Topics in Tractate Makkot, Chapter 3 – Lesson 9 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Speaker A] Okay, let’s begin.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the previous lecture, after we looked a bit at the Talmudic passage, we saw that it was dealing with the distinction among sin-offerings, and we got into the question of that distinction. And the conclusion — at least my conclusion — was that the liability of the sin-offering, the simplest explanation for the distinctions among sin-offerings, is that the liability of the sin-offering is for the lack of awareness, not that the lack of awareness is a condition for liability. The liability is for the lack of awareness itself. Meaning: for the fact that this was hidden from you — that itself is what you bring the sin-offering for, not for the act that you did. So if we want, in effect, to complete the picture, then I would say that when we look at a sinful act, we can speak about it on three planes. One plane is what led to the sinful act, for example the lack of awareness, or intentionality — lack of awareness, meaning the intentions that accompanied it, the conditions that led me to commit the transgression. Then there is the act of transgression itself. And there are the results. The transgression damaged something; I don’t know, something happened. In transgressions like murder, that’s very clear — the result is that someone lost his life. But the accepted assumption is that every transgression has some kind of results, okay? And the question is: whenever we discuss a transgression, what exactly are we addressing? I want to argue that the sin-offering speaks to the motivations, punishment for intentional sin speaks to the action, and the guilt-offering speaks to the results. Okay? That’s basically the distinction. And in the end we’ll even see it in certain Torah passages. I’ll go a bit outside my usual practice — I usually don’t touch these kinds of things — but here I think it can be illustrated very well.

What lies behind this conception, that the sin-offering is brought for the lack of awareness, is that you can’t view that action as an action for which one can punish me, because the action that I did, I did not do as an agent — yes, someone responsible for his acts. That means a person who made a decision and carried out what he decided. In such a case, the action he performed is attributed to him, and therefore one can punish him, one can hold him to account for the action he performed. In philosophy of action, in analytic philosophy, they talk about types of human actions. There are certain types where the person is not acting as an agent; he does things not out of decision and intention, and therefore you can’t really attribute the action to him. You can still hold it against him that he got himself into that state. Chashad? I think we mentioned — we talked about someone driving drunk, for example. I think we talked about that, right? Someone who drove drunk — you don’t hold it against him for what he did; you hold it against him for getting drunk, because he put himself into a condition in which he’s not responsible for his actions. As a result, we impose responsibility on him for what happened, but that is not punishment for what happened; it is responsibility for what happened, because he was at fault in the situation. He bears responsibility. If the action were attributed to him, then he would deserve punishment, not merely bearing responsibility, okay? Where’s the practical difference? For example, if he got drunk and didn’t run anyone over — he drove drunk and didn’t run anyone over, nothing happened. If it were punishment, then he should receive punishment in any case; what difference does it make whether something happened or not? But if it’s only responsibility for what happened, then if something happened, fine — responsibility, fix what happened. If nothing happened, then nothing happened, and nobody wants anything from you.

[Speaker A] That’s just a point from the 1970s that became sharper, and usually the person had to be drugged unintentionally — meaning, the very fact that he put himself into a status that might trigger…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not without driving — I mean in general.

[Speaker A] Generally, without any…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anything — without running someone over, without even driving. If you’re driving drunk, then certainly you’re punished even if nothing happened. If a police officer stops you and gives you a breathalyzer and discovers that you’re drunk, you get…

[Speaker A] Punishment, but here maybe…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’ll say because of what might happen — yes, but even that is because they fear, after all, you yourself said that if you put yourself into a condition where you’re not responsible, then all sorts of things can happen.

[Speaker A] But within driving, the concern — maybe more than concern — is that they saw it as the person’s status, meaning entering the gates of something like that, and turned it into an offense. So what I’m saying is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that in essence, I think drunk driving too is, in principle, the same thing. You’re putting yourself into a status. What happens there is no longer under your control, because you have no control. But you’re punished for putting yourself into that kind of status in which you have no control, and then all the results that occur are also your responsibility. Your responsibility. But legally they also punish you for the very act of entering that status. And on the principled level, let’s say, for the act of running someone over, you can’t punish him. For the act of running someone over, he was not at fault. All there is, is that he is responsible for what happened in the act of running someone over — let’s say, for the results. Not for the action; for the results. If it were punishment, then you’d be punished for the action. Okay? So therefore I’m saying that the reason — or the justification — for the fact that the sin-offering is brought for the lack of awareness and not for the action, not for the action on condition that there was lack of awareness but for the lack of awareness itself, is because the action cannot be attributed to me. I didn’t do it as an agent. I mentioned the unintentional murderer and the intentional murderer, right? That the unintentional murderer is basically seen as an act of the Holy One, blessed be He, not yours. Whereas the intentional murderer — that’s your action. And then, even though perhaps he did not deserve to die, there is one who perishes without justice, and therefore it is seen as your action. Why? Because when you act unintentionally, it’s not really an action you decided upon. It’s not your action. In the end, yes, your body did it, but it’s not really your action.

Take, for example, someone who causes damage and is liable even under duress, and let’s say even under complete duress. Even more so, according to this view, it’s complete duress. There’s a dispute among medieval authorities whether it’s complete duress or not complete duress. If we say he is liable under complete duress, then it’s clear that we have here liability of responsibility. It’s not punishment. You have responsibility for everything you do — meaning, whether you’re at fault or not, that is exactly the definition of responsibility. Or a minor pursuer. Why do we kill a minor pursuer? Because he may kill someone else. So what? מי יימר דדמא דידך סומק טפי — who says your blood is redder? Why do you kill him to save the other person? So if it’s an adult pursuer, then he is at fault, because he’s going to kill him — he decided to kill him, he’s chasing after him — so guilt means that his blood is less red. Okay? But if he’s a minor — a minor has no blame. A one-year-old child takes a gun and fires it, thinking it’s a cap gun or whatever, and he shoots; he doesn’t understand that it kills, he’s guilty of nothing, he has no blame, no understanding. And even so, they kill him. Why do they kill him? I think that’s a principle of responsibility, not punishment. You are responsible for all the actions that can emerge from the things you do, even though you bear no blame at all in the matter. As a minor, certainly you bear no blame in the matter, but still, since you are the source of that result, you are responsible for it, and you are the one who must deal with it or ensure that it doesn’t happen.

Okay, so that’s regarding the sin-offering. I want now to move for a moment — Matan, right? — I want now to move to the guilt-offering in order to contrast it with the sin-offering. In a moment I’ll come back; I already said earlier what I think the guilt-offering does, but let’s return to the beginning. Guilt-offerings are basically divided into two main categories. There are guilt-offerings of sin and guilt-offerings of purity. Okay? A leper, a Nazirite — these bring a guilt-offering — and there are guilt-offerings of sin: the designated maidservant, the guilt-offering for robbery, the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property, and actually the provisional guilt-offering too is a guilt-offering that comes for sin. So in principle we have guilt-offerings of purity and guilt-offerings of sin. The sin-related guilt-offerings themselves are four. There are three definite guilt-offerings — the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property, the guilt-offering for robbery, and the guilt-offering of the designated maidservant — and then there is the provisional guilt-offering. The provisional guilt-offering is where intentional violation incurs karet and unintentional violation requires a sin-offering; in a case of doubt, one brings a provisional guilt-offering. Meaning, if you ate something that was possibly forbidden fat and possibly permitted fat — you don’t know whether it was forbidden fat or permitted fat — then you can’t bring a sin-offering, because maybe it was actually permitted fat and it was allowed to eat it, okay? But on the possibility that it was forbidden fat, then you would be liable to karet, yes? Intentional violation incurs karet. So unintentional violation — sorry, or doubtful violation — a provisional guilt-offering. Okay? So you bring a provisional guilt-offering. If in the end it becomes clear to you that it was indeed forbidden fat, then you also bring a sin-offering. But at the initial stage, until it becomes clear, you bring a provisional guilt-offering. A provisional guilt-offering is brought for certain sins when they are committed in uncertainty — when you are in doubt whether you performed the act or not. There are, of course, conditions in the provisional guilt-offering; not every doubt obligates one in a provisional guilt-offering. Practically speaking, only a doubt involving one piece out of two pieces obligates a provisional guilt-offering. One piece out of two pieces — meaning, if I have one piece that is possibly forbidden fat and possibly permitted fat, and I ate it, then one is not liable for a provisional guilt-offering. But if there are two pieces here, and I know one is forbidden fat and one is permitted fat, and I ate one and I don’t know which one I ate — that is what I bring a provisional guilt-offering for. Okay? That too is a topic in its own right; that distinction is interesting. But that’s the law. And then there are the purity-related guilt-offerings, which are those of the Nazirite and the leper. Okay? So that’s all the guilt-offerings.

Now I want — let’s try for a moment to understand what they have in common. What does a guilt-offering mean? What is the difference between it and the sin-offering? Meaning: why is there a sin-offering? There are certain sins for which one brings a sin-offering and other sins for which one brings a guilt-offering. So Nachmanides, in his commentary on the Torah on Leviticus, on והביא את אשמו לה’ — “and he shall bring his guilt-offering to the Lord” — says: “This sacrifice is called a guilt-offering, as it says, ‘by the holy shekel for a guilt-offering,’ but it has not been clarified what the reason is that one sacrifice is called a sin-offering and another is called a guilt-offering, though all come for sin.” He’s talking about the sin-related guilt-offerings. So both the sin-offering and the guilt-offering come for sin. So these aren’t just random names. What’s the difference? Why did they divide it into two kinds of sacrifices, and what is the difference between them? “And one cannot say that it is because of the severity of the sin, for behold, the leper brings two sacrifices, one called a sin-offering and the other a guilt-offering.” On the face of it, it doesn’t depend on severity of sin — although the proof here is a weak one, because if he brings the sin-offering for one aspect and the guilt-offering for another aspect, it may be that that aspect is more severe than this one. So the fact that both are brought by the same person doesn’t mean the level of severity is the same. Never mind.

