn’t suitable and isn’t optimal, we should still take it because it happens to sit under a biblical verse? Why? Why would I distort the law books just in order to stuff verses into them? Write verses at the top if you want, decorate the book with verses. That’s fine. Leave the laws themselves alone. If you want, embellish the law books with verses here and there. There is no problem. Just leave the laws themselves at rest. There is something deeply confused here. All right, let’s get out of all that. So the point I want to make, in the end, is that in law, in essence, there are only prohibitions. There are no positive commandments. In the Torah there are positive commandments, yes, positive commandments too. Okay? That is an essential difference between law and Torah. But all this is only if I understand that the difference between a positive commandment and a prohibition is not an action-based difference, but a difference in the marking of states – the “righteous” and the “wicked.” That’s the point. The law only determines and forbids your being wicked. The law doesn’t tell you to be righteous. It’s not the law’s business whether I am righteous or not. And it would be nice if you were righteous; we’re glad if someone is righteous, and he’ll get from the president the insignia of the righteous. Fine, that’s nice. But as far as the law is concerned, that’s not the law’s role. We’ll encourage him through social and cultural means, but that isn’t the role of law; that’s not the accepted conception. Therefore the whole debate over “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” was really a debate over this issue: can you insert positive commandments into the law books? And the opponents argued that you cannot. Did it get in? Yes, it passed. It passed, but nobody really enforces it in practice. Maybe here and there; I don’t think so. And in general, even if they convict you for something, you’ll probably get some one-shekel fine, something symbolic like that. I don’t think people are really convicted for it, as I recall. There was even, with Margalit Har-Shefi, with Yigal Amir – wasn’t she convicted under some rare clause? Wasn’t that it? She knew he was planning it and didn’t reveal that he was planning to kill Rabin, and they convicted her. I think it was the first time in the history of the State of Israel that someone was convicted under that clause. I don’t remember whether that was “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” or something similar, meaning she didn’t save him, essentially; there was someone in danger and she didn’t save him, and on that basis they prosecuted her. Which is very rare. But the idea is the same. Why is there opposition to prosecuting something like that? Because you have no obligation to save someone. You didn’t murder him. What business is it of yours? It would be nice if you saved him, but that’s a positive commandment, not a prohibition. If you run someone over… no, if you run him over, that’s something else, because you’re to blame. Different discussion. Then it is to repair the wrong you caused. You are at fault; you did it. So part of the repair is simply to fix what you did. But if you just see some injured person whom you didn’t cause – why do you need to save him? Because you might get involved with him… fine, those are technical questions. But… okay, in the little time we have left, there are Tosafot in Kiddushin, Tosafot and Nachmanides in Kiddushin. Let’s try to get to that too. The Talmud in tractate Kiddushin 34 brings various positive commandments that are time-bound and others that are not time-bound. Okay? Time-bound commandments: sukkah and lulav, shofar and tzitzit and tefillin. Commandments not time-bound: mezuzah, parapet, returning lost property, and sending away the mother bird. Now the medieval commentators there, several of them – Tosafot and Nachmanides and several others – remark that among the commandments that are not time-bound, look what commandments are involved. Mezuzah, which is exceptional perhaps, but parapet, lost property, and sending away the mother bird. Those three commandments all also have a prohibition alongside them. Parapet, lost property, and sending away the mother bird, yes? ולא תשים דמים בביתך regarding the parapet; and regarding lost property, לא תוכל להתעלם; and with sending away the mother bird too, yes – לא תקח האם על הבנים, exactly. So… in that case the question of the medieval commentators is: why point out that this positive commandment is not time-bound and therefore women are obligated? Women would have been obligated even if it were time-bound, because of the accompanying prohibition. And this is strange because three out of the four examples the Talmud brought are specifically examples of this kind, problematic examples. It’s not one out of four that happened to slip in. Three out of the four are like this. They are bad examples for saying that because it is not time-bound, therefore women are obligated. They would have been obligated even if it had been time-bound. So the medieval commentators discuss this. Nachmanides claims that no – if it had been time-bound, he explains here that women would have been exempt even though there is a prohibition there. Why? Because the prohibition comes to support the positive commandment. The whole point of the prohibition is to support the positive commandment. For example, he speaks about the parapet. So לא תשים דמים בביתך is a prohibition whose whole purpose is to strengthen the positive commandment of ועשית מעקה לגגך. So what? Some later authorities understood that the prohibition also has the same character as the positive commandment. If the prohibition supports the positive commandment, then the prohibition itself basically has the status of a positive commandment. What’s the idea behind that? The idea behind it is really the action-based notion. Because even though לא תשים דמים בביתך is a prohibition, what does it obligate me to do? To build a parapet, right? It strengthens the commandment to build a parapet. So in its practical essence it is a positive commandment, not a prohibition. And therefore they say that such a prohibition is basically a positive commandment. So if it were time-bound, women really would be exempt despite the presence of a prohibition, because it isn’t really a prohibition; it is a positive commandment. But I don’t think that’s the intention. The intention is that the whole point of the prohibition is to support the positive commandment. And if the positive commandment were time-bound, yes? Then women would be exempt from the positive commandment, right? You understand that they would also be exempt from the prohibition. Because if the whole point of the prohibition is to make sure