The Mitzvah of Fasting on Yom Kippur – Lesson 1 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, sometimes I open with an apology. My throat really hurts, and I’ll try to survive the lecture, but I’ll speak relatively quietly. Also, if I get some phone call from the doctor’s office because they’re trying to catch an appointment there, then I apologize in advance if I step out for two minutes just to talk, okay? Good. Our topic in this series—this is about three sessions—is commandments, or the commandments of fasting on Yom Kippur. And these commandments basically give us an opportunity to deal with some very fundamental aspects that touch on commandments in general. So I’m not going to clarify detailed Jewish law here. Rather, I’ll try to touch on the definition of the commandments themselves, the relations between them, what it means in general for something to be a positive commandment, a prohibition, the relations between them, and so on.

So maybe I’ll begin with the commandments themselves. Let’s look at Maimonides, who brings the commandments—the commandment of fasting that relates to… okay. I’ll share this on Zoom too, since I’m recording. Okay. So Maimonides in Sefer HaMitzvot, prohibition 196. Commandment 196 is that we were warned against eating on the fast of Yom Kippur. “And no warning came in the Torah for this act, but the punishment is mentioned, and one who eats is liable to karet. And we know that there is indeed a warning against it from His saying: כי כל הנפש אשר לא תעונה בעצם היום הזה ונכרתה (‘For every soul that will not be afflicted on that very day shall be cut off’). And at the beginning of Keritot, when they counted those liable to karet, they included among them one who eats on Yom Kippur, and they explained there that everything for which one is liable to karet is a negative commandment, except for Passover and circumcision.”

So there you already see—it means that eating on Yom Kippur is a prohibition, because otherwise they would also have had to include it among the positive commandments for which there is karet. “You thus already verified that eating on Yom Kippur is a negative commandment, and therefore one is liable for deliberate violation to karet and for unwitting violation to a fixed sin-offering, as they explained at the beginning of Keritot and as is explained in tractate Horayot, that this applies only to negative commandments. And His statement regarding those liable to a fixed sin-offering, אחת מכל מצוות ה’ אשר לא תעשינה (‘one of all the commandments of God that shall not be done’)”—yes, sin-offerings are brought only for prohibitions; for positive commandments, even when they carry karet, one does not bring a sin-offering.

“And the language of the Sifra: כי כל הנפש אשר לא תעונה ונכרתה (‘For every soul that will not be afflicted shall be cut off’)—this is the punishment for affliction. But we have not heard the warning for affliction on the day itself. When it says the punishment for labor—which is unnecessary, for it could be inferred by an a fortiori argument: if for affliction, which does not apply on holidays and Sabbaths, one is punished, then for labor, which does apply on holidays, is it not logical that one should be punished? If so, why was the punishment for labor stated? In order to learn from it a warning for affliction. Just as the punishment for labor comes after a warning, so too the punishment for affliction comes after a warning. Thus what we said has been clarified.”

So there are several points here that are worth paying attention to. First of all, Maimonides says that there is really no warning in the Torah that warns us against… actually, not against affliction—against eating. It says that one must afflict oneself on Yom Kippur, and it says that every soul who is not afflicted shall be cut off. That is a punishment. But how do we know there is a prohibition? The rule in Jewish law is that if the punishment is written, then in addition there also has to be a warning. A warning means a verse that tells us that this thing is forbidden. So the fact that karet is written here still doesn’t mean there is also a prohibition.

Maimonides says—what did he prove from the sages? He proves from the sages that there must be a warning here. Why? Because if this could be karet for failing to fulfill a positive commandment—and there is indeed a positive commandment written in the Torah—then maybe the karet of Yom Kippur, “every soul that is not afflicted shall be cut off,” is karet for failing to fulfill a positive commandment. Why can’t that be? Because the Mishnah in Keritot lists all the exceptions—positive commandments that carry karet—and it lists only two: Passover and circumcision. It does not list Yom Kippur. So with a prohibition we are liable to karet. But that still doesn’t tell us where the warning comes from. How did the sages know this? The sages apparently understood that affliction on Yom Kippur includes a warning.

Fine. So we have proof that there is a warning, but we still need to ask: what is the warning? Where is it? How did the sages know there was a warning here? Because that needs to be understood. Maimonides emphasizes this in the introduction to Sefer HaMitzvot, at the end of Principle Fourteen, that a warning is a condition. Meaning, if a punishment is written and we did not find a warning, we do not punish. Even if the Torah says there is a punishment—we do not punish unless we also find a warning. Therefore Maimonides says that everywhere the Talmud asks, “We have heard the punishment; from where do we know the warning?” And the fact that the punishment is written still doesn’t mean enough; there also has to be a warning.

He only adds there that even if the warning is derived through one of the methods of interpretation—which by itself is not enough to create a Torah-level prohibition, because Maimonides’ view in Principle Two is that things derived through interpretive methods have the status of rabbinic law and not Torah law—on that he says there in the introduction that if the punishment is written in the Torah, then it is enough for the warning to be derived by interpretation. So the warning does not need to be explicit. If there is no punishment written in the Torah and we have only a warning derived by interpretation, then it is not Torah law; it is rabbinic. But if the punishment is already written, then it is clear to us that there is some warning in the background. So the interpretation that taught us there is a warning is itself enough for us—then that warning is sufficient.

I don’t know if I’ll manage to get to this and explain it, but that is Maimonides’ position. So according to his view there in the introduction to Sefer HaMitzvot, he says the same thing here: we found a punishment—הנפש אשר לא תעונה ונכרתה—there is the punishment of karet, but we did not find a warning. And if we did not find a warning, then even the karet would not apply, because if there is a punishment without a warning, the punishment is not activated. There must also be a warning. So that’s why he proves from the sages that this is a prohibition, that there must be a warning. And then in the last section he brings the Sifra, and the Sifra is the source of the warning. But first he proved that there is a warning, and afterward he also found what the warning was—that is in the Sifra. Right, an a fortiori argument from… or actually an “if it is not needed for this matter” argument from labor, and from that we create a warning for affliction. We’ll see—the source of this is a passage in tractate Yoma; we’ll get to it later. Not today, but later on. There is a warning here that is really derived through a kind of interpretation. “If it is not needed for this matter” is an interpretation; it is not the plain meaning of the verse. But since the punishment is written, then even a warning derived by interpretation is sufficient. Okay? And that is Maimonides in prohibition 196.

Positive commandment 164: “Commandment 164 is that He commanded us to afflict ourselves on the tenth of Tishrei. And that is His saying: תענו את נפשותיכם (‘You shall afflict your souls’). And the explanation comes in the Sifra: תענו את נפשותיכם—an affliction that involves the loss of life. And what is that? Eating and drinking. And there is likewise a received tradition that washing, anointing, wearing shoes, and marital relations are forbidden.” What “received tradition” means in Maimonides is very unclear—whether it means rabbinic or Torah-level but not explicit. There are disagreements about that. But it is clear that there are also five afflictions, not only eating and drinking. “And that cessation is required from all these actions, from His saying in the passage of Emor: שבת שבתון הוא לכם ועניתם את נפשותיכם (‘It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls’), as if to say that there is an obligation in it of the specific cessation from labors and acts, and the specific cessation from bodily nourishment and its maintenance. Therefore it says שבת שבתון (‘a Sabbath of complete rest’).”

“A Sabbath of complete rest”—resting from labor, as on every holiday and Sabbath, and resting from pleasures, which is the special cessation of Yom Kippur—and also, rabbinically, the Ninth of Av, but there too it is basically the same idea. And this is Maimonides’ view, and so much ink has been spilled over it. Maimonides, the collection of laws that deals with the laws of Yom Kippur—what does he call it, do you know? There is no “Laws of Yom Kippur.” What does he call it? There is “Laws of the Yom Kippur Service”—that is the laws of the offerings. But where does he speak about affliction and refraining from labor and all that? “Laws of Resting on the Tenth.” In the Book of Times. The other one is in the Book of Temple Service. In the Book of Times there is “Laws of Resting on the Tenth.” What is “resting on the tenth”? Within Resting on the Tenth appear both the laws of the prohibition of labor and the laws of affliction, of refraining from pleasure. Meaning, Maimonides—and here he explains it explicitly—understands this as creating a whole of total cessation. Meaning, the cessation of Yom Kippur is broader than the cessation of the Sabbath. It includes not only cessation from labor but also cessation from… pleasures. But from Maimonides’ perspective that is really an expansion of the concept of cessation. There are various implications; if I manage to get to them I’ll mention them.

So that is Maimonides’ view. Here too he says—and to conclude, at the beginning of the Laws of Resting on the Tenth Maimonides writes: “The Laws of Resting on the Tenth include four commandments: two positive commandments and two negative commandments. And these are their details: 1. To rest from labor. 2. Not to do labor on it. 3. To afflict oneself on it. 4. Not to eat or drink on it.” Four commandments. So regarding affliction, which is the point that interests us now, there is a positive commandment to afflict oneself and a prohibition against eating and drinking. It is both a prohibition and a positive commandment. And in chapter 1, law 4, three laws later: “Another positive commandment on Yom Kippur is to refrain from eating and drinking on it.” Again you see: to refrain from eating and drinking, not from labor. Even refraining from pleasures is, in his eyes, part of the commandment of cessation on Yom Kippur. There is a general commandment of cessation that includes both cessation from labor—the ordinary holiday concept—and cessation from pleasures.