“And it appears to me that the name ‘guilt-offering’ indicates a serious matter, such that the one who does it deserves to become desolate and ruined because of it,” from the language of יאשמו אלוהים and וישמו נאות מדבר, and likewise תאשם שומרון כי מרתה באלוהיה, and likewise אשמים אנחנו — “we are guilty,” meaning we are being punished. “And ‘sin-offering’ indicates something in which one strayed from the path,” from the language of אל השערה ולא יחטיא. So this is something where you strayed from the way; that is something serious. What? So the difference is great versus small? Why is straying from the path the opposite of something serious? What does that mean? Fine.

“And behold, the guilt-offering for robbery and the guilt-offering of the designated maidservant, since they come even for intentional sin” — yes, that is a characteristic of guilt-offerings, and in a moment we’ll get to it — guilt-offerings come also for intentional sin, not only for unintentional sin. That is already a very important hint. “Therefore their sacrifice is called a guilt-offering, and likewise the Nazirite’s guilt-offering. But the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property, although it is for unintentional sin” — after all, misuse of sacred property is only for unintentional sin, so the guilt-offering for misuse is brought only for unintentional sin even though the usual rule is that guilt-offerings are brought also for intentional sin — “yet because it concerns the holy things of the Lord, the sacrifice is called a guilt-offering, for the sin is great and one deserves to be guilty in it,” just as the leper’s guilt-offering is called a guilt-offering because the leper is considered like the dead. In short, these are the sorts of little homiletic flourishes that explain why I don’t tend to learn Bible that way. “And the reason for the provisional guilt-offering is because its owner thinks he bears no punishment, for it is not known that he sinned. Therefore Scripture was more severe with him in his doubt than in his certainty.” So now we’re stitching everything together in such a way that because it’s lighter, therefore they call it a guilt-offering so he won’t think it’s light and come to sin. You know, there’s an Israeli evolutionary researcher named Amotz Zahavi, and he conceived or defined a certain principle called the handicap principle. What is the handicap principle? Think, for example, of a peacock. A male peacock has a very impressive fan of colors, right? From an evolutionary standpoint that’s suicide. He stands out terribly; the first thing the tiger will eat is that peacock when it sees him around there. That has no survival value whatsoever. So what does Amotz Zahavi tell us? No, on the contrary — it has survival value. Why? Because it signals that he doesn’t care, he’s afraid of no one: look at all my colors, I don’t care about the world, and no one will dare mess with him. So precisely his weakness becomes a survival advantage. Which of course turns evolution into a theory that cannot be falsified. Because every time you find something that gives no survival advantage and yet was produced, you’ll explain that it has survival advantage because the lack of survival advantage is the survival advantage. In short, it’s a theory that cannot be falsified. Now, “cannot be falsified” is not an accusation, by the way — it’s not that it’s surely true. That’s not the accusation. Mathematics also cannot be falsified. It’s just not science; it’s mathematics. Evolution is mathematics; it doesn’t belong to science. Survival of the fittest — there are elements in evolution that are scientific: genetics and so on. But the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest is a logical tautology. In other words, whoever survived is obviously fitter, otherwise he wouldn’t have survived. Right? Fine. In any case, like they say, “there is no religious thief, because if he’s a thief then he’s not religious.” That kind of tautology.

Anyway, here too you see: the provisional guilt-offering is lighter — ah, precisely because of that it’s called a guilt-offering, because if it’s lighter then a person will think he can easily violate it, so they were more stringent with it. In short, we won’t get anywhere with that. So if I may suggest something else.

Okay, so the Mishnah in tractate Keritot on page 9 says as follows: “And these are those for which one brings a sacrifice for intentional sin just as for unintentional sin: one who has relations with the maidservant, a Nazirite who became impure, an oath of testimony, or an oath regarding a deposit.” Three out of the four on this list are guilt-offerings. One who has relations with the maidservant — the designated maidservant — that is a guilt-offering. A Nazirite who became impure — that is a guilt-offering. And an oath regarding a deposit — that too is a guilt-offering; that is the guilt-offering for robbery. The oath of testimony is something else, okay? But three of them are guilt-offerings, and it really doesn’t seem plausible that this is accidental. There is something about guilt-offerings that causes us not to distinguish between intentional and unintentional sin in the context of guilt-offerings. That is already a hint. And the sin-offering, for example, comes only for unintentional sin. So here already we have an initial hint about the difference between the guilt-offering and the sin-offering. I’ll just mention here already — as Nachmanides himself noted — that there is a certain kind of guilt-offering that comes only for unintentional sin: the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property. When you misuse sacred property you bring a guilt-offering, but only if you did so unintentionally. If you misused it intentionally, it does not leave sacred status and you don’t bring a guilt-offering. There is a prohibition, but it does not leave sacred status and you don’t bring a guilt-offering. So this too is not an absolute characteristic, but there is probably some hint here to the nature of guilt-offerings.

Rashi on the Mishnah in tractate Horayot page 8 — let me share this with our dear viewers as well. So Rashi on the Mishnah in Horayot: “Furthermore, in guilt-offerings there is no law of communal error, because one is liable for a definite guilt-offering for intentional sin just as for unintentional sin.” So he says that categorically, in guilt-offerings the category of hidden error doesn’t apply. Why? Because guilt-offerings are brought for intentional sin just as for unintentional sin. The context doesn’t matter at the moment, but you see that Rashi took this characteristic of guilt-offerings — that they come for intentional sin just as for unintentional sin — as an essential characteristic. That it is an essential characteristic of the guilt-offering. A guilt-offering essentially comes for intentional sin just as for unintentional sin. As I said, however, there is an exception: the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property is an exception; it comes only for unintentional sin. What does that mean? Let’s think about methodology for a moment. On the one hand, it seems there is some essential characteristic here that gives us a clue to the definition of guilt-offering and to the difference between it and the sin-offering. On the other hand, it seems the characteristic is not the mere fact that it comes for intentional sin just as for unintentional sin. Because if that were the characteristic, then why does the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property come only for unintentional sin? That too is a guilt-offering. Apparently there is a more fundamental characteristic whose usual expression is that from its standpoint there is no difference between intentional and unintentional sin. But in the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property, for some reason, the fundamental characteristic exists while the implication does not exist. That is how I would look for it; in practice, that’s what I did. Once I entered this topic, that’s how I thought. I tried to define for myself what a guilt-offering is. I said, wait — let’s try to understand. It’s somehow connected to the fact that there’s no difference between intentional and unintentional sin, but that can’t be the thing itself. If that were the thing itself, then it doesn’t fit in the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property. It gives me a hint as to what the thing itself is, but it’s not itself that thing. Okay? So then what is it? How can we understand it?

[Speaker A] But with the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property — if there were two kinds of sacrifices, one for unintentional sin and one for intentional sin, you could say it escapes you. But the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property is a separate category that has nothing at all in the intentional case.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] נכון. There is a prohibition. Yes.

[Speaker A] Okay. You could stay with that definition, meaning that they treated the unintentional like the intentional, and the guilt-offering for misuse is simply a one-directional category, meaning it has only…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying that in principle it includes both intentional and unintentional, wherever something is brought in the intentional case, but if in the intentional case nothing is brought, then only the unintentional remains. That’s already getting closer to what I’m about to say.

Look, what I want to say — I’ll give away the punchline, okay? I’ll give away the punchline. I want to say — just a methodological lesson: how do you think about this kind of question? Okay? When I ask myself: let’s try to think, what does the fact that I don’t care whether you were intentional or unintentional express? What could the definition behind that be? Severe? Fine, severe — but there is still a difference between intentional and unintentional sin, isn’t there?

[Speaker C] There’s no comparison between unintentional and terrible…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? If something is severe, does that mean the concept of unintentional sin disappears? There is even unintentional murder.

[Speaker A] Maybe because motivation has no significance here — only the result matters.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly! I think so too. Meaning, that’s the direction I went in. Once you tell me you don’t care about the person’s motivations — intentional, unintentional — we’re not talking about his blame at all; that’s not the point. The point is what happened. If something happened, if the result happened, that’s it — that is what the guilt-offering comes for. If I’m indifferent to the question of what your motivations were or what degree of blame you had in the matter — yes, unlike Nachmanides, who ties it to blame — on the contrary, I argue that here it has nothing to do with blame. It has to do with desolation. Nachmanides also says it comes from the language of desolation, ותאשם שומרון — “Samaria shall be desolate,” meaning it became desolation. So the claim is that… the result of your action, the desolation you created by your action — that is what makes you liable to a guilt-offering. And therefore it makes no difference whether you acted intentionally or unintentionally. Intentional or unintentional is very relevant to the sin-offering, because the sin-offering deals with the person; it deals with the question of the degree of blame you have in the matter, how much your motivation, how much your negligence, contributed to the matter. That’s how we defined the sin-offering in the previous lecture. I am claiming that the guilt-offering is the antithesis. I don’t care what happened in the person; it deals only with the object — the question of what happened. If what happened happened, you are obligated to bring a guilt-offering. Okay? First hint, first proposal, from the mere fact that there is no difference between intentional and unintentional sin. Okay?