you fulfill the positive commandment that you are obligated in, then if you are not obligated in that positive commandment, there is no point in imposing the prohibition on you as well. Not because the prohibition has the character of a positive commandment. It’s not that the prohibition draws its character from the positive commandment. Rather, once you are not obligated in the positive commandment, and the whole purpose of the prohibition is to support the positive commandment – if you are not obligated in the positive commandment, why should the prohibition be imposed on you? Its whole purpose is to make sure that you fulfill the positive commandment, but I, as a woman, do not need to fulfill that positive commandment. Okay? Therefore, says Nachmanides, the Talmud had to say here that this is a commandment that is not time-bound, because if it were time-bound, women would be exempt. So what if there is a prohibition next to it? Women would still be exempt. That’s his reason. Now the later authorities make various uses of this. For example, the Mahari”l Diskin asks in his responsa: why doesn’t a person have to spend more than one-fifth on charity? After all, with charity there is both a prohibition and a positive commandment: לא תקפוץ את ידך, לא תאמץ את לבבך, right? So why only up to a fifth? “One who spends should not spend more than a fifth.” Why? After all, in order not to violate the prohibition I should have to spend all my money. So he explains it according to Nachmanides. He says: every prohibition connected with charity is a prohibition that comes to support the positive commandment. And if for the positive commandment you do not have to spend beyond a fifth of your money, then obviously the prohibition also will not be imposed on you, because the whole point of the prohibition is to make sure you fulfill the positive commandment. Exactly like the exemption of women that we mentioned earlier. Here there is an exemption because it is beyond one-fifth, and I don’t have to spend more than one-fifth. Once I am exempt, no matter for what reason, then there is no reason to impose the prohibition on me, because the whole point of the prohibition is to strengthen the positive commandment, to make sure that I fulfill the positive commandment. The same applies with Yom Kippur too. Why is it permitted to feed minors on Yom Kippur? The Magen Avraham asks: why is it permitted to feed minors on Yom Kippur? There is לא תאכלום לא תאכילום – do not let them eat. The Magen Avraham says that with a positive commandment they don’t have this prohibition. It is forbidden to feed a minor a prohibition with your own hands. Okay? Meaning, a minor below the age of education. If you put it directly in his mouth, that’s forbidden even with a one-year-old baby. It is forbidden to give a one-year-old baby pork to eat or drink. Okay? So the Magen Avraham says: since on Yom Kippur it is a positive commandment, ועניתם את נפשותיכם, then the minors – there is no prohibition against feeding them, because with positive commandments there is no such prohibition. Only with prohibitions is there a prohibition against feeding it to them, directly causing them to violate it. There they ask: but there is also a prohibition. Okay? כל הנפש אשר לא תעונה is a punishment, and the question is where the prohibition is. The prohibition is not written explicitly in the Torah at all. And in tractate Yoma the Talmud asks: we have heard the punishment; from where is the warning? Where is the prohibition? And Resh Lakish there makes a whole pilpul about how we manage to derive a prohibition from this. There are indeed enumerators of the commandments who do not count a prohibition on Yom Kippur, only a positive commandment. Maimonides counts a prohibition too. They ask: according to Maimonides there is also a prohibition, so why does it matter that the Magen Avraham says there is a positive commandment here? True, with a positive commandment there is no prohibition against feeding it directly to a minor, but here there is also a prohibition. According to this Nachmanides – the Divrei Yechezkel writes this – according to this Nachmanides I say: the prohibition comes to support the positive commandment. If you are not required, if you are not violating the positive commandment, then obviously you also won’t be violating the prohibition. Okay. So what does this mean for our purposes? Wait, I want to finish. What does it mean that the prohibition supports the positive commandment? In what sense does it support it? Usually the standard conception is: because for a prohibition you can get lashes. A positive commandment doesn’t create much pressure to fulfill it, because there is no punishment if you don’t fulfill it. If it’s a prohibition and you don’t do it, then there is punishment, right? Therefore they bring in a prohibition to support the positive commandment. But that explanation doesn’t hold water. Because for example with a parapet, if you don’t build a parapet, you don’t get lashes, there is no punishment. לא תשים דמים בביתך is a prohibition, but it is a prohibition without an action. You don’t get lashes. So why add the prohibition of לא תשים דמים בביתך to the positive commandment of parapet? Like some sort of existential prohibition? It’s like an existential prohibition. Exactly. No, it’s like a full positive commandment. The prohibition turns the positive commandment into a full one. What does that mean? The claim is that if there were only a positive commandment, then I could allow myself not to build the parapet. I won’t be righteous – so what. But no. If you don’t build a parapet, then you will also be wicked, not merely not righteous. Do you understand how that strengthens the positive commandment? Not because of the lashes involved. The punishment only expresses it. I kept saying: the punishment expresses the fact that you are wicked. But the reason you recoil from a prohibition – when you don’t violate a prohibition, I said, you are not righteous, you are average. Why average? Because you only don’t want to be wicked, not because you don’t want the punishment. You don’t want to be wicked. Here too, the same thing. If there were only a positive commandment, average people would not build a parapet. They don’t want to be righteous; they’re not wicked. Everything is fine, so I won’t build a parapet. Now the prohibition says: no, no – know that if you don’t build the parapet, you are wicked, not average. And you don’t want to be wicked. Therefore you will build the parapet. And then the prohibition supports the positive commandment not because of the lashes attached to the prohibition, but because of the idea of the prohibition, because the prohibition says that you are wicked if you do not do it.