[Speaker C] To refrain and not to do?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the positive commandment and the prohibition. Resting on the Tenth—that’s our topic today, so we’ll talk about it in a moment. “By oral tradition they learned that the affliction that pertains to the soul is the fast, and anyone who fasts on it fulfills a positive commandment, and anyone who eats and drinks on it has nullified a positive commandment and violated a prohibition. As it says: כי כל הנפש אשר לא תעונה בעצם היום הזה ונכרתה (‘For every soul that will not be afflicted on that very day shall be cut off’). Since Scripture imposed karet on one who did not afflict himself, we learn that we are warned regarding eating and drinking. And anyone who eats or drinks on it unintentionally is liable to a fixed sin-offering.” On Yom Kippur there is karet and a sin-offering, but there is no death penalty. Stoning is on the Sabbath. Yom Kippur in that respect is like a holiday—it is only a prohibition. Meaning, there is no… it is a severe prohibition, it has karet and a sin-offering, but there is no liability to death by court.

Let’s try for a moment to understand what is going on here. So we arrived at the conclusion that there are two commandments that concern pleasures, affliction: a positive commandment to afflict oneself and a negative commandment not to eat on it. Now first of all the question really does arise, the one Avner asked before: what is the difference? What is the difference between telling me not to eat as a prohibition—an eating prohibition—and telling me that you are obligated to afflict yourself? Isn’t that saying the same thing in two different ways? You could say, okay, so there are two prohibitions here, right? Their content is identical. But Maimonides’ position is that we do not count prohibitions whose content is identical. In Principle Nine, Maimonides talks about the fact that if the Torah repeats the same thing several times, we count only one prohibition or only one commandment. We do not count the additional repetitions in the Torah. There is another very interesting discussion there with Nachmanides, but I won’t go into that here. So if it really overlaps, then the question arises: why does Maimonides treat this as two different commandments, a positive commandment and a prohibition?

More than that, Maimonides’ terminology: he could have said there is a positive commandment to afflict oneself, and there is a prohibition against not afflicting oneself. Whoever does not afflict himself has violated a prohibition. But he doesn’t do that. “Affliction” is always the expression he uses when he speaks about the positive commandment. For the prohibition, it is a prohibition of eating and drinking. Why? The positive commandment is to afflict oneself, and the prohibition is that one who eats and drinks violates a prohibition. But no—Maimonides uses different language. There is a commandment to afflict oneself, and that is the positive commandment; and there is a prohibition of eating, and that is the negative commandment. That may already give us some hint as to the difference between these two definitions, the prohibition and the positive commandment. But I’ll get to that later, not today. Today I want to explain why we don’t need that. We don’t need to get there. Even if the content overlaps, these are still two commandments. Different content? No—the same content. Yes, because one is a prohibition and one is a positive commandment, they are two commandments.

So I said the background to this is Maimonides in Principle Nine. I’m not going to read it inside because it’s not worth the time. But Maimonides says there that if the Torah repeats something several times—what I said before—if the Torah repeats the same thing several times, we count it once, whether it’s a positive commandment or a prohibition, it doesn’t matter; we don’t count repetitions. But in Principle Six what…

[Speaker A] does he want? Try opening this file for me? Okay. Fine. Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll just open it directly on the computer. Here. Okay.

[Speaker C] What? Not to wait?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I opened it before, I just wanted to open it—not that by divine inspiration it knew I’d want it. Okay. I’m also sharing it on Zoom for the recording.

So Principle Six is from a book we wrote called Shelach Sharashav, on Maimonides’ principles. So this is the essay on Principle Six. And Principle Six is—first of all, this is Maimonides’ wording before us: “A commandment that includes both a positive commandment and a negative commandment—it is proper to count its positive element among the positive commandments and its negative element among the negative commandments.” Okay? What is he saying? First of all, this is a qualification to what he writes in Principle Nine. In Principle Nine he says that if there is repetition of the same commandment, positive or negative, you count it only once. What is Maimonides saying? Yes, that is all if they are of the same type—two prohibitions or two positive commandments. But if one is a prohibition and the other is a positive commandment, then you count both of them. That is Maimonides’ first novelty.

The second novelty, which sounds a little trivial, is that the positive commandment is counted among the positive commandments and the prohibition among the prohibitions. Fine, but what? If you’re counting the two commandments, obviously the positive commandment goes with the positive commandments and the prohibition with the prohibitions. What, would I count the prohibition among the positive commandments? Is that really what you need to say? You should just say: if there is a prohibition and a positive commandment, you count two commandments, right? That’s what you need to say. But no—Maimonides says the positive commandment must be counted with the positive commandments and the prohibition with the prohibitions. So there is another novelty here. And I want to argue that this novelty is no less significant than the first one. There is a big novelty here.

Then Maimonides says like this: okay—

[Speaker C] But obviously you count a positive commandment with… no? If it’s a positive commandment, you count it with positive commandments, and if it’s a prohibition, you count it with prohibitions. What’s the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I’ll explain. I said I’m about to explain exactly that. So Maimonides says there are several possibilities in which we can see an overlapping prohibition and positive commandment in the Torah. Fine, not important for us; the possibility we’re focusing on is the one we see on Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur there is a positive commandment to afflict oneself and a prohibition on eating—eating and drinking. So here there is a positive commandment and a prohibition with overlapping content. Another example: there is a positive commandment and a prohibition regarding refraining from labor. Right? There is a positive commandment to refrain from labor, and a prohibition on doing labor. And by the way, the formulations are very similar. Refraining from labor is like afflicting oneself, and the prohibition on doing labor is like eating and drinking. Okay? And it says that one who did not refrain nullified the positive commandment? Violated the prohibition? No—one who did labor violated the prohibition. Meaning, refraining, like affliction, speaks to the side of the positive commandment. On the side of the prohibition they tell me what act I have to do in order to violate the prohibition. Okay?

[Speaker C] He uses the same word. No. No, labor, labor. With labor he says “to refrain from labor” and “do not do any labor.” Right,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here it is “to refrain” and here it is “not to do.”

[Speaker C] Right, but it’s the same word.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s labor because that’s what is forbidden.

[Speaker C] Obviously, but with fasting you can…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, okay, yes, but still…

[Speaker C] Does affliction appear in the prohibition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So with refraining too, fine, but there is still a difference in formulation. Why doesn’t he write in the prohibition that whoever failed to refrain violated the prohibition? Rather, whoever did labor violated the prohibition. Why? Say: whoever failed to refrain violated the prohibition.

[Speaker C] He’s now explaining what labor is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, it doesn’t matter to me. Either way. There is still a difference between the wording he chooses for the positive commandment and the wording he chooses for the prohibition. And the question is why. That’s what he says. Therefore fasting on Yom Kippur, you see, is a positive commandment, and eating on it is a prohibition. And on the Sabbath too there is a positive commandment to refrain from labor and a prohibition on doing labor. And on Yom Kippur itself too, as we saw in Maimonides, there is a positive commandment to refrain and a prohibition on doing labor. So there are many duplications of this sort in which, says Maimonides, the rule that duplication is not counted does not apply. In duplications of this type we count two commandments: a positive commandment with the positive commandments and the prohibition with the prohibitions. Okay?

Now let’s try to see what this actually means. There is Rabbi Yerucham Perla—here. Do you know Rabbi Yerucham Perla? This is a work around Rav Saadia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot. Three volumes, about this thick. It’s actually an amazing book, really amazing. Not so well known, but really amazing. It’s a kind of Minchat Chinukh but much broader, and with a more research-oriented bent. Less of the yeshiva-style analytic approach of the Minchat Chinukh, and more trying to put things in order, looking at the general definitions. Really a very impressive scholar.

Yes, Rav Saadia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot, if you know it—each commandment is two words. Rav Saadia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot is, I don’t know, three pages? Four pages? So in yeshivot they joke and say: this is Rabbi Yerucham Perla’s Sefer HaMitzvot with notes by Rav Saadia Gaon. Because he really tormented Rav Saadia Gaon—he decided to abuse him—but really he wanted to write what he himself had to write. Among other things, though, he always compares Rav Saadia Gaon’s method of counting the commandments with Maimonides’ method. The difference is that Maimonides wrote out his method in counting the commandments—these are his principles. Rav Saadia Gaon, by contrast, you have to see how he counted and what he did or did not count, and from that try to extract what he thought about Maimonides’ principles. So his discussion of Rav Saadia Gaon’s view follows the order of Maimonides’ principles. In each principle of Maimonides he checks whether Rav Saadia Gaon agrees or disagrees, what happens with other counters of the commandments—

[Speaker C] agrees or

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] disagrees with them—but the order is Maimonides’ order of principles.

Is the Gaon also a counter of the commandments? No, no, no—it’s a different set of commandments. Yes, Maimonides actually writes in the introduction—and that is a note we wrote here in the book—that he saw that all the earlier counters of the commandments were poets, they didn’t understand anything. So he decided to write the counting of the commandments himself. These poets, yes, the Barceloni and all those guys who dealt with it—they’d better stick to liturgical poetry, if I’m hearing correctly the tone of contempt blowing through there. That’s it.

Now it’s hard for me to believe he was speaking that way about Rav Saadia Gaon. In my opinion he did not know Rav Saadia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot. He פשוט didn’t know it. It’s such a short work that apparently… Anyway, afterward I saw an article by Rabbi Sabato from Ma’ale Adumim: “Did Maimonides know Rav Saadia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot?” I once spoke with him a bit about this when this book came out, at the launch event; he also spoke about it there, and we talked a bit about the issue. In any case, I think Maimonides did not know Rav Saadia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot, and therefore allowed himself to say they were all poets.