Now I’ll try to show you: I’m going to go through all the types of guilt-offerings, and you’ll see, one after another, that they all fit this definition. Okay? So I say: let’s begin with the guilt-offering of the designated maidservant. Okay? The designated maidservant is half-slave and half-free, and married to a Hebrew slave. The details don’t matter right now, but the concept is that the designated maidservant is married — she has a husband — but if another man has relations with her, he brings a guilt-offering, the guilt-offering of the designated maidservant. This is the only case in Jewish law where there is a difference between the prohibition on the man having relations and the prohibition on the woman being had. In all places where there are forbidden sexual relations, the same prohibition applies to the man and the woman. Both partners share in that prohibition. Okay? Again, if she was coerced and so on, then we exempt her because she was coerced, but the prohibition exists and it is symmetrical on both sides. Except for the designated maidservant. In the designated maidservant, the maidservant violated a prohibition, but the man who had relations did not violate any prohibition. He violated no prohibition — that is the law. There is some discussion in the Talmud, but the law according to most medieval authorities is that he violated no prohibition at all; there is no prohibition on him. But he brings a guilt-offering, the guilt-offering of the designated maidservant.

Now that itself says something about the guilt-offering. If he did not commit a prohibition, if he did not violate a prohibition, then why does he bring a guilt-offering? For what does he bring a guilt-offering? A guilt-offering is brought for sin, isn’t it? That’s what Nachmanides said. But there is no sin; you didn’t violate a prohibition. So what I want to claim is that a guilt-offering really does not come for sin. Even the sin-related guilt-offerings do not come for the sin. For the sinful side of the matter there are punishments, there are sin-offerings, whatever you want. The guilt-offering comes for the result of your act, for the desolation you created by means of that act. It somehow tries to purify, cleanse, atone — however you want to put it — for the result that occurred here. Okay?

Now the claim is that with the designated maidservant, the act is a problematic act. All in all, you had relations with another man’s wife. Okay? True, from a formal halakhic perspective there is no prohibition here, it’s not defined as a prohibition that you violated. But there is a problematic result here, and for that problematic result you bring a guilt-offering. And my claim is that a guilt-offering does not require a sin. Even in situations where there is no sin, that does not negate the fact that you may be liable for a guilt-offering. The guilt-offering does not come for the sin; it comes for the result of your action. If your action has a problematic result, even if it’s not a sin in the formal halakhic sense, you bring a guilt-offering.

Now let me illustrate this for you through the words of Pnei Yehoshua. Pnei Yehoshua in tractate Gittin 43 says the following: Rav Chisda said: “A woman who is half-slave and half-free, who was betrothed to Reuven and then emancipated — I do not read of her, ‘the wife of two dead men.’” What does that mean? What does it mean in general that there is no such thing as “the wife of two dead men”? It means a woman whose two husbands died and she is liable for levirate marriage from two directions — the brother of the first husband and the brother of the second husband. There is no such thing, says the Talmud. On the face of it, why is there no such thing? Because a woman cannot be married to two husbands, right? “Mistress of two masters” — there can’t be such a thing. Because if she is married to one, then the second man’s betrothal does not take effect with her, so it can’t happen. Of course, if she was married to one and he died and then the second betrothed her, then yes, it can happen. But still, from the standpoint of being bound to levirate marriage, she cannot be bound to both. Because if she is bound to the first, then the second cannot betroth her. Okay? That’s why the discussion here is about levirate marriage. “I do not read of her, ‘the wife of two dead men’” means she cannot be the wife of two dead men.

And Pnei Yehoshua says: this is difficult for me, because we do find a “wife of two dead men” if she was not emancipated and then was betrothed again to Shimon. She is married to Reuven, okay? And she has not been emancipated; she is still a designated maidservant. And now Shimon betroths her. So he says: granted that Reuven’s betrothal takes effect with her, since for relations resulting from that betrothal one is liable only for a guilt-offering, as appears from Rashi’s interpretation and as the Rosh wrote. If so, it would seem that Shimon’s betrothal also takes effect with her, for we hold that betrothal takes effect with those who are under ordinary prohibitions, and here there is not even a prohibition, only a mere guilt-offering. What is Pnei Yehoshua saying? We know that when I betroth my sister, or my mother, or another man’s wife, the betrothal does not take effect, right? Because these are unions punishable by karet. But for ordinary prohibitions, betrothal does take effect. For example, if a priest betroths a divorced woman, the betrothal takes effect. He has to divorce her, it’s prohibited, but the betrothal takes effect. Okay? So what happens if someone betroths a designated maidservant? Pnei Yehoshua says: obviously the betrothal takes effect. Here there isn’t even a prohibition; it is only liability for a guilt-offering if he has relations with her. So this is an even lighter prohibition than an ordinary prohibition, if it is one at all. So the betrothal certainly takes effect. If that’s the case, then when she has not been emancipated, if Shimon now comes and betroths her, she will now be the wife of Reuven and of Shimon — of both. So there you have “the wife of two dead men.” Why does the Talmud say that such a thing cannot be found? Obviously this is according to Tosafot, because there are medieval authorities who say that in fact there can be such a thing, just not in this case. But according to Tosafot’s version, the Talmud says there is no such thing as “the wife of two dead men.” But why not? Look — if she was not emancipated and someone betrothed her, she would be the wife of two dead men.

And Pnei Yehoshua gives a very interesting answer here. There was once a conference at Bar-Ilan on Pnei Yehoshua, and I gave a lecture there dealing with the first buds of Brisker thinking in Pnei Yehoshua. I brought several examples of that. Yes, I gave an introduction there about the problematic nature of the history of ideas. When you study the history of ideas, whenever someone raises an idea, then afterward everyone finds that idea already in that person’s writings and in this one’s writings, and in Aristotle, and in the Maharal, and in Maimonides — everyone finds that the idea was already there from time immemorial. But that only happens after someone conceptualized it. And that is true, by the way — it isn’t necessarily a mistake. Rather, in earlier people the idea was implicit; they understood it in a general kind of way. But at some point someone came and conceptualized it, defined it, and now the idea exists as a standing concept. Once it has been conceptualized, we all understand what it means, and we can find it in earlier writings too. That happens all the time. When I wrote my first book, Two Carts and a Hot Air Balloon, when it came out, immediately afterward people said: fine, it’s all already in the Maharal, or in Rav Tzadok, or in Rabbi Kook — each according to his own loyalties. And that was true to a degree. Okay. But I think that after you conceptualize the idea, then you can afterward find it — or at least traces of it — in all sorts of other places too. But the idea still belongs to the one who conceptualized it, not to the one who had some vague intuition about it.

Think of Aristotle. When Aristotle wrote the Organon, the Organon essentially founded the field called logic. Okay? For example, the syllogism — logical inferences such as: every human being is mortal; Socrates is a human being; conclusion: Socrates is mortal. That’s one example of Aristotle’s forms of inference, the syllogism. Okay? Do you think that before Aristotle people didn’t make inferences like that? You’d say to a person: look, all chairs have four legs, this thing is a chair, so it has four legs. Of course people used such kinds of argument; that’s obvious. So what was Aristotle’s innovation? Aristotle was the first to understand that there is here a fixed pattern of argument, which can appear in all sorts of places — but let’s look for a moment at the pattern itself. What people did before was use it in all sorts of contexts. When you deal with art, you raise an argument of that type in art; in law, in philosophy, whatever it may be. Aristotle turned the argument pattern itself into the subject. He says: let’s examine the pattern; let’s see what kinds of argument patterns there are. And that’s an enormous revolution. Thanks to Aristotle we have computers. If Aristotle hadn’t done that, there would be no computers today. Because you need to understand that there are logical modes of inference detached from content — just the pattern itself, what is called formal logic. Form — the formal, the structural — formal logic. You look only at the form of the argument and not at the content involved in it. That is the great lesson Aristotle introduced.

So he didn’t innovate anything? It existed before him too, obviously. But once he conceptualized it, he opened a new field. And therefore it is enormously significant. Never mind. For our purposes, that was one of the examples I brought at that conference of Brisker beginnings in Pnei Yehoshua. So I return to Pnei Yehoshua. What?

[Speaker D] You said political science and I thought you were going deep into Aristotle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not going deep into Aristotle. Why do you need to go deep? It’s a simple point. Fine.

[Speaker D] My name…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Someone who studies political science generally doesn’t go deep into Aristotle. No, fine.

Okay. “And it seems to me, in my humble opinion, to resolve this as follows: that which we hold elsewhere, that betrothal takes effect in ordinary prohibitions, refers to ordinary prohibitions. But here, because of the betrothal itself — and in any case you cannot have one betrothal after another, for once Reuven’s betrothal took effect, she is in his domain and she has no legal capacity to accept betrothal from another — so it seems to me.” What do you say? How does he explain why, in the case of the designated maidservant, she is not the wife of two dead men? What? Meaning, he says as follows — this is a two-laws move, really Brisker, completely. A completely Brisker move. He says: when you speak about those punishable by karet, where betrothal does not take effect, why does betrothal not take effect with my sister? Because of the severity of the prohibition. It is a karet prohibition, such a severe prohibition that the Torah does not allow the betrothal to take effect, okay? Also with another man’s wife, also with my mother, also with all the forbidden relations. But, he says, with another man’s wife there is another reason the betrothal doesn’t take effect, aside from the severity of the prohibition. What is the reason? She is already another man’s wife. She has no legal capacity to accept betrothal; she is not available. She is already someone else’s wife, so what do you want? It’s not because of the severity of the prohibition of having relations with another man’s wife; she is simply not on the market. You can’t betroth her because she isn’t single; she already has a husband.

[Speaker A] The opposite, yes, the opposite. I’m not trying to claim…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …that Jewish law is not chauvinistic or that it’s egalitarian. But that is the fact: from the standpoint of ownership, at least, once the woman is taken, she has no legal capacity to accept betrothal. His claim is that betrothal does not take effect with another man’s wife not only because of the severity of the prohibition — that too, like the other forbidden relations — but also because she is simply already someone else’s wife. Where would the practical difference be? Here is a classic Brisker move. Where would the practical difference be? In a place where I have another man’s wife but without the severe prohibition of forbidden relations. Then the question is whether betrothal would take effect with her. If I understand that everything depends on the severity of the prohibition — which is how he understood the question — then why should the betrothal not take effect with her? The severity of the prohibition is even less than an ordinary prohibition. But if I understand that with another man’s wife, betrothal does not take effect not only because of the severity of the prohibition but also because she is simply already married, already acquired by someone else, then even in the designated maidservant, despite there being no prohibition, the betrothal will not take effect. Okay?

That’s the same as… Avnei Milu’im does not accept this in section 44 — never mind — but let’s just look at what Pnei Yehoshua is saying. What does that actually mean? It means that when I say that a woman is another man’s wife, there is some sort of status here that precedes the halakhic, prohibition-based consequences. The fact that she is someone’s wife is first of all a certain state — call it a meta-halakhic status. First of all, she is married. That has many halakhic consequences: one who has relations with her commits a severe prohibition, and all kinds of things like that. But the situation as such is first of all a situation or status that is meta-halakhic: a state of marriage that has halakhic consequences. Okay? Now many — or not many, but certain — consequences follow from the status even if it is not accompanied by the halakhic consequences. For example here: another man’s wife — the halakhic consequence that one who has relations with her commits a very severe prohibition does not apply, but the status exists; she is another man’s wife. The status itself prevents the betrothal from taking effect with respect to her, not because of the halakhic consequences but because of the very fact that she is married. Okay?

For example, Maimonides writes in the Laws of Kings…

[Speaker A] Is he extending the idea of lying with someone into theft?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A similar idea, yes. “And how are they commanded concerning the laws? The children of Noah are obligated to appoint judges and officers in every district and district to judge these six commandments and to warn the people. And a child of Noah who transgresses one of these seven commandments is to be killed by the sword. And because of this, all the people of Shechem were liable to death, since Shechem stole, and they saw and knew and did not judge him. And a child of Noah is executed on the testimony of one witness and by one judge, without warning, and even on the testimony of relatives — but not on the testimony of a woman, and a woman may not judge for them.” There are a lot of interesting innovations in this Maimonides passage, but I only want to focus on theft. What does it mean that Shechem stole? What did he steal? He didn’t steal anything. He took Dinah and had relations with her. Was Dinah someone’s wife? What theft is there here? He took Dinah. What Maimonides means here is…

[Speaker A] She wasn’t married, right? Or was she?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think she was married. She was under her father’s authority. He didn’t steal her from a husband; he stole her from her father. And the claim is that the act of taking a woman against the will of either her husband or her father or whoever is responsible there — there is an element of theft in that. Because she is, so to speak, in someone else’s domain. The dimension of the transgression is a result of that fact, but first of all, when you even have relations with another man’s wife, at the first stage you are in effect committing theft because she belongs to someone else. That’s the point — not because of the prohibition involved. Besides that, there is also a prohibition to have relations with her. But first and foremost there is some reference to her status: she is married to someone else, or in her father’s house she is under her father’s authority. The moment you violate that status, the moment you create a bond with that woman against her will or against the will of whoever is responsible for that state, then you are in effect violating the existing status — apart from the question of what prohibition you violated in terms of forbidden relations.

[Speaker A] But if she wasn’t married and he had relations with her and it was just her father’s authority — then why isn’t every single man who has relations with an unmarried woman basically the same mechanism? Because if she’s an unmarried woman and he has…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but what do you mean by “unmarried”? If she agrees, then there’s no problem. A minor unmarried girl, an adult unmarried woman — what are you talking about?

[Speaker A] Let’s say in Jewish law, if someone has relations with a minor unmarried girl who is under her father’s authority, then…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If she’s a minor unmarried girl, then yes indeed, that would be theft. The Minchat Chinukh argues that if a child of Noah has relations with another man’s wife not in the ordinary way, then there is no prohibition in the sense of forbidden relations, okay? He does not violate the prohibition of another man’s wife. That is also how Maimonides rules. But he does violate the prohibition of theft, because he still took her out of that domain and used her — or whatever you want to call it, okay? He learns it from this passage in Maimonides, that one still violates theft. There are other implications too; that’s not the point right now.

But what I basically want to say before moving on is this: when someone has relations with a designated maidservant, what is the guilt-offering brought for? There is no prohibition. So what is the guilt-offering brought for? It is brought for trespassing into a domain that is not yours. You took a woman who has a husband, another man’s wife. There is no prohibition in terms of forbidden relations. The guilt-offering does not come for that prohibition — there is none. The guilt-offering comes for trespassing into a domain that is not yours. That is what the guilt-offering is for. It is not for a transgression; the guilt-offering does not come for a transgression. You have destroyed the boundary that separates domains; you created desolation. For that desolation a guilt-offering is brought — for the result of your action, for the fact that you destroyed the marital boundary that exists in the normal, proper state. You destroyed it. For that thing you bring a guilt-offering. Okay? And that is basically why a guilt-offering comes for the designated maidservant.

Why doesn’t a guilt-offering come for an ordinary married woman? Because with an ordinary married woman there is also the prohibition, so you are already punished for the prohibition, and then the trespass into a domain that is not yours is swallowed up; it no longer matters. With the designated maidservant there is no dimension of prohibition, so there is nothing to absorb the problem of the desolation you created. Therefore specifically with the designated maidservant one brings a guilt-offering. Because in the designated maidservant all there is is the desolation you caused; the prohibition is not there. In a place where, if you had had relations with an ordinary married woman, in principle you should also have brought a guilt-offering — except that, fine, you are already punished completely, either with a sin-offering if it was unintentional or with capital punishment if intentional — so there is no point in bringing the guilt-offering; the guilt-offering is effectively canceled. קים ליה בדרבה מיניה or whatever term you want to use. Where does the guilt-offering come? It comes in the case of the designated maidservant, because there is no dimension of prohibition there; there is only the dimension of the desolation you created. For that a guilt-offering is brought.

There is — I’ll give you another example — there is a famous ruling of the Maharik. You know that if a married woman has relations with someone else, commits adultery with a stranger, then she becomes forbidden to her husband and to the adulterer, right? She becomes forbidden to the husband and to the adulterer, but only if it was intentional. Not if it was unintentional. Okay? Let’s speak about a case where the husband is not a priest. If her husband is an ordinary Israelite, then if it was unintentional she does not become forbidden. If it was unintentional or under duress, she does not become forbidden; only if intentional. Says the Maharik: but there are two kinds of unintentional sin, right? The Mishnah in the chapter Kelal Gadol, for example — we talked about this in the previous lecture. What kinds of unintentional sin did we see there? Either he didn’t know that today was the Sabbath — that’s an error in fact — or he didn’t know that sorting is forbidden on the Sabbath — that’s an error in law. Right? An error in fact or an error in law; both are unintentional. Regarding the sin-offering there is no difference between them, right? Says the Maharik: but with a married woman who committed adultery, there is a difference. If it was an error in fact — she thought the man having relations with her was her husband; she didn’t know it wasn’t her husband — then she does not become forbidden to her husband. But if it was an error in law — meaning, she did not know adultery was forbidden, but she knew it was not her husband; she didn’t know adultery was forbidden — then she becomes forbidden to both husband and adulterer.

This discussion became very interesting in connection with Sheinberg in Tzfat, who did all his manipulations there with women. There was in fact discussion whether the women became forbidden to their husbands and to him, because according to the Maharik, the woman there erred in law. She knew she was having relations not with her husband. She knew Sheinberg was not her husband. It wasn’t an error in fact; it was an error in law. She thought it was permitted; he misled her. She thought it was permitted, that it would bring the Messiah — I don’t know exactly what. Okay? So she erred in law. If she erred in law, then according to the Maharik she is still forbidden to her husband. There is some ruling by Rabbi Dichovsky where he goes into detail trying to explain why, in his view, they were not forbidden to their husbands. Never mind; I’m not sure I agree. But the discussion came up there.

[Speaker G] If he convinced her that it was permitted, then why is she forbidden?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, he convinced…

[Speaker G] …her that it was permitted, so why is she forbidden?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it was an error in law. According to the Maharik, if she erred in law then…

[Speaker G] she is forbidden to…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] her husband. Only if it was an error in fact is she not forbidden. He changed all the law for her — the law. But if she erred in law, even if he changed everything, she becomes forbidden; only if it was an error in fact does she not become forbidden.

What idea stands behind the Maharik’s view? The same idea. What do you mean? If she erred in fact, then she simply did not know that she was betraying her husband. She thought it was her husband, okay? So she does not become forbidden to him, because she did not betray him. But if she knew it was not her husband, even though she didn’t know it was forbidden — fine, you didn’t know it was forbidden, but you had relations with someone who is not your husband, so you destroyed the marital unit, you created the desolation. Not because of the prohibition involved — that is not the point at all — but because of the fact that you are married to one man and having relations with another man, while knowing that the other man is not your husband. The desolation was created. So what if you didn’t know it was forbidden? For the sin-offering, that’s relevant. If you didn’t know it was forbidden, that is unintentional, and you would be liable for a sin-offering. But with respect to becoming forbidden to your husband, you become forbidden because that prohibition is not the result of the prohibited act you committed. It is the result of the desolation that was created, like the guilt-offering. And the desolation was created. At the end of the day, you intended to have relations with someone who is not your husband, and so you effectively dismantled the marital unit, rendered it desolate. That is what the guilt-offering is brought for.