In any event, Rabbi Yerucham Perla did know Rav Saadia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot, and he checks what Rav Saadia Gaon’s relation is to Maimonides’ principles. When he writes about Principle Six, he says like this: “But our master the Gaon’s method in all this is very far from the method of all the other medieval authorities. And this entire principle before us”—Maimonides’ Principle Six—“he neither mentions nor accepts at all.” Rav Saadia Gaon disagrees with Maimonides in Principle Six. “And regarding every commandment that contains both a prohibition and a positive commandment, whenever there is no additional new matter in each one that is not included in the other, they are both counted only as one commandment. And whichever of the two expresses the matter of the commandment more clearly, that alone is counted in the count of the commandments. So if the commandment is explained more clearly in the prohibition than in the positive commandment, then the prohibition alone is counted among the prohibitions, but the positive commandment is not counted again at all. And if the commandment is explained more clearly in the positive commandment, then only the positive commandment is counted among the positive commandments, but the prohibition is not counted at all. But when one of them includes some new matter not included in the other, then one counts only the one that includes more”—yes, you count the broader one, and of course if each has something unique, then you count both.

“But whenever all the aspects of the commandment are included equally in both the prohibition and the positive commandment, and there is no difference between them at all except that this one is positive and that one is negative, they are counted only as one commandment, as Maimonides himself laid down in Principle Nine.” Maimonides also knew about his own Principle Nine, right? But in Principle Six he says: I qualify that—duplication between a positive commandment and a prohibition is different. Rabbi Yerucham Perla says: what are you talking about? Same idea. If the content is the same, what difference does it make how it is written in the Torah, whether as a prohibition or a positive commandment? Okay?

Now what does this mean, “the matter of the commandment is explained more clearly in it”? Tell me, on Yom Kippur what would you count—prohibition or positive commandment? He counts only one. Only one commandment. Why?

[Speaker F] Because it says eating and drinking are forbidden, right? Again. It says eating and drinking are forbidden, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where does it say that?

[Speaker C] ועיניתם—that’s positive.

[Speaker F] Yes, but the prohibition is on eating and drinking, no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Maimonides’ language, yes. But in the Torah nothing says that. It says ועיניתם—you shall afflict yourselves. Even in the karet verse it says הנפש אשר לא תעונה ונכרתה—the soul that will not be afflicted shall be cut off. Meaning, even in the karet, which according to Maimonides reflects the prohibition, the wording is “that will not be afflicted.” So there is room to hesitate; it isn’t obvious. You could say that since the Torah formulates it in the language of a positive commandment, then the matter that is explained more clearly is the positive commandment, and the positive commandment is to afflict oneself. But you could also say not like that. Why? Because if I had simply asked you, forget the Torah’s wording—how would you define the prohibition of eating on Yom Kippur? Is it a prohibition or a positive commandment?

[Speaker C] A prohibition. A prohibition, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They’re forbidding me to do something, right? So it could be that what is explained more clearly is דווקא the prohibition, not the positive commandment. Even though if you go by the Torah’s wording, the positive commandment is explained more clearly. But if you go by the content, the content is a prohibition, not a positive commandment. What is it? They are forbidding us to eat, okay, or to enjoy ourselves. So there is room here to hesitate about what exactly he means. But for our purposes, he says that in any case this would only be one commandment.

But already here you can see something interesting. It is not clear from the commandment itself—let’s say we follow Rav Saadia Gaon’s view—it is not clear from the commandment itself whether to count it as a positive commandment or as a prohibition, right? I gave arguments in both directions. So what is the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment? Let me now ask you a more general question. What is the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment? Can anyone define it for me? In the Torah in general—what is a prohibition and what is a positive commandment? Define it.

[Speaker D] A prohibition is not to do something, and a positive commandment is to do something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Meaning, a positive commandment is fulfilled by active doing: we are required to do some action, and we fail it by passive non-doing—we don’t do the action, so we’ve neglected a positive commandment, right? What happens with a prohibition? The opposite. We fulfill the prohibition by passive refraining. When we don’t eat pork, we are fulfilling the prohibition. We violate the prohibition by active doing, when we do eat the pork. Okay? That is apparently the distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment.

But that can’t be right. Otherwise how can there be both a prohibition and a positive commandment regarding eating on Yom Kippur? Eating on Yom Kippur—what should it have been according to that definition? A prohibition. Right? They’re forbidding me to eat. You fulfill it by refraining and violate it by active doing. So how does Maimonides count both a positive commandment and a prohibition?

[Speaker D] Adding to the Sabbath. What? Adding to the Sabbath.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, adding to the Sabbath—everywhere. Now with Rabbi Perla, who counts one commandment, there’s room to hesitate. Whether he would really count it only as a prohibition, like Rav Saadia Gaon. If he counts it only as a prohibition, then maybe he really does go by the operational definition, meaning how you violate it and how you fulfill it. But if he goes by “the matter is explained more clearly in it,” and that means specifically the affliction written in the Torah, then the question still remains even for him, although he doesn’t split the commandments. Okay.

Now I’ll maybe go back for a moment to the difficulties I mentioned earlier in Maimonides. I said Maimonides made two innovations. One innovation: you count two commandments. A second innovation: the positive commandment is counted among the positive commandments and the prohibition among the prohibitions. You understand that this is not trivial. After all, the positive commandment and the prohibition overlap, right? Basically they both tell me not to eat. So one could have said that although Maimonides said that if there is duplication between a prohibition and a positive commandment we count two commandments—both of them are really prohibitions. Both of them are prohibitions, because what are they telling me? They’re telling me not to eat.

[Speaker D] In practice, yes. What? In practice, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, in practice they are both prohibitions.

[Speaker D] But how does the Torah define it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t say the Torah, and that’s why I’m saying: if the definition is in terms of content—or let’s call it now an operational definition—how the commandment is carried out or how it is violated, then both should have been prohibitions. Right? Same thing on the Sabbath. The prohibition on doing labor and the obligation to refrain should both have been prohibitions. Okay? So Maimonides adds another novelty—not only do I count them as two commandments, but the positive one goes with the positive commandments and the prohibition with the prohibitions. So there is a broader claim here. There is some sort of statement saying: you are not understanding correctly the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. Because if it were like you defined before, that the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment is the question of how one fulfills it and how one fails it—what I earlier called an operational or performance-based definition—then in this case both would have been prohibitions. If one is a prohibition and one is a positive commandment, then that means it is possible to have a positive commandment whose demand is not to do anything, and it is possible in principle to have a prohibition that demands doing something. So it is not true that the definition of prohibition and positive commandment is operational.

And that brings back the question—so what is it? I once saw an article by Aharon Shemesh of blessed memory, a Talmud scholar here in the Talmud department, who died relatively young, in his sixties. These days that sounds young to me. And he wrote an article in Tarbiz, the Jewish studies journal, where he addressed exactly this point. And he showed, in classic academic fashion, that the earlier strata of Talmudic discussions—if you do a kind of archaeology of the sugiyot—the earlier strata really do go by the operational definition. Meaning, a prohibition is what forbids me from acting, and a positive commandment is what obligates me to act. Okay? But in the later discussions that changes, and suddenly there is a disconnect between the question of how a commandment is fulfilled or violated and its classification as a prohibition or a positive commandment. So he asks himself: if so, what does determine whether it is a prohibition or a positive commandment? And the answer he proposes is that what determines it is the Torah’s language. A linguistic definition rather than an operational one.

For example, תענו את נפשותיכם—“you shall afflict yourselves.” In terms of the Torah’s language, that is active language, right? “You shall afflict yourselves”—you are commanded to afflict yourselves—so that is a positive commandment. And if it said “do not eat,” then the Torah’s language would tell us that this is a prohibition, even though the content is the same content. Okay? But what determines it is the Torah’s language.

Now, I once used his claim to explain the difference between an academic scholar and a yeshiva student. The scholar checks the facts as they are, and in the facts he is right. Meaning, there is an operational definition that was earlier, let’s say we’re persuaded by his archaeology, and in the later discussions the definition is linguistic. So far, all fine. He described the facts, made the distinction, and his scientific work is finished. Meaning, he describes the facts as they are. The yeshiva student only starts here, because he asks himself: wait, but why is that? What does the Torah’s language mean? It can’t be that the Torah’s language is the root of the matter, because then I ask: why did the Torah use this language and not another language? It would have meant something different if the Torah had said “do not eat and drink on Yom Kippur” rather than “there is an obligation to afflict yourselves on Yom Kippur,” right? If it had phrased it differently, it would still have been the same content, right? At least that’s what he assumes. He says there’s no difference in content, it’s just the Torah’s language.

So basically that would mean we have two forms of language saying the same content. But if two forms of language say the same content, then it is very unlikely that I would treat one as a positive commandment and the other as a prohibition. They say the same thing, so why should I care about the language, the wording? Sometimes it was phrased this way, sometimes that way—what difference does it make? How can it be that the language is detached from the content and is what determines it?

Let me ask it differently. Why did the Holy One decide to phrase it as a positive commandment and not as a prohibition? Because He wants us to see it as a positive commandment, right? But why? What is unique about this commandment that made the Holy One decide: this one I want to be a positive commandment? After all, in terms of content, it has the content of a prohibition—the same content.