What about the children? What children?

[Speaker F] What about children from the relations with Sheinberg?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That — I don’t know if there were any. What children from her relations with Sheinberg? Who said there were any? I have no idea. Previous children of hers are no problem; those are from her husband. Ah? New children? From Sheinberg himself? I don’t know that there were children there at all; I have no idea.

Now, that’s regarding the guilt-offering of the designated maidservant. Let’s move to the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property. That one gives us a special challenge, because it is the exception among guilt-offerings: it is brought only for unintentional sin, right? Let me show you that here too we see the same thing. I remind you of this mode — yes, here too we see the same thing. What do I mean? Let’s return for a moment to the Maharik. The Maharik, who speaks about a wife becoming forbidden to her husband — after all, when the Torah spoke of this, its language was ומעלה מעל באישה — “she has committed a trespass against her husband.” It speaks of misuse, right? ומעלה מעל באישה. Okay? Now if she trespasses unintentionally, then this is not called a trespass against her husband. Why? Because misuse applies only in unintentional sin. Misuse of sacred property applies only in unintentional sin. So how can you learn that “she has committed a trespass against her husband” refers specifically to intentional sin? That’s a little strange. What did I explain earlier? What does “committed a trespass against her husband” mean? It means she damaged the marital bond, she destroyed the boundary between her marital relationship and somebody else’s. That desolation I spoke about.

My claim is that in the guilt-offering for misuse — in misuse itself — the guilt-offering is brought only for unintentional sin, not because the liability of the guilt-offering exists only in unintentional sin, but because the misuse happens only in unintentional sin. What is the guilt-offering brought for? The guilt-offering is brought for the fact that you removed the object from the domain of the sacred into the secular. But the rule is that this only happens unintentionally. Intentionally, it does not leave sacred status. So unintentionality is not a condition of liability for the guilt-offering; that’s not the point. The guilt-offering would come for intentional sin just as for unintentional sin — the guilt-offering doesn’t care. The guilt-offering comes for the result. If a desolation occurred here, then a guilt-offering is due; you owe a guilt-offering. If no desolation occurred, then not. The only thing is that in the laws of misuse of sacred property, the rule is that only unintentional misuse transfers the object from sacred status to secular status. Therefore only there can you bring a guilt-offering. Because you do not bring the guilt-offering for the prohibition. The prohibition exists also in intentional misuse — the prohibition against misuse exists also in intentional misuse — but in intentional misuse it does not leave sacred status. So what do you bring the guilt-offering for? Not for the prohibition — if you brought it for the prohibition, you would bring it also for intentional misuse. Rather, you bring the guilt-offering for the fact that the object went out into secular status, exactly as we saw with another man’s wife — for the fact that you damaged the boundary of her marital bond with her husband, blurred that boundary or broke through the fence that marks off that couple from the rest of the world.

Here too exactly the same: you broke through the fence of sacred property, removed something from there into ordinary status — for that you bring a guilt-offering. The only thing is that, according to the laws of misuse, that happens only in unintentional sin. Not because of the laws of guilt-offerings. The guilt-offering is brought once it has gone out into secular status; you bring a guilt-offering, irrespective of the prohibition. It has nothing to do with the prohibition. That’s why, for example, in the intentional case you do not bring it, even though the prohibition exists and is even more severe. Yes, but the transfer into secular status does not exist. And the guilt-offering is brought not for the prohibition but for the result — for the transfer into secular status. Do you see the unifying thread running through all the guilt-offerings? The guilt-offering is always brought for the result, not for the prohibition. Therefore with another man’s wife, even where there is no prohibition, a guilt-offering is brought. And therefore with misuse, even where there is a prohibition, a guilt-offering is not brought in the intentional case. Why is it brought in the unintentional case? Because in the unintentional case the result is there; in the intentional case the result is not there, namely that it left sacred status. The guilt-offering comes for the result. Okay? Has it gone out into secular status?

[Speaker E] Huh? Gone out into secular status?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Gone out into secular status — it is now ordinary; you may eat it for your own enjoyment.

[Speaker E] Why not in the intentional case?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no misuse after misuse — that’s what the Talmud says. What does that mean? If you committed misuse the first time, it already went out into secular status. Now if someone else comes to commit misuse again, he can’t — it’s already ordinary property.

Now look, I’ll bring you two examples of the guilt-offering…

[Speaker A] …that it’s about change of status, that you damaged status, and that this runs through everything. And he claims this does not belong to the mental element; it is something objective. Right, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only the result. It has nothing to do with the mental element. The mental element pertains to the sin-offering or to intentional sin.

[Speaker A] And with another man’s wife, where she becomes forbidden to husband and adulterer…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why…

[Speaker A] …is there a difference between the two kinds of unintentional sin? That difference seems to hint that the mental element does matter — to say there is a difference between…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because harming the marriage — when the woman harms the marriage — is only when she intends to harm the marriage; only then is the marriage harmed.

[Speaker A] That’s the mental element. Yes, right. So it does matter — you are moving here between physical reality and what’s in your head…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, but that is also true of misuse of sacred things. With misuse of sacred things, only in unintentional sin does the item leave sacred status. That is from the laws of misuse, not from the laws of guilt-offerings. Ah, and with another man’s wife as well: the destruction is created only when she errs in law, not when she errs in fact. Only then is the destruction created. But that is a law in the creation of the destruction, not in the guilt-offering. Once the destruction has been created, the guilt-offering is brought for it.

[Speaker A] With misuse, you build the issue of the mental element, which determines whether it went out or not, as an external criterion tied to the laws of misuse, and then you say the guilt-offering comes for that, and I don’t need an internal explanation here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And with another man’s wife too I’m saying the same thing.

[Speaker A] No, the opposite.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the opposite — that’s exactly the point. I’m claiming this is not a law in the liabilities of guilt-offering at all. There is no guilt-offering there, yes, in reality. But I’m saying: suppose there were one — it would be brought only for this kind of unintentional sin and not for that kind. Why? Because only in this kind did the destruction happen. But the difference between this type of unintentional sin and that type is not a difference in the laws of guilt-offering; it is a difference in the laws of the creation of destruction. Destruction is created only in this way. When a woman does not know she is having relations with someone who is not her husband, that does not damage the marital unit — that’s what the Torah tells us. Once it does not damage the marital unit, there is no reason to bring a guilt-offering, because the result did not occur. This is completely parallel to the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property; there too it is only a question of when destruction is created. But the guilt-offering is brought whenever destruction has been created. When is destruction created? Look in the Torah and see when destruction is created and when it is not.

[Speaker A] So the guilt-offering is really clean of the issue of intent, but…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The mental element is not related to the guilt-offering; it’s related to the destruction. Sometimes the destruction will depend on the mental element.

[Speaker A] So yes?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. But the guilt-offering is brought whenever there is destruction. I don’t care how the destruction was created.

I’ll give you two examples that I think are very persuasive in the case of misuse of sacred property. There are two very strange examples. The first is the blessing over enjoyment. The Talmud in tractate Berakhot discusses the question: why do we need — from where do we know — that one must say a blessing over enjoyment? To bless over food. Before eating. Afterward, that’s Grace after Meals. But before eating — “Who creates the fruit of the tree,” “Who brings forth bread from the earth.” From where do we know? So the Talmud tries various sources, and in the end it arrives at the point that it is based on reason. “It is forbidden to enjoy this world without a blessing, and anyone who enjoys this world without a blessing is as if he committed misuse.” That’s what the Talmud says. Now what do you think? “As if he committed misuse” — okay, a little Hasidic flourish. “As if he committed misuse.” Not really, no no no, it’s not literal. But the students of Rabbeinu Yonah say: he brings a guilt-offering. He brings the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property. He ate without a blessing, and he brings a guilt-offering. That’s in their comments on the Rif there, in the passage.

Now what — which guilt-offering? He’s speaking about a rabbinic prohibition. The obligation to recite a blessing over enjoyment is rabbinic. So if you didn’t recite it, you violated a rabbinic prohibition. Then this guilt-offering is ordinary property brought into the Temple courtyard. What? How can you bring a guilt-offering for a rabbinic prohibition? The answer is that to bring a guilt-offering you do not need a prohibition. There is no prohibition. So what? You bring the guilt-offering because you robbed from the Holy One, blessed be He, without permission. Again, you breached a domain that is not yours. You created some kind of desolation. You broke into God’s domain, took something without permission. For that you bring the guilt-offering. And once that reality exists, I don’t care whether there is no prohibition at all or only a rabbinic prohibition; it makes no difference. The prohibition is not needed in order to bring a guilt-offering. You can see this very systematically. The prohibition has nothing to do with the guilt-offering. That’s one example.

A second example is misuse with vow-prohibitions. With vow-prohibitions. “Misuse with vow-prohibitions.” The Talmud says: there is misuse with vows. Maimonides says there is misuse with vows. How so? “If one says, ‘This loaf is upon me like a sacrifice’ or ‘like sacred property,’ and he ate it, he has committed misuse, even though it is permitted to others. Therefore it cannot be redeemed, because it is not sacred except for this person alone. If he said, ‘This loaf is sacred’ or ‘a sacrifice,’ and he ate it, whether he or another person ate it, he committed misuse. Therefore it can be redeemed.” Okay. So if you say “This loaf is sacred” or “a sacrifice,” then you actually consecrated it. It becomes sacred. Then it is forbidden to the whole world, not only to you. So in that situation it is truly sacred and it can be redeemed, and whoever violates it brings a guilt-offering for misuse and so on. But if you say, “This loaf is upon me like a sacrifice” or “like sacred property” — what does that mean? That’s a vow, not consecration. Right? You are basically saying this is forbidden to me like a sacrifice or like sacred property. Fine? Not that I consecrated it. It is just the language in which vows are made. I did not consecrate anything. I just vowed to forbid this loaf to myself. So how can one bring a guilt-offering for misuse over that? What sacredness is here? Did I misuse sacred property? How? Yet the Talmud says there is misuse with vow-prohibitions. If you violate a vow, you bring a guilt-offering for misuse. Okay? But what does this have to do with misuse? Is there sacredness here? How is this relevant? Why is a guilt-offering relevant here?

By the way, there is no source for this at all. The Mishneh LaMelekh wonders about it; he says he does not understand where they invented this thing called misuse with vow-prohibitions. From where? There is no hint of it in the Torah, nowhere — it doesn’t appear. What is this thing? Besides, when you violate a vow prohibition, there are already rules about that — what happens when you violate a vow prohibition? You get lashes. Or, depending on intentional or unintentional — but in the intentional case you get lashes. So why are you suddenly adding a guilt-offering of misuse with vow-prohibitions? It’s just an ordinary prohibition that overlaps.

So what is going on, I think, is this. The Talmud says at the beginning of tractate Nedarim: what is the difference between oaths and vows? Vows are a law in the object, and oaths are a law in the person. Right? What does it mean that vows are a law in the object? According to most medieval authorities, it means that when you vow, you create a new reality; a prohibition takes effect on the object. In an oath, all you have is a prohibition on the person. Nothing is created in the world. The person is forbidden to do a certain action. But a vow creates a prohibition in the object, in the thing itself.

Now if you violated the vow, then you trespassed into a domain that is not yours. For the prohibition involved, you’ll get lashes. The guilt-offering, however, you bring for the very fact that you trespassed into a domain not yours. And in a vow there is such a domain that is not yours; in an oath there is not. An oath is a law in the person, not in the object. So there is no domain here into which you are trespassing. Only in a vow is there a domain into which you are trespassing. So now you don’t need any source at all, because the source for לא יחל דברו — “he shall not profane his word” — is what you get lashes for; it is an ordinary prohibition like any other. That’s not the issue. The guilt-offering is not brought for the prohibition. The guilt-offering is brought for the result. For the prohibition one is punished with lashes. But here there is a result. You violated the vow — not in the sense that sacred property became secular, because a vow is not sacred. There is no… indeed, the medieval and later authorities play around with this point. Maybe it comes from the section on sacred things; maybe the vow becomes some kind of sacred property. There is no basis for that at all. It has nothing to do with sacred property. It is not a holy thing. You bring a guilt-offering here not because it is holy, but because it is bounded off into another domain, and not your domain. When you trespass there, once again you create a kind of desolation. Not because of the prohibition — the prohibition is handled by lashes — but because of the very fact that you trespassed there. That obligates you in a guilt-offering, not in lashes.

Once that is the case, we understand why it requires a guilt-offering. Now, that’s misuse with vow-prohibitions. You see that both misuse with vow-prohibitions and the guilt-offering for enjoying without blessings show you that a guilt-offering is not brought for sin. Even the guilt-offerings that are called sin-related guilt-offerings are not brought for sin; they are brought for the result. A certain desolation occurred here. There was some bounded domain, some delimitation, that you destroyed — yes, like the Greeks in the thirteenth Mishnah in tractate Middot, which says there were thirteen breaches in the soreg and they instituted thirteen prostrations opposite them. Why? Because the Greek kingdom made those thirteen breaches there, and the Hasmonean kingdom repaired them, and to remember this they instituted thirteen prostrations. The Greek kingdom essentially blurred the boundary between sacred and ordinary; they breached the barriers in the Temple precinct. Tosafot Yom Tov expands there that the soreg marked how far non-Jews were allowed to enter. When you make breaches, you are basically saying: forget it, there is no difference between ordinary and sacred; everything is open to everyone — like Korach: the whole community is holy. So that is a kind of desolation, destruction, when you make breaches. Therefore we repair those breaches, because that is the proper state.

Here too, when you make a vow you are basically creating some sort of fence around the thing. It is not a law in the person; it is a law in the object. When you enter there, you destroy that fence; you make breaches in that fence; you create a kind of desolation. Therefore this applies only to vows and not to oaths. But you don’t need a source for it, because the source of “he shall not profane his word” is what one gets lashes for; it is an ordinary prohibition like any other. That’s unrelated. The guilt-offering is not brought for the prohibition; the guilt-offering is brought for the very breach, for the result, for the desolation you created.

The third and last example among the sin-related guilt-offerings is the guilt-offering for robbery. We talked about the guilt-offering of the designated maidservant and the guilt-offering for misuse of sacred property. What happens in the guilt-offering for robbery? In the guilt-offering for robbery, when you steal you bring a guilt-offering. Now this is not every thief; it is only someone who falsely denies holding a deposit. If you deny the deposit and swear about it, and then it becomes clear that you were wrong, you bring a guilt-offering for robbery. Okay? So the later authorities discuss whether this guilt-offering is for the oath involved in the matter or for the robbery involved in the matter. I think it’s clear that it is for the robbery involved in the matter, not for the oath involved in the matter. There is the guilt-offering for an oath concerning a deposit — no, what is it? The guilt-offering of testimony. No, testimony is not a guilt-offering. No, leave it, never mind. The point is that the guilt-offering for robbery is brought for denying a deposit when you swear that the deposit is not with you and then it turns out you were wrong. That is basically a way of robbing it. Through the oath you robbed me of the deposit, and therefore you bring a guilt-offering for the robbery involved in the matter, not for the oath. As for the oath — false oath — they will deal with you the way they deal with everyone who swears falsely. But in addition, you effectively robbed the thing, and you bring a guilt-offering for the robbery.

Now what is the basic idea here? I’ll do this briefly. Rabbi Shimon Shkop — someone mentioned him earlier — explains that theft is not a prohibition that the Torah creates. It is a prohibition that exists even before the Torah was given. It belongs to what he calls the laws of justice. There he explains the Mahari Basan’s question: why does the burden of proof lie on the claimant? I won’t go into all the details now. The claim is basically that with theft there is a legal prohibition against stealing. By the very fact that this money belongs to someone else, I am forbidden to steal it. On top of that, the Torah also adds a prohibition of “do not steal.” Okay? So there is also a legal prohibition — call it moral, legal, social — and there is also a religious prohibition of “do not steal.” But even without the religious prohibition, the legal prohibition is still there.

A practical difference, for example: there is a dispute among medieval authorities regarding stealing from a non-Jew. There are medieval authorities who say that stealing from a non-Jew is not forbidden by Torah law. Rabbi Shimon Shkop says: but even according to those authorities, stealing from a non-Jew is forbidden by Torah law. It is forbidden by virtue of legal prohibition. The prohibition of “do not steal” may not apply, but still, you took something that belongs to someone else. That is theft on the legal level, not theft on the halakhic level. On the halakhic level there is no prohibition of “do not steal,” let’s say according to that view, in relation to a non-Jew’s property. But the legal prohibition is certainly there, because the property belongs to the non-Jew, and you took money that is not yours. So the legal prohibition is there. That is his claim, and with it he resolves various questions, and explains liens and all sorts of things.

And what does that mean for us? It means that in theft too there are two dimensions. There is the halakhic dimension that it is forbidden to steal. And there is the factual dimension: it belongs to someone else. When you steal, you break into another person’s domain. So you bring the guilt-offering for robbery not for the prohibition. For the prohibition of theft there is no punishment because it is a prohibition repaired by a positive commandment — “and he shall return the stolen item that he stole.” That may be our next topic if we get to it. But it is a prohibition repaired by a positive commandment, so it’s not about that prohibition. The guilt-offering for robbery does not come for the prohibition. The guilt-offering for robbery comes for the legal-social wrong that you are trespassing into a domain belonging to someone else, taking property that belongs to someone else. You see the pattern? The pattern in all the guilt-offerings is the same: when you trespass into a domain where you are not supposed to be, a domain that belongs to someone else or is outside your permitted boundary, for that you bring a guilt-offering. All guilt-offerings are brought for that regardless of the prohibition. Even if there is a prohibition — and in the designated maidservant there is no prohibition at all — but even in places where there is a prohibition, the guilt-offering does not come for the prohibition. It comes for the result. The prohibition is dealt with separately: there are ordinary prohibitions and punishments and all the usual things. Unrelated. The guilt-offering comes for the very trespass into a domain not yours, for the desolation you create.