[Speaker C] Maybe there’s a different spiritual style here, meaning

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] meaning it isn’t just not eating.

[Speaker C] Why? Let’s try again. Repentance?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, it has nothing to do with repentance. Fasting means not eating. There is no commandment to repent on Yom Kippur—maybe according to Rabbeinu Yonah, but no. Part of the spiritual point is just that a person fasts, that’s it. He fasts, that’s it, he fulfilled—

[Speaker C] the commandment and didn’t violate the prohibition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everything is fine, he’s all set.

[Speaker C] What you’re always saying in the Torah, whenever there are commandments that have both a positive and a negative form,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] they always say the Torah

[Speaker C] wanted to strengthen it,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] as if the Torah wanted that when I violate

[Speaker D] the prohibition it should count double.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem—then make them two prohibitions.

[Speaker D] He said positive commandment and prohibition. How can that be? It can’t be that there are two identical prohibitions. Why not? But instead of a positive commandment and a prohibition, that does make sense?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They say the same thing, it’s just wording.

[Speaker D] No, it’s another form.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not another form—it’s just another wording of the same thing.

[Speaker D] No, then they’re both the same thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll say more than that. At the beginning of “Eizehu Neshekh,” the Talmud says there is a prohibition of neshekh and a prohibition of tarbit. And if you take interest from someone, you violate both the prohibition of neshekh and the prohibition of tarbit. The Mishnah says that. The Mishnah says: wherever there is neshekh there is tarbit, and wherever there is tarbit there is neshekh. There is no difference between them. So what is the difference? Rashi explains there that neshekh means you bite the borrower—you take extra money from him—and tarbit means you increase your own wealth. Nice explanations, but it’s the same thing. You take that money—it is called neshekh and called tarbit.

[Speaker D] In practice are there two things? No—in practice there is one thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I take the interest, that’s all. Why two things?

[Speaker D] There are

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] maybe two consequences here, but I’m doing the same thing.

[Speaker D] Fine, but the answer is that I violate two prohibitions with one act. That’s what the Torah wants, to make it more severe.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But doesn’t that overlap? It overlaps in terms of practical content. But in terms of practical content it’s the same thing. In both cases you’re forbidden to take interest, that’s all. By the way, in Maimonides, if you look in Sefer HaMitzvot, he counts one prohibition; he doesn’t count neshekh and tarbit separately. But in the Laws of Loans and Borrowing he writes that there are two prohibitions: one who lends with interest violates both neshekh and tarbit. That means there are two prohibitions here, but in terms of the count of commandments it is counted once. If, say, lashes applied here—there are no lashes because it is compensatory—but if there were lashes you would get eighty. There are two prohibitions here, but in the general count of commandments it is not counted. Okay.

So I’m saying: so what, then what really defines a prohibition and a positive commandment? The Torah’s language. But I’m asking: why does the Torah use that language?

[Speaker D] It’s more severe.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it’s not more severe than two prohibitions.

[Speaker D] What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two prohibitions are just as severe.

[Speaker D] No, it’s more severe because you get double lashes, for example.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But when there aren’t lashes?

[Speaker D] I have two violations, not one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But here too you have two violations. Nullifying a positive commandment plus a prohibition, or two prohibitions—what’s the difference? On the contrary, two prohibitions are more severe than nullifying a positive commandment plus a prohibition.

[Speaker D] I can’t say the interest example is a case where I can say there are two different things in one act. But not two actions—there are two results of the action.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But Maimonides is talking about overlapping content in the action, not in the results. And that is exactly why he does not count it twice in the count of commandments. It’s not always possible for me to make it into two different results. So what? But here where there are two… no, there are two different results, and the fact is that Maimonides counts it once in Sefer HaMitzvot, not twice.

[Speaker D] So his rule that you don’t count them

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] refers to practical content, not to consequences. And the practical content here is the same content—two aspects of the same thing. Okay. Also, when I insult someone, then I’m both bad in terms of my character traits and also hurting him. No one says I’ve violated two prohibitions. There are two results, yes, but the action is to insult. Or wounding someone, whatever. So the point is…

[Speaker C] Wait, I want to sharpen the question again.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m asking what the definition is of the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. The Torah’s language cannot be a sufficient definition. The Torah’s language can reflect some difference between them, and therefore the Torah chooses here to formulate it actively and there passively. But the Torah’s language in itself—if the content really were overlapping—then why does the Torah formulate it this way here and that way there? What difference does it make? It doesn’t reflect anything about the content. So why should there be any difference? Okay?

Basically the question that comes back here is: what is the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment? What defines the difference between them? The Torah’s language can be an indication of the difference, but it is not the difference itself. The question is what the difference itself is.

[Speaker C] Every place where the Torah wants you to be active…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no “active,” you’re going back again—what is “active”? “Do not eat” requires exactly as much activity from you. Nothing more than that.

[Speaker C] You afflicted yourself.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—“afflict yourself” means “do not eat.” The Talmud says this explicitly, by the way: don’t add additional afflictions; adding additional afflictions is adding to the Torah. There is no independent interest in afflicting yourself. There is an interest in the specific afflictions that were forbidden. Don’t do… or.

[Speaker C] So…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re moving in the direction of practical consequences. Very often when we ask what defines this as opposed to that—what is the difference between this and that?—we tend to bring up practical consequences. For example: for a prohibition there is punishment, court punishment, and for a positive commandment there isn’t. Or for a prohibition you have to give up all your money not to violate it, and for a positive commandment only up to a fifth. Or with human dignity: human dignity allows me to violate a positive commandment, to neglect a positive commandment, but does not allow me to violate a prohibition—tractate Berakhot. Okay? So there are practical consequences. But practical consequences don’t help at all. They are a result of the fact that there is a difference. And the question is: what produces those consequences? Meaning, why is there really a difference? So it isn’t because the Holy One wanted this to be punished and that not to be punished. Why did He want this to be punished and that not? In the end there has to be some difference in the thing itself that the practical consequences reflect and that they follow from. But the practical consequences themselves are not an answer.

I once had an argument with my study partner about Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, who says that less holy offerings are the owner’s property. The meat of less holy offerings is the owner’s property. So I asked him: in what sense is it the owner’s property? He is obligated to bring it and eat it. The Torah defines for him what he must do with it. In what sense is it his property? He told me: what difference does it make whether it’s most holy offerings or less holy offerings? He said: the practical consequence is that you can betroth a woman with it. I said: a practical consequence is nice, but the practical consequence has to reflect a difference. Explain to me why it is his property, and then the consequence will be that he can betroth a woman with it. First of all you have to explain to me why it is his property. Meaning, practical consequences are not an explanation. They are a consequence of the explanation. They demonstrate an explanation, but are not themselves the explanation. They are a consequence of the explanation. Okay? It’s a sign, not a cause. A practical consequence is a sign that there is some difference here. But the practical consequence itself is not the difference. And the answer to a question like this cannot come by means of practical consequences.

[Speaker C] The idea of a prohibition is more severe than not doing something as opposed to doing something?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are prohibitions of different levels of severity, and positive commandments of different levels of severity. Here—we have positive commandments that carry karet. Much more severe than ordinary prohibitions that only carry lashes. And they are still defined as positive commandments. So it isn’t severity. And there are all sorts of practical consequences. So there has to be a difference. These aren’t just words—positive commandments and negative commandments. There are consequences depending on whether something is a positive commandment or a prohibition. So there must be some essential difference.

Maybe let’s ask it another way. If I wrote, say, “I do not want you not to afflict yourself”—suppose the Torah had been phrased in such cumbersome language, okay? “I do not want you not to afflict yourself.” What would that be? A prohibition or a positive commandment? A positive commandment. Yes. A prohibition. It’s a prohibition, right? “Beware,” “lest,” “do not”—these are prohibitions. Okay. “I do not want you not to afflict yourself.” And that is a double negation which is logically equivalent to “I want you to afflict yourself.” So how can it be that two propositions that are logically equivalent constitute different commandments? It’s just a change of language. If the two propositions are logically equivalent, that’s like saying the same thing once in Hebrew and once in English. Fine—you said the same thing in a different language. How can it be that you’re saying the same thing and yet it counts as a different commandment—with all the consequences? There are a huge number of consequences.

And I think this begins to hint at the solution to this puzzle. One of the fascinating things is that nobody thinks about this. I haven’t seen discussion of this anywhere. What is the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment? There just isn’t any—I haven’t found any, at any rate. Professor Shemesh in his article suddenly raised this question, and really there is nothing. Meaning, you can just decide whatever you want. What?

[Speaker G] What do you mean by an objective definition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean by an objective definition?

[Speaker G] Like, a positive commandment is when you tell him to do it, and a prohibition is when you tell him not to do it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—that’s an operational definition. But we said the operational definition doesn’t hold water. Come, take more examples. What is “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood”? Up until now we’ve only been talking about duplications like the Sabbath and affliction on Yom Kippur, where there is both a prohibition and a positive commandment regarding the same thing. I’ll show you things that are not duplication. “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood”—what is that? If someone is drowning in a river, you have to save him, right? So it should have been a positive commandment. But the Torah’s wording is “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” which is a prohibition. And that’s how it is counted too, as a prohibition by all the counters.

[Speaker D] What? Waiting is also an action, because by that logic everything is an action.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So afflicting yourself is an action, waiting is an action. Not doing an action is not an action. Not doing an action is an omission. And that is exactly the difference. No, he

[Speaker D] told him “do not stand.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, “do not stand.”

[Speaker D] Standing is an action, right? No.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Do not stand.” No, standing is not moving. They have no problem with your standing. Stand as much as you want—but save him. Meaning, there is no prohibition on standing. There is a prohibition on not saving. In other words, there is an obligation to save; a prohibition on not saving is like an obligation to save—again the double negation, right? Or “do not place blood in your house,” and “you shall make a parapet for your roof.” “Do not place blood in your house” is a prohibition. What do you have to do in order to avoid that prohibition? Build a parapet. That’s a positive commandment. I’m obligating you to do something, yes? Now this too is a duplication: “do not place blood in your house” and “you shall make a parapet for your roof.” But I think the logical question can actually give us some clue to the solution.

Look for a moment, on the logical level, at the statement “I do not want you not to afflict yourself.” Is that logically equivalent to “I want you to afflict yourself”? If it is, I wouldn’t ask. No, absolutely not—that’s a mistake. If it said, “I want you not not to afflict yourself,” that would be logically equivalent to “I want you to afflict yourself,” because not-not cancels out. Okay? But “I do not want you not to afflict yourself” is not equivalent to “I want you to afflict yourself.” Not at all. You are deciding there is commutativity between the “not” and the “want,” that you can switch the place of the negation and the place of what is called the deontic operator—the “want,” “must,” “you are obligated”—those are called deontic operators. Okay? They are not interchangeable.

When I do not want something, that is not the same as wanting not. Do you understand the difference? I do not want—you know what, I may not care if you don’t do it; I only don’t want you to do it. Right? But if I want you not to, then I require you not to do it. Meaning, if I tell you, say, “I want you not to play soccer,” then if you play soccer you did something the Torah negated; that is an improper act. By contrast, if the Torah had said, “I want you to fast”—fine, that is in fact what it said. Now I eat. I didn’t do an act that is itself wrong; I simply was not in the state the Torah positively wanted me to be in, the state in which one does not eat, because I ate. Eating does not directly clash with the will of the Torah; it is just that the moment I eat, I am no longer in a state of affliction, and the Torah wanted me to be in a state of affliction. So the clash is indirect, not a direct clash with the will of the Torah. Do you understand? This is simple logic.

When I tell you, “I want you not to play soccer,” that is not the same as saying, “I do not want you to play soccer.” Not at all. “I do not want you to play soccer” means it is not true that I want you to play soccer. Maybe I am indifferent, for example. But if I say, “I want you not to play soccer,” then I am not indifferent—I want you not to play. Negation of an action has two possible states: there is the zero state and the negative state. Let’s say the negation of one is either zero or minus one. Privative negation or contrary negation. If you negate one, you can turn it into zero or into minus one. There are two kinds of negation.

Now when I negate one, it can be either zero or minus one—both are a negation of one. But if I say I want minus one, then zero won’t do; only minus one. Okay? Say for example I tell you: I want you to build a parapet on your house. Okay? That’s a positive commandment to build a parapet, right? If I say, “I don’t want your house to be without a parapet”—that’s “do not place blood in your house”—I didn’t say the same thing. For example, suppose I have no house. I have no house. Then I didn’t fulfill the positive commandment, right? Though I also wasn’t obligated. But I didn’t fulfill the commandment. Yet obviously I did not violate the prohibition. There may be non-fulfillment of the positive commandment here, but there is no violation of the prohibition, because I don’t have a house without a parapet—I don’t have a house at all.

If you go up to logic, I can show you a logical contradiction against the law of the excluded middle—never mind. “The current king of France is either bald or not bald.” Let’s look in the group of bald people; we won’t find him there, right? If we look in the group of the hairy people, the non-bald, we also won’t find him. How can that be? Is he both bald and not bald and also not hairy? Something is wrong here. What is the answer? There is no king in France. You can’t look for him anywhere; they don’t have a king. Okay? What does that mean? That saying he is not hairy is not the same thing as saying he is bald. It may be that he simply does not exist. That is vacuously true, as mathematicians say. Okay, so that’s fine. If he existed, maybe he wouldn’t be hairy—but he doesn’t exist.

So clearly there is a difference. I cannot switch the place of “commandment” or “want” with the place of “not.” “Do not want” and “want not” are not the same thing. Therefore if I say to you, “I do not want you not to eat,” that is absolutely not the same as “I want you to eat.” It is not true that I want you not to eat. Maybe I am indifferent, for example. Eat, don’t eat—I don’t care. I don’t want you not to; I have no such desire that you not eat. What do I want? I don’t know—it’s open. If I say to you, “I want you not to eat,” then it is not open. I am telling you exactly what I want. I want you not to eat. Okay?

Therefore the two propositions “I do not want you not to eat” and “I want you to eat” are not logically equivalent. That’s simply a mistake—they are not logically equivalent. Aristotle already distinguishes between two kinds of negation: privative negation and contrary negation, what I mentioned before. He talks, for example—think for a moment—which kind of negation are light and darkness, as opposed to, say, cold and heat?

So light and darkness—what is the indicator? Darkness: if you take a dark room and illuminate it, add light to it, the result will be an illuminated room, right? Darkness does not cancel out light. Darkness is a vacuum, an absence. Okay? If you put light into it, the room will be lit. That means darkness is not minus-light; it is zero-light. Okay? But cold and heat, for example—if you take cold water and hot water and mix them, you get lukewarm water; they cancel one another. Not in our sensation—leave aside temperature; from a physical point of view they are all temperatures. But in our perception there is cold and heat, and they are opposites. Okay? When you mix cold with hot, you get lukewarm. That means cold is minus-heat, not zero-heat. There is cancellation between them: one plus minus one gives zero; one plus zero gives one and leaves the one in place. That is the indicator of whether we are dealing with contrary negation or privative negation.

Okay, and when I say, “I do not want you not to eat,” then really this is privative negation—there is no obligation here. I don’t want you to eat, but I also don’t care if you don’t eat. I’m indifferent, at least that is one possibility. Right? So that is privative negation. If I say, “I want you not to eat,” that is contrary negation. I want you to be in a state in which you are not eating. I’m not indifferent to that. If you are in some third state—neither eating nor not eating—that doesn’t satisfy me, because I want you to be in a state of not eating.

Okay? Suppose, for example, you ate under coercion. Fine? So if there is a prohibition on eating, then you violated the prohibition under coercion, okay? But if I say, “I do not…” Well, here there is room for a little confusion. If I say, “I want you not to eat” or “I do not want you to eat,” okay? “I do not want you to eat”—fine, I’m basically indifferent. So in that kind of case—or you know what, let’s go in the positive direction. There is a dispute between Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish: does coercion count as if one acted? You know this? “The Merciful One exempts one who acted under coercion,” right? ולנערה לא תעשה דבר—“to the young woman you shall do nothing.” If we do something under coercion, we are not liable for it. Okay? Therefore if I violated a prohibition under coercion, I am exempt. Okay? What happens if I failed to do a commandment under coercion? I’m not guilty, right? But I still didn’t fulfill the commandment. Right? Suppose I didn’t put on tefillin because of coercion. So if there is a positive commandment to put on tefillin, and then the coercion ends and I reach noon—I still need to put on tefillin; I have not fulfilled the commandment. It’s not that they are prosecuting me for not having put on tefillin earlier; I was coerced. Fine. But clearly I did not fulfill the commandment. That means I still need to put on tefillin.

But if they tell me, “Look, there is a prohibition on being without tefillin,” then if I was coerced I did not violate a prohibition. “The Merciful One exempts one who acted under coercion.” There I didn’t fulfill the commandment, so there is non-fulfillment of a positive commandment. Here I have no violation, because I was coerced. Okay? There is a difference between formulating something as a positive commandment and as a prohibition, even if on the surface the content seems to overlap. That is really the claim.

[Speaker D] Is that also a practical consequence?

What? Is that also a practical consequence? Right—here the “what” being a practical consequence is not enough.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not just a practical consequence. I’m using a practical consequence in order to sharpen this difference. Meaning, we see that there is a difference here through the practical consequence. Now I’ll need to explain what the difference really is; I haven’t yet explained it.

Let’s say it like this. What is a positive commandment? A positive commandment is a commandment in which the Torah tells me what state to be in. Say it tells me to afflict myself—it says: be in a state of affliction. That is called a positive commandment. A prohibition is a commandment in which the Torah tells me what state not to be in. Say: do not eat pork. That doesn’t mean the Torah is saying “I want you to be in a state in which you are not eating pork.” No. It means: I do not want you to be in a state in which you are eating pork. In other words, the Torah points to a state that in its eyes is negative. And in a positive commandment, the Torah points to a state that in its eyes is positive.

That is why the practical consequence comes out at the zero state. If I am not in the positive state and not in the negative state, then I have not fulfilled the positive commandment but I have not violated the prohibition. And that is the definition. The definition of the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment—and this will explain all the practical consequences—is not an operational definition at all. It has nothing to do with whether you are required to do an action or cease from an action. The definition is according to what the Torah is pointing to—what the Torah wants. Is it pointing to a state that is positive in its eyes, or is it pointing to a state that is negative in its eyes, one in which it does not want me to be?