Now you’ll ask: then why doesn’t ordinary theft require a guilt-offering for robbery? Why only denial of a deposit, with an oath concerning the deposit? That is a question. I don’t really know; I have no clear answer. But perhaps in a place where there really is the ordinary prohibition of “do not steal,” like ויגזול את החנית — “and he stole the spear” — there they deal with you on the level of the prohibition; there is a prohibition and it is handled the way prohibitions are handled. But in a place where there is no “and he stole the spear,” then the prohibition of “do not steal” doesn’t really apply there. This itself is a mystery in Jewish law. They say that the prohibition of theft exists only when you do something akin to ויגזול את החנית. Now what is “and he stole the spear”? It means a case where I am holding money that is not mine, but I did not physically steal it from someone. We still always call such a person a thief, right? He is holding stolen property in his hand; it is not his money. In principle, he is not violating the prohibition of theft. You violate the prohibition of theft only when you do something akin to “and he stole the spear.” But still, you are holding money that is not yours. For that you bring a guilt-offering. If you do something akin to “and he stole the spear,” then there is the prohibition of “do not steal,” and they handle that on the usual halakhic level. The guilt-offering exists precisely where the halakhic prohibition of “do not steal” is absent, but you still trespassed into a domain belonging to someone else. For that you bring a guilt-offering. Just like with the designated maidservant. It is exactly like the designated maidservant. Why don’t you bring a guilt-offering for an ordinary married woman? There too I trespassed into a domain not mine. Right, but there there is also a prohibition, and they handle it the way they handle a prohibition. With the designated maidservant there is no prohibition, so all that remains is the trespass, and that trespass still has to be dealt with because there is no prohibition to cover it as well. So here too. That is why only denial of the deposit — the oath denying the deposit — requires a guilt-offering, and not ordinary theft.

Now the last thing left for us…

[Speaker A] In the classification, you’re basically saying that the prohibition of theft and these cases of guilt-offering — misuse, trespass — are both categories that fall under this concept of trespassing into a domain? Or are you saying that all these cases of guilt-offering are aimed specifically at the theft aspect, at its component of trespass? In other words, is theft a sub-category alongside the cases like the designated maidservant?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Either way you formulated it, yes — and your second formulation too. That dimension present in theft, namely trespass — why is it a dimension of theft? It is a dimension that exists in all of them. They all fall under it. Theft has it just like all the others; I don’t see a difference.

Let’s talk about the provisional guilt-offering. The provisional guilt-offering is brought for doubtful cases, right, as I said. Now here there is a very great difficulty. As is well known, there is a dispute among medieval authorities whether in a Torah-level doubt, stringency is itself Torah law or rabbinic law. Maimonides’ view is that in a Torah-level doubt, stringency is rabbinic. In the Laws of Defilement by a Corpse — a well-known passage — he says: “All these impurities and the like that are due to doubt are rabbinic. No one is impure by Torah law except one who was definitely rendered impure. But all doubts — whether in impurities, forbidden foods, forbidden sexual relations, or Sabbath matters — are only by rabbinic law. And the obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases is only rabbinic.”

And yet — “a matter for whose intentional violation one incurs karet, and whose doubtful case is forbidden by Torah law, since one who does it is liable to bring a provisional guilt-offering.” Do you see those parentheses? Like in some editions in the Laws of Forbidden Relations and a few other places. Who added those parentheses, and why? Those parentheses do not belong in Maimonides unless one checks manuscripts. This is simply an invention. What is bothering the editor? According to Maimonides, doubtful cases are rabbinically prohibited and Torah law treats them leniently. The obligation to be stringent is only rabbinic, right? So why do you bring a provisional guilt-offering? For what are you bringing the provisional guilt-offering? After all, there is no prohibition. You transgressed only in doubt, but in doubt it is permitted by Torah law to violate the prohibition; only rabbinically must one be stringent. So I violated it. Why do I bring a guilt-offering? I violated a rabbinic prohibition. So what choice do they have? They say: a matter for whose intentional violation one incurs karet — its doubtful case is forbidden by Torah law. Even Maimonides did not say this about all things, that Torah-level doubt is treated leniently. He said it only about things whose intentional violation does not incur karet. But things whose intentional violation incurs karet — since in their doubtful cases you are liable for a provisional guilt-offering — then it must be that the doubtful prohibition there is biblical. Otherwise how could you bring a guilt-offering? There would have to be a biblical prohibition there, right?

Except that for some reason the fellow who inserted this forgot to erase the three previous words in Maimonides. Maimonides says: “whether in forbidden sexual relations or Sabbath matters.” But forbidden sexual relations and Sabbath matters are things whose intentional violation incurs karet, and about these Maimonides says that their doubtful cases are lenient by Torah law. So the correction in the text is not even internally consistent. Therefore it is obvious that this never was and never should have been; those brackets should be deleted. Maimonides says that Torah-level doubt is treated leniently in all doubtful cases; there is no difference. He never limits it anywhere. There is discussion of this in the Shev Shma‘ta, first chapter — it brings Pnei Yehoshua and so on — but all those discussions are empty. Maimonides does not qualify this in any way. All doubtful cases are lenient by Torah law.

So why does one bring a provisional guilt-offering? Because for a guilt-offering you do not need a sin. Why are they asking the question? They ask: how can you bring a guilt-offering if there is no sin here? The whole thing you violated is only a rabbinic prohibition. So why do you bring a guilt-offering? The answer is: why not? For a guilt-offering you do not need a sin. There is discussion in Pri Chadash and in Tosafot — various discussions — about what happens in a double doubt. Does one also bring a provisional guilt-offering in a double doubt? Pri Chadash holds yes, at least according to certain early authorities there. They ask: why? In a double doubt, everyone agrees you may be lenient, even rabbinically, not only by Torah law. Meaning there is no obligation at all to be stringent in a double doubt. A single doubt, according to Maimonides, is lenient by Torah law, but rabbinically you must be stringent. But a double doubt, even rabbinically you don’t need to be stringent. So why would you bring a guilt-offering for a double doubt? The answer is yes — I would bring a guilt-offering even for a double doubt. Why? There is no prohibition. Because a guilt-offering does not require a prohibition. I bring a guilt-offering for the fact that I entered some kind of situation, some state where I should not have been.

Now what does that mean? Rabbi Shimon Shkop talks about this in the first section, in his discussion of doubts. He addresses the question: what is the nature of this obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases? The Torah says I have to be stringent in doubtful cases. Suppose I have a doubt whether something is forbidden fat or permitted fat. I must be stringent — whether by Torah law or rabbinic law doesn’t matter for the moment, but I must be stringent. What does that mean? Suppose I wasn’t stringent; I ate it, and in the end it turned out to be permitted fat, not forbidden fat. I took a risk and succeeded — it was permitted fat, not forbidden fat. I didn’t violate the prohibition, I just gained some weight. Okay, so did I violate a prohibition or not? There is an obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases. I wasn’t stringent. So I did not violate the prohibition of forbidden fat, but did I violate the prohibition of not being stringent in doubtful cases? The obligation of stringency in doubtful cases?

Rabbi Shimon Shkop argues that this is tied to the dispute between Maimonides and the Rashba. He says it is not clear. He raises the possibility that the obligation of stringency in doubtful cases is a prohibition against entering the house of doubt. The moment you enter the doubtful state — once there is a doubtful situation — the very entry into that state is the prohibition. It doesn’t matter if in the end it turns out to have been permitted fat and not forbidden fat; that makes no difference. You still violated the prohibition. Another approach says no: the whole obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases isn’t really an obligation of stringency at all. They are only telling you: know that you’re taking a risk. If in the end it turns out that the thing is forbidden fat, you won’t be able to excuse yourself by saying, “I was under duress; I didn’t know.” No — they warned you. There was a possible prohibition here; you should have been careful. If you took a risk and succeeded, then you profited, and nobody will come to you with complaints. These are the two possibilities he raises there.

Now if I understand it as a prohibition against entering the house of doubt, then you understand that I have essentially entered some zone where I am not supposed to be. Not a geographic place, of course, but a state — a halakhic state. I am in a situation where I am taking a halakhic risk; it could be that I ate pork or forbidden fat. Okay, I am not supposed to be there. The problem is not the action I performed. The problem is that I am in the situation. Because maybe I did not eat pork — but I am in a situation where, when I eat something, it may turn out to be forbidden fat. So even if in the end it turns out to be permitted fat, it makes no difference. The very fact of being in that situation is the prohibition. If that is how we understand it, then the provisional guilt-offering too fits the same pattern. You entered a place where you are not supposed to be, a domain that should be closed to you. Therefore even if there is no prohibition, that makes no difference. There is no obligation to be stringent in doubtful cases by Torah law; it is only rabbinic. That makes no difference. And even in a double doubt, where not even rabbinically is there an obligation to be stringent — still, you entered a situation where it is possible that you are eating forbidden fat. So for that you bring a guilt-offering. There is no prohibition — you are allowed to do it. Do it, and bring a guilt-offering. Why? Because you entered dangerous territory. You entered a place where entry itself is problematic. Not because of the prohibition involved — there is no prohibition. It is problematic because it is the territory of prohibition; there is, so to speak, prohibition in the air.

So systematically, it seems to me, one can see in all the guilt-offerings that they come for the result and not for the… Okay, there are various practical implications. I just want to manage to show you one more interesting implication. In Genesis there are three recurring episodes of “Please say you are my sister,” right? Two with Abraham and one with Isaac. Three times, and these fellows don’t learn from experience. It happened with Abraham, happened again with Abraham with a different king, and then happened with Isaac. The same thing. And there is a difference between the passages.