That is the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment. Now this state—the state to which we are pointing—can be a state in which I do an action or a state in which I do not do an action. It is indifferent to the distinction between action and non-action. Suppose the Torah tells me to afflict myself. Since the Torah’s language is active language—it doesn’t tell me “don’t eat,” it tells me “afflict yourself,” right? So what is it really saying? The positive state is that you are afflicted. I want you to be in that state. I have no issue with your eating as such—that isn’t the point. It’s just that if you eat, you won’t be in a state of affliction. I want you to be in a state of affliction—that’s the point.

By contrast, if the Torah had said, “I do not want you to eat,” then if I ate, I would be doing something directly against the will of the Torah. The Torah did not want me to eat; it wanted me not to eat. And if I fast, then I have not positively fulfilled what the Torah wanted—I have only not violated its will, because I was not in a state in which I was eating. But fasting is not the fulfillment of what the Torah wanted. Fasting is only the way by which I make sure not to violate what the Torah demanded I not do, so that I am not in the negative state.

The question is whether fasting is a positive state or only a way of escaping a negative state. Eating is a negative state, and fasting is the way I avoid it. That is the whole difference. And notice that in all this I am completely indifferent to whether this involves action or omission. It has nothing to do with that. The only question is whether the Torah points to a positive state—whether that is a state in which I do something or refrain from something—or whether it points to a negative state in which it does not want me to be, whether that state comes through refraining or through acting.

So when the Torah says, “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” it is really saying: look, my interest isn’t specifically that you save him. That’s not the point. You cannot remain indifferent. You cannot stand there, as we said earlier. You cannot stay here and not save him. Right, that is passive, it is non-action, but the Torah points to the non-action as something negative. But if it had been a positive commandment and I stood there and did not save him, then I would have failed to fulfill a positive commandment. Why? Because I am not in the positive state the Torah wanted. Now when the Torah says it as a prohibition and I do not save him, then the Torah is saying: you violated the prohibition, you are in a negative state—not merely that you are not in the positive state.

You understand that the very same thing—the same thing in the practical sense—can play totally different games on the normative plane. Okay? Thank you very much. So the definition I am proposing here for the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment is the question whether the Torah points to a positive state or points to a negative state.

Now all the implications, of course—what are the implications? Suppose I fail to fulfill a positive commandment. What does that mean? That I am not in a positive state, right? I don’t deserve punishment. I’m not righteous, fine. Punishment is for the wicked, not for one who is not righteous, right? By contrast, if I am in a negative state, then I’m wicked, and I deserve punishment for that. One who isn’t righteous doesn’t deserve punishment for that. But if the very same thing is defined as a positive commandment and I don’t do it, then I’m not righteous, and therefore we don’t punish for neglecting a positive commandment. But if it’s defined as a prohibition, then I’m wicked, and therefore we do punish for it. Even though from the operational standpoint it is ostensibly the same thing. But the question is how the Torah defines that state.

Same thing with reward. That’s with punishment—what about reward? Why is there reward for positive commandments and no reward for prohibitions? Because if you are righteous, you deserve reward. If you’re not wicked—great, but what, do you want reward for not being wicked? Give me a reward because I didn’t murder today or didn’t steal today? You don’t deserve reward for that.

[Speaker H] Meaning…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All the consequences—all the consequences you can think of in the distinction between a prohibition and a positive commandment—you’ll see that they map immediately onto the distinction I gave earlier. That distinction explains them very simply.

I was once in a barber shop in Bnei Brak, and there it was written that anyone coming for a haircut should intend to fulfill five commandments—a very Bnei Brak barber shop. “You should intend to fulfill the following five commandments,” or six, I don’t remember how many: not to delay a hired worker’s wages, not to round off the corners of your head, to pay him that day, and all sorts of things like that. Now, I have never heard in my life that one needs intention for prohibitions. If you didn’t violate it, you didn’t violate it. For positive commandments, if you didn’t have intention, there are views that say you did not fulfill it. But according to all views, intention matters. The question whether you fulfilled it depends on whether commandments require intention. But for prohibitions, clearly you do not need to intend. Why? What is the difference? And it has nothing to do with action and non-action.

Since with prohibitions all I need to make sure of is that I am not in the negative state, what difference do my intentions make? But with a positive commandment, when I fulfill it, I am doing an act in accordance with God’s command. There it matters very much whether I did it in order to fulfill God’s command or whether I did it for other reasons—in which case maybe it does not count as a commandment.

[Speaker D] Why? It’s the same thing; in the end I fulfilled the positive state the Torah wants. Why should it matter why I did it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to the view that commandments require intention, that is not true. Intention is part of the definition of the commandment.

[Speaker D] Couldn’t we say that also with prohibitions?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s much harder, as a matter of logic, to say that with prohibitions, because with prohibitions you are not required to fulfill anything at all; you are only required not to be there.

[Speaker D] I wasn’t there—what do you want from me?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s in a case where you’re not doing something. In a case where you are doing something? Are all prohibitions like that? All prohibitions are like that. No—all prohibitions are not about not doing something. They’re about not being in the negative state.

[Speaker D] It could be that I am doing something and still not in the negative state. But there are times when it demands something from me, when it demands courage from me, it demands…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? The prohibition is not to be in the negative state—not what it demands from you. That’s exactly the point. If it is defined as a prohibition, then even if you fulfill it through action that doesn’t matter, because the “do not” commandment you fulfilled is not to be there, not what you did positively. And if you weren’t there, then you weren’t there—why should I care why you weren’t there?

Yes, everybody understands this. No one even thinks to ask: wait, why don’t prohibitions require intention? The whole debate whether commandments require intention or not is only about positive commandments. Why? Is there some verse? Where do we learn it from? No, it’s logic. If it is forbidden for me to steal and I didn’t steal, then I didn’t steal—what do you want? What do intentions have to do with it? If I had no intention, then did I steal? No, I didn’t steal; that is the fact. But if I am required by a positive commandment to wave the lulav, then there is room for the claim that if I did not intend it, that does not count as fulfilling a commandment. Fulfilling a commandment means that I intended to do it in order to fulfill the obligation, in order to fulfill the command. Okay?

[Speaker H] There is Sefer Hasidim that talks about a prohibition that has reward,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] but you know, that’s a moralistic work. I’m talking about Jewish law right now. And in Jewish law that has no significance.

[Speaker C] “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” When someone is drowning, I need to save him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So? But in the end you saved him. But you’re doing it—you didn’t stand idle. You violate the prohibition if you stood there and didn’t save him. Why should I care whether you are standing? For all I care stand on your hands—what do I care? It doesn’t tell you “don’t stand,” full stop. “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” means: if you do not save him, then you are in a negative state.

[Speaker C] No—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t care if you are “just standing,” so what? But you aren’t saving him. “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” is a metaphorical expression. It isn’t physical standing.

[Speaker C] But there are levels of how much effort you’re supposed to make in order to save him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there are no levels.

[Speaker C] What if you don’t want to put yourself in danger?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different issue. It could be that the commandment doesn’t apply to you. Not related. There are no levels. You have an obligation to save him, period. Or you may be exempt if it endangers your life, fine. But you have an obligation—whether you’re standing on one leg, on your hands, dancing the hora while he’s drowning over there, do whatever you want; if you didn’t save him, you violated the prohibition.

I once heard a good example of this point. I had a conversation with a legal scholar from Hebrew University, Alon Harel—he was in the news recently, he lost some case or maybe won some case. So I spoke with him when we were writing this article. I came to talk with him and asked him whether Israeli law also has positive commandments or only prohibitions.

[Speaker C] Israeli law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes.

He said: of course there are positive commandments—for example, paying taxes, serving in the army—not everyone is so careful about that—and all sorts of other things like that. Okay? So are there positive commandments? I told him that in my view there are no positive commandments in Israeli law, only prohibitions. Why?

[Speaker D] He

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] assumed that the definition is whether an action is required of me or an action is forbidden to me—the operational definition, right? But if I define it according to my definition, then if I pay taxes, does anyone imagine giving me a prize because I’m righteous? No, no. If I don’t pay taxes, I go to jail. Which means that in essence this is a prohibition—it’s just a prohibition that in order to fulfill it I need to do something. I don’t care; we already said that the practical aspect is irrelevant to the distinction between prohibition and positive commandment. It has nothing to do with the operational question—whether you are required to do an act or required not to do one. The question is: are you expected to be in the positive state or not to be in the negative state?

Now the law, in general—law that is not religious law—only imposes prohibitions. It only forbids things. That’s it. Sometimes it forbids you from doing actions, and sometimes from not doing actions, it doesn’t matter, but in essence it is still always prohibition. It is never positive commandment. The law does not impose positive commandments on you; it does not tell you what to do, it tells you what not to do. Sometimes that “not to do” is not refraining—it doesn’t matter—for example not paying taxes. Because then the law forbids you from not paying taxes. But non-payment of taxes is a prohibition, not a positive commandment. And the indication is that no one is invited to the president of the state to receive a medal for paying heavy taxes. But if he doesn’t pay taxes, he goes to jail. There is punishment for that, and no reward for the opposite. That is exactly a prohibition. Meaning, if you don’t pay taxes, you’re wicked. If you do pay taxes, you aren’t righteous; you’re simply a normal citizen. That’s all.

Same thing with army service, same thing with everything. By the way, that was one of the arguments around Hanan Porat’s law based on “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” Hanan Porat wanted to put into the Israeli law books—he decided to shove a verse in there by force. So “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” became the banner, and they went on a jihad to pass the law of “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” Nobody imagined there was any special moral problem of people not saving others. There wasn’t any special moral problem. And it wasn’t coming to solve a moral problem. He simply thought to exploit the consensus—after all, if you want people to save others, then let’s take the opportunity to shove a verse into the law books: “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” And of course, as a result, everyone opposed it. Whereas otherwise perhaps they would not have opposed it.

And more than that, as an aside: what happened as a result of the law? What happened was that before that, Israeli law matched Jewish law, and after the law was passed, it no longer matched Jewish law. Why? Because according to Jewish law you are obligated to save your fellow, but if you do not save him, nothing happens—there are no sanctions. It is a prohibition without an action, okay? That was exactly the situation in Israeli law before the legislation. Everyone expects you to save, but there is no punishment—in other words, it isn’t a criminal offense if you didn’t save; there is no punishment.

What happened after the law passed? After the law passed, there is punishment for someone who does not do it. Meaning, you moved away from Jewish law. In other words, the desire to insert Jewish law into state law—which in my view is bizarre—doesn’t succeed even in the place where they actually manage to do it. And why? If you look at the Knesset record of the debate over this law, it’s fascinating reading. Besides not liking biblical verses, they also had substantive arguments. What were the arguments? That we are not supposed to enforce this by law. I didn’t do anything to him—must I jump into the sea to save him? It would be very nice if I did jump in; the president could give me a medal, absolutely, excellent, everyone would appreciate me, obviously, it’s a very positive norm. But we don’t think the law can obligate a person to do this in the sense that he will be punished if he doesn’t.

Now do you understand what that means? It means that the obligation to save the other person was understood by the opponents as a positive commandment, not as a prohibition. It is basically a positive commandment. You saved him? Great, you deserve reward. But if you didn’t save him, you don’t deserve punishment—that means you are not wicked. You didn’t save him—okay, not a great righteous person, but not wicked either. The zero state, again. So the debate there reflected exactly the point that law deals only with prohibitions, and what Hanan Porat did was to turn “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” into a prohibition in the substantive sense by legislating it. Because in law, there is no criminal law without a sanction. The moment there is a sanction attached to it, it is already a prohibition in the substantive sense and not a positive commandment.

Now after I said this to him, Alon responded with a nice example, and it’s worth using to sharpen the point. He told me there is an American Jewish legal philosopher—more broadly a philosopher too—Robert Nozick. Those who know Newcomb’s paradox—the prophet who prepares the box? It’s a famous paradox; Nozick published it. Anyway, Robert Nozick said: what is the difference between enticement and extortion?

Enticement is when I tell someone: look, if you do this, you’ll get a hundred shekels; if you don’t do it, you won’t get them. Fine? Perfectly legitimate, right? Now what is extortion? Extortion is when I say: look, if you don’t do this, I’ll take a hundred shekels from you. If you do it, I won’t take them. Now in both cases you’re setting up a gradient of a hundred shekels, right? There is a difference of a hundred shekels between the two possibilities. But the first is legal, legitimate—let’s call it enticement. You make a deal. And extortion is not legitimate. Why? What is the difference? In both cases you present him with two options whose gap is a hundred shekels.

[Speaker D] There I receive, and here it’s taken from me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so what? Fine, a hundred shekels. The difference is a hundred shekels.

[Speaker D] They’re taking a hundred shekels from me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what are you really saying? You are really saying this: in enticement, both options are legitimate. After all, I have a right to give him a hundred shekels, and I have a right not to give him a hundred shekels, right? It’s my money. I can give him the hundred shekels, I can refrain from giving it. The moment I offer someone a deal where both sides are things I’m entitled to offer, that is a legitimate deal. He can accept it or not accept it, but I’m allowed to offer such a deal. Okay?

But if I offer him an extortion deal, then not taking from him is my right. But taking from him is not my right. I can’t decide to take someone else’s money, right? So there is one side here that is illegitimate. There’s an issue of inducement involved because inducement is not… no, inducement depends on to whom. Inducing someone helpless, a minor or something like that, then there’s a problem because the inducement is like coercion or extortion. But an adult you can induce however you like.

But I’m saying: what really lies behind this distinction? What lies behind the solution to Nozick’s paradox is exactly the zero state we talked about. What do I mean? Say it like this: there are three possibilities. I give you a hundred shekels, I give you nothing, I take a hundred shekels from you. Right? Now, giving you a hundred shekels obviously does not violate your rights. It isn’t your right to receive a hundred shekels; you may receive it or not receive it, right? Not giving you a hundred shekels also does not violate your rights. But taking a hundred shekels from you does violate your rights.

Now do you understand that what this means is that taking a hundred shekels from you is a negative action; giving you a hundred shekels is a positive action; not giving it is a neutral action. Okay? Now if both sides of your offer are above zero, it is a legitimate deal. If one of the two sides is below zero, then it is not legitimate. Meaning, what stands behind the solution to Nozick’s paradox is that there is a zero state that distinguishes positive states from negative states. It is not some continuum like temperature, which we mentioned, where from absolute zero upward everything is positive in Kelvin terms. Here no. There is zero, there is positive, and there is negative.

And this definition is not a relative definition, it is an absolute one. The moment you say there is a zero, that means the definition is absolute. Those who know potential in physics—where you place the zero point of potential is arbitrary, because it is a relative definition. The question is the potential difference, not where potential is zero. But here, if there were only a potential gradient between positive and negative, then there really would be no difference between enticement and extortion. But no—I’m saying there is an absolute zero here. You can’t put the zero wherever you want. The zero is where the line of the person’s rights passes. You are not allowed to violate his rights. You may add things he isn’t entitled to; that is your prerogative if you want. But you are not allowed to violate rights that are his rights.

Okay? Once there is a zero as an absolute line, you can speak about objectively positive states and objectively negative states. Being in a positive state is a positive commandment. Being in a negative state is a prohibition. That is basically the distinction I spoke about earlier. Okay? And the zero state is exactly what makes the distinction. If you are in the zero state, then you are not in the positive state, right? So the positive commandment has not been fulfilled—there is non-fulfillment of a positive commandment. But you have not violated the prohibition if you are in the zero state, because you were not yet in the negative state, right?

So the existence of a zero state is basically the reflection of what I said earlier, that there are states that are objectively negative and objectively positive. It is not merely relative—more negative than this and less negative than that. There is an objective definition of positive and negative. There is an absolute zero in the middle—not an absolute zero at the bottom. An absolute zero above which is positive and below which is negative. Okay? And that is exactly what lies at the basis of the distinction between positive commandments and prohibitions. A positive commandment is to be in a positive state. Violating a prohibition is to be in a negative state. Avoiding a prohibition means not being in the negative state, but also not being in a positive one. Neglecting a positive commandment means not being in the positive state. Okay? That is the definition.

And all the implications, as I said before, remain in place. There is a passage in tractate Kiddushin, page 34, where the Talmud lists a set of commandments that are not time-bound—sending away the mother bird, a parapet, and more. There are four or five commandments there. Now four out of the five are commandments where, as all the medieval authorities there note, there is also a prohibition attached. Sending away the mother bird has both a prohibition and a positive commandment. שלח תשלח—“you shall surely send away”—is the positive commandment, and there is also a prohibition. And with the parapet there is לא תשים דמים בביתך—“do not place blood in your house”—that is the prohibition; and ועשית מעקה לגגך—“you shall make a parapet for your roof”—that is the positive commandment.

The Talmud brings these examples as examples of positive commandments that are not time-bound. And the medieval commentators there—Tosafot, Nachmanides, and others—ask: what practical difference does that make? Even if they were time-bound, so what? There is also a prohibition attached, so in any case women would have been obligated because of the prohibition. So what difference does it make whether it is time-bound or not? The difference between time-bound and not time-bound is that women would be exempt if it were time-bound. But here, even if it were time-bound, women still would not be exempt, because there is also an overlapping prohibition.

So one possibility in Tosafot is that if it were time-bound, women would be obligated only in the prohibition and not in the positive commandment. And the fact that there is an overlapping positive commandment and prohibition does not mean that one violates both and fulfills both automatically. It may be that in practice women are exempt from the positive commandment and not exempt from the prohibition. This linkage that we make between the positive commandment and the prohibition—Tosafot does not accept it. There is a Talmudic statement about “Remember” and “Observe” having been said in a single utterance. So whoever is included in “Observe” is included in “Remember.” Therefore women are obligated in the positive time-bound commandment of the Sabbath because they are obligated in the prohibitions. Fine? But according to that Tosafot, that is only with “Remember” and “Observe”; it is not true for every adjacent prohibition and positive commandment. Okay? Therefore it says it was said in a single utterance and so on—you need a special reason in order to link overlapping prohibition and positive commandment.

But in general, even when there is an overlapping prohibition and positive commandment—say on Yom Kippur—according to this Tosafot, women on Yom Kippur would be exempt from the positive commandment of affliction and obligated in the prohibition of eating. They would have karet, because the karet is on the prohibition, and they would be exempt from the positive commandment. A practical difference, for example, as Tosafot says there: what happens if I have a positive commandment that comes to override eating on Yom Kippur? For women, they would fulfill the positive commandment, because what stands against it is only a prohibition. Here there is karet, so it’s not exact, but men would not, because men have both a prohibition and a positive commandment, and a positive commandment does not override a prohibition-plus-positive-commandment. Okay? For example, burning impure terumah oil on a holiday—can you do it? There is a positive commandment to burn it and there is the holiday prohibition. Tosafot says yes—but for women, they are exempt from the positive commandment of the holiday because it is a time-bound positive commandment; only the prohibition applies to them. And since a positive commandment overrides a prohibition, the positive commandment of burning impure terumah on a holiday would override the prohibition of labor on a holiday for women. For women it would be permitted; for men it would not.