Look, the first passage is in Lech-Lecha: ויהי כאשר הקריב לבוא מצרימה — Abraham… ויהי כאשר הקריב לבוא מצרימה ויאמר אל שרי אשתו: הנה נא ידעתי כי אישה יפת מראה את. והיה כי יראו אותך המצרים ואמרו אשתו זאת והרגו אותי ואותך יחיו. אמרי נא אחותי את למען ייטב לי בעבורך וחייתה נפשי בגללך. “When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife: Behold, now I know that you are a beautiful woman. And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife,’ and they will kill me and let you live. Please say that you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you and my life may be spared on your account.” Fine? That’s the plan. ויהי כבוא אברם מצרימה ויראו המצרים את האישה כי יפה היא מאוד. ויראו אותה שרי פרעה ויהללו אותה אל פרעה ותוקח האישה בית פרעה. ולאברם הטיב בעבורה ויהי לו צאן ובקר וחמורים ועבדים ושפחות וכולי. “And when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And Pharaoh’s princes saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. And he dealt well with Abram on her account, and he had sheep and cattle and donkeys and servants and maidservants,” and so on. Fine. Then: וינגע ה’ את פרעה נגעים גדולים ואת ביתו על דבר שרי אשת אברם. ויקרא פרעה לאברם ויאמר: מה זאת עשית לי? למה לא הגדת לי כי אשתך היא? למה אמרת אחותי היא ואקח אותה לי לאישה? ועתה הנה אשתך קח ולך. “And the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and said: What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? And now, here is your wife; take her and go.”

How do you understand what happened here? Pharaoh was under complete duress, wasn’t he? Basically she arrived there, said she was Abraham’s sister, he took her as a wife because she was beautiful, he wanted to marry, everything fine, nothing stood in his way. He was under complete duress. Okay? So then what happens? The woman is taken to Pharaoh’s house, and he benefits Abraham because of her with sheep and cattle and so on. Then וינגע ה’ את פרעה נגעים גדולים — “the Lord afflicted Pharaoh with great plagues” and his house because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. So Pharaoh is surprised: what — why are you striking me with such great plagues, and so on? Indeed it is difficult: if he was so completely coerced, what do you want from him? Why the great plagues? So one might explain that he wasn’t so completely coerced. Abraham planned this whole scheme in advance because he knew what would happen if she didn’t say, “I’m his sister.” Okay? More than that: it is not described here at all that they investigated. There is no description here that they asked: wait, what happened? The plan simply materialized. Meaning, Pharaoh didn’t bother to ask Sarah, “Tell me, are you Abraham’s wife or his sister? Who are you?” He didn’t ask. He took her. That changes the picture. It basically means that there was here a fully intentional act. He didn’t even investigate. Therefore: “the Lord afflicted Pharaoh with great plagues.” Apparently this was intentional.

Now look at the second passage — again with Abraham, but now it’s Avimelech, not Pharaoh. ויסע משם אברהם ארצה הנגב וישב בין קדש ובין שור ויגר בגרר. ויאמר אברהם אל שרה אשתו אחותי היא. “Abraham journeyed from there to the land of the Negev… and Abraham said of Sarah his wife, ‘She is my sister.’” Here the text shortens things; we know the process. וישלח אבימלך מלך גרר ויקח את שרה. ויבוא אלוהים אל אבימלך בחלום הלילה ויאמר לו: הנך מת על האישה אשר לקחת והיא בעולת בעל. ואבימלך לא קרב אליה ויאמר: אדוני, הגוי גם צדיק תהרוג? הלוא הוא אמר לי אחותי היא והיא גם היא אמרה אחי הוא. בתום לבבי ובניקיון כפיי עשיתי זאת. “Avimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. And God came to Avimelech in a dream by night and said to him: You are about to die because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a married woman. And Avimelech had not come near her, and he said: Lord, will You kill even a righteous nation? Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and she herself said, ‘He is my brother’? In the innocence of my heart and the cleanness of my hands I have done this.”

[Speaker F] Now here it isn’t described, but…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But when Avimelech says to the Holy One, blessed be He, “she told me she was his sister,” he did investigate — unlike the previous passage. He did investigate, right? He asked, and she said she was his sister. Okay? Then: ואבימלך לא קרב אליה, and he said: אחותי היא והיא אמרה אחי הוא. בתום לבבי ובניקיון כפיי עשיתי זאת. ויאמר אליו האלוהים בחלום: גם אנוכי ידעתי כי בתום לבבך עשית זאת. “I too know that you did this in the innocence of your heart.” It says so explicitly in the verse. בתום לבבך עשית זאת — “you did this in innocence of heart.” This was not intentional like the previous case. ואחשוך גם אנוכי אותך מחטו לי על כן לא נתתיך לנגוע אליה. “And I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.” I knew that you were basically okay, that you were in fact unintentional, and therefore I did not allow you to touch her. I Myself prevented you from sin because I knew you were not really at fault.

Okay? ועתה השב אשת האיש כי נביא הוא ויתפלל בעדך וחיה ואם אינך משיב דע כי מות תמות אתה וכל אשר לך — “And now restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all that is yours,” and so on. Then he calls Abraham — or rather Avimelech says to Abraham: מה עשית לנו מה חטאתי לך כי הבאת עליי ועל ממלכתי חטאה גדולה? מעשים אשר לא ייעשו עשית עמדי. “What have you done to us? What wrong did I do to you that you have brought upon me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me deeds that should not be done.” What is the key phrase? There are emphases here: מחטו לי — “from sinning against Me,” and חטאה גדולה — “a great sin.” Why?

The Brisker Rav makes a fine point here. He says: Avimelech says to the Holy One, blessed be He, “You know that I did this in the innocence of my heart and with clean hands,” right? What does God answer him? “I too know that you did this in the innocence of your heart.” What happened to “with clean hands”? “In the innocence of my heart and with clean hands.” “In the innocence of your heart” — yes. But “with clean hands” — not completely. Then he says to him: you have brought upon me a great sin. What does the expression “sin” mean? I almost sinned unintentionally. Right? Meaning, this was unintentional and you almost caused me to sin unintentionally. And when does one bring a sin-offering? When there is unintentional sin but with some degree of negligence — when you bear some blame in the unintentionality, right? That is “in the innocence of your heart, yes — but not with clean hands.” Therefore this is in the category of sin-offering.

Now look at the third passage. Isaac settled in Gerar. וישאלו אנשי המקום לאשתו ויאמר אחותי היא, כי ירא לאמור אשתי, פן יהרגוני אנשי המקום על רבקה. “The men of the place asked him about his wife, and he said, ‘She is my sister,’ for he feared to say, ‘My wife,’ lest the men of the place kill me because of Rebecca.” Here the verse itself says that they asked him whether she was his sister or his wife — they actually investigated. This isn’t merely unintentional; they actively inquired. Yes? Then: ויהי כי ארכו לו שמה הימים, וישקף אבימלך מלך פלשתים בעד החלון. וירא והנה יצחק מצחק את רבקה אשתו. “When he had been there a long time, Avimelech king of the Philistines looked out through the window and saw, and behold, Isaac was caressing Rebecca his wife.” Notice: God doesn’t even reveal Himself to him. He discovers on his own that he is mistaken. Right? ויקרא אבימלך ליצחק ויאמר אך הנה אשתך היא ואיך אמרת אחותי היא. “And Avimelech called Isaac and said: Surely she is your wife! How then did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” There, in the previous case, God came to him in a dream and told him, and then he stopped. Here — not God. They had already investigated in advance; everything was fine. Once he discovered that he was mistaken, he stopped. Total duress. Right? That is total duress. The first was intentional, the second was unintentional with some blame, and this is total duress. And what does it say here? ויאמר לו יצחק כי אמרתי פן אמות עליה. ויאמר אבימלך מה זאת עשית לנו כמעט שכב אחד העם את אשתך והבאת עלינו אשם. “Isaac said to him: because I said, lest I die because of her. And Avimelech said: What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” In the previous passage the language was “sin,” “a great sin.” Here the expression is “guilt.” Why? Only the result. Meaning, the first case is intentional. What happens with intentional sin? With intentional sin you are struck for the act you did, for the intentional transgression — וינגע אלוקים נגעים גדולים את פרעה — “God afflicted Pharaoh with great plagues.” He got punishment. It’s not even a warning; not a threat. He got the punishment because he committed a transgression intentionally.

The second case is a case of unintentional sin. “In the innocence of my heart” — but not “with clean hands.” In the case of unintentional sin, God warns you and does not let you sin, because He understands that this was done in innocence of heart, unintentionally. But it is unintentional sin, not total duress. “In the innocence of my heart” but not “with clean hands,” right? Therefore “you brought upon me a sin” — to sin here means to become liable for a sin-offering; that is, you effectively caused an unintentional transgression.

The third case is total duress. But even in total duress, if you have relations with another man’s wife, there is guilt: והבאת עלינו אשם — “and you would have brought guilt upon us.” So what if I was under duress? The desolation and destruction I caused here — the marital unit that I ruined by having relations with another man’s wife — even if I am under total duress, the result occurred. And once the result occurred, it belongs to the category of guilt-offering and not the sin-offering.

In these three passages you can see — you can also see it in Nachmanides and the commentators, but I won’t go into all that here; there is an article I wrote that you can see on my website and also in the summary I’ll upload to Lamda — the claim is that there is a scale among these three passages that covers the three aspects of sin. One aspect is the forbidden action. When you are guilty, you are struck for the action you performed, for your transgression. The second aspect is the mental aspect, which belongs to the sin-offering — unintentional sin and the sin-offering that one is liable for. And the third aspect is the result, and the result is completely indifferent to the mental aspect. Even if you were under duress, intentional, unintentional — it makes no difference. Once the result occurred, you are liable for a guilt-offering, because the result occurred; the guilt-offering comes to cleanse the result.

That basically gives us the distinction between the sin-offering and the guilt-offering. About the sin-offering we spoke the previous time, and we saw that the lack of awareness is the problem on the level of the mental element. And in the guilt-offering, the problem is the result. And intentional sin — the third thing, where you receive punishment for intentional sin — the punishment is given for the act, not for the intentions and not for the results, but for the act: for the sinful act you receive punishment. That’s it.