Okay, but Nachmanides says not so. Tosafot in another answer also says not so. But Nachmanides says there are certain commandments where the purpose of the prohibition is to support the positive commandment. What does that mean? There are cases where the prohibition does not have independent content. All it does is strengthen the positive commandment. So what? For example, לא תשים דמים בביתך—“do not place blood in your house”—that is the prohibition; ועשית מעקה לגגך—“you shall make a parapet for your roof.” Nachmanides says that in essence this is a positive commandment to build a parapet. Why? Because really it requires me to do something; one needs to do an act. Maybe that is the reason. In essence it is a positive commandment. But there is also a prohibition, “do not place blood in your house,” and we do count the prohibition; it isn’t that we don’t count it. There is both a positive commandment and a prohibition here. Nachmanides accepts Maimonides’ Principle Six—we count both—but we understand that the prohibition basically has the same content as the positive commandment. So why was it put there? To strengthen, to motivate us to fulfill the positive commandment. To tell you: know that if you don’t do the positive commandment, you are also violating a prohibition. Okay? That is all it is there for.

Practical consequence: if the positive commandment is time-bound, women would be exempt even though there is also a prohibition attached. Because the whole purpose of the prohibition is to make sure you fulfill the positive commandment. But if women are not obligated in the positive commandment, why impose the prohibition on them? After all, the whole purpose of the prohibition is to strengthen or motivate fulfillment of the positive commandment. If they are not obligated in the positive commandment, then clearly the prohibition does not apply to them either, even though it is a prohibition, because its entire point is to strengthen or spur on the fulfillment of the positive commandment. Fine? That is his answer.

And then I ask myself: in what sense does the prohibition strengthen the positive commandment? Why is that called strengthening? And what if I had put two positive commandments there or two prohibitions? Why does the prohibition strengthen the positive commandment? I think according to what I said earlier it becomes much clearer. You can still argue about it, but it becomes much clearer. Especially since in that case it is a prohibition without an action, so there are no lashes. And where you say the prohibition comes to strengthen the positive commandment, you might have said: fine, because there are lashes here, whereas neglect of a positive commandment has no lashes. So maybe it strengthens the positive commandment because now you get lashes—there’s a prohibition. But with a parapet… yes, a prohibition. There are no lashes.

[Speaker D] A prohibition without an action. The answer—what? And that’s the condition for repentance? Like if I don’t want to repent, the Talmud says that if I violated a positive commandment, I can repent all year and that’s it. But if it’s a prohibition, I have to wait until Yom Kippur.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right?

[Speaker D] Why? That’s what the Talmud says in Yoma. No? What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re asking about what Yom Kippur atones for—that’s something else. As for when to repent, repent whenever you want.

[Speaker D] Yes, but if I—like—it isn’t enough to repent in order to atone for a prohibition; I have to wait until Yom Kippur for it to be fully atoned for. But for a positive commandment I can—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You mean the distinctions in atonement in Yoma—what and when Yom Kippur atones for. Not the question of whether to repent. In any case one has to repent, and one always repents—not only on Yom Kippur.

[Speaker D] And what is the practical consequence there—the practical consequence?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe it could be—I think with a positive commandment, again, that’s a practical consequence. The question is why it strengthens. I think there is a more substantive answer. It’s basically carrot and stick. A positive commandment tells you: if you do this, you’ll be righteous. So I can tell myself: okay, I don’t want to be righteous. It’s enough for me to be average. I’ll stay in the zero state. Then they tell me: no, there’s also a prohibition.

[Speaker C] Meaning—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if you don’t make a parapet, it’s not that you’re average. You’re wicked. Because there is a prohibition on not making a parapet: “do not place blood in your house.” So it spurs you to do it—not because of punishments, punishments are only the symptom—but because it’s like carrot and stick. The positive commandment is the carrot. They offer you a prize: if you do it, you’ll be righteous, you’ll get a reward. So I say: I don’t want the prize, I don’t want to be righteous, I just want to be okay. It’s enough for me to be okay. They tell him: no, but there is also a prohibition here. Then you’re not okay. It is not true that you’re okay—no, you’re not okay. You are in a negative state, you’re wicked.

[Speaker D] He wouldn’t get punishment if it were only a positive commandment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He would explicitly not get punishment. It’s more positive; it’s not negative. It’s not that I decide… wait, you’re talking about heavenly punishment, not court punishment.

[Speaker D] Obviously, but that’s—

[Speaker C] We—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll get to that, we’ll get to that in a bit, probably not today. We’ll get to it next time.

[Speaker C] You could turn it around and say, okay, I’m not making a parapet, I’m just keeping watch at the gate so that no one goes up to the roof.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s already about the scope of the commandment. It doesn’t matter. Fine, then maybe you’re fulfilling the commandment that way—what difference does it make? No, and he tells you: that won’t be enough, make a parapet. Maybe yes, maybe no.

[Speaker C] It could be enough that way too—let someone else come and make a parapet. What does it have to do with me? I have to make a parapet on my house, not yours.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you have a house here and you decided not to make a parapet. Okay. Fine, if there’s a guard around it, that’s the parapet. If I guard it, then that’s my parapet.

[Speaker C] I put a lock, no one can—never mind, fine. So they tell you not to do it; you must—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] make a parapet around the roof of the house. Who says they tell him that? I think if it’s a place no one ever gets to, you don’t need to build a parapet. There’s no reason.

[Speaker C] What if tomorrow someone does get there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he won’t because it’s locked. If you say he will get there, then he will get there—then the lock helps nothing. Fine, we’re not talking about that.

[Speaker C] No, he’s telling you don’t look for shortcuts, you have to make a parapet.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying again: even without the prohibition, if someone can get there, then there is a positive commandment to build a parapet. You don’t need the prohibition for that. There is no difference between the prohibition and the positive commandment. The point is that when they tell you that you are wicked, that is stronger than telling you that you’re not righteous. And that is the meaning of the push the prohibition gives to the positive commandment. They’re telling you: look, don’t just stay some average neutral person if you don’t do it. No—you are wicked. That’s the stick. It pushes you to do it. Not a carrot saying “if you do it you’ll be righteous,” yes? It’s like giving a child candy or beating him if he doesn’t do it. That’s exactly the difference. Okay?

So I’ll just finish on this point. Basically I’ve finished this description of the relation between a prohibition and a positive commandment. If I go back to Yom Kippur, then now it is very clear that when I have a commandment to afflict myself and a prohibition on eating, these are not overlapping commandments. That’s why both are counted. Even though the content does not differ in the sense of practical details—the differences come because one is a positive commandment and one is a prohibition, not because there is some broader scope in the positive commandment than in the prohibition. The very fact that one is a positive commandment and one is a prohibition creates a difference. Because according to Maimonides, if there is a difference in content, then even two prohibitions would both be counted. That’s not the point.

Here there is a prohibition and a positive commandment whose difference is only that this is a prohibition and this is a positive commandment. That’s all. Not a difference in practical content. And still, that is enough to count them as two commandments. But we still understand that in essence they have different content—not different practical content, but different substantive content. What is it? If they tell you to afflict yourself on Yom Kippur, they are telling you that not eating is a positive state. Right? Eating is not a negative state, on that formulation; not eating is a positive state. If you ate, then you were not in the positive state. You are not righteous.

Then they tell you: no, there is also a prohibition. What does it mean that there is also a prohibition? It means that if you ate, then not only are you not righteous, you are wicked—you are in a negative state. Positive. That is what the prohibition says. And from that also follow, as a result—and we’ll see more implications later—the positive commandment speaks about affliction, because we are talking about the positive state in which you are supposed to be. The positive state is the affliction in which you are supposed to be. True, its practical meaning is not to eat—that’s how one afflicts oneself—but what is required of you is not “not to eat,” because then it would be a prohibition. What is required of you is to afflict yourself. To afflict yourself is to be in a positive state. A positive state, not an action. You are not doing an action, but the state is positive.

Wait just a second—the prohibition tells you that if you eat, that is a negative state. And therefore Maimonides’ formulation of the prohibition is not “not to afflict yourself” but “to eat”—or rather, the prohibition of eating—because eating is the negative state. “Not to afflict yourself” is only not being in the positive state. So when Maimonides formulates the positive commandment, he says: the positive commandment is to afflict oneself. When he formulates the prohibitions, he says: the prohibition is eating—not to eat.

[Speaker C] So that some clever person won’t come and say, look, if I eat…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not “in order that”—again you’re going back to teleology. No. Because that is simply what the words mean. Without “in order that.” That is what the words mean—it is a different state. To afflict yourself is not “not to eat.” To afflict yourself is a positive state. “Not to eat” is to define eating as a negative state. That’s all—not “in order that” and nothing of the sort.

[Speaker C] But you say a person must afflict himself, and I tell you I am afflicted whether I eat or don’t eat—I’m in a state of affliction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Torah wants affliction in the form of not eating. Don’t invent afflictions—

[Speaker C] What—he’s afflicted and eating?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The affliction itself, even apart from the prohibition—even from the side of the positive commandment—if you are afflicting yourself but eating, then you did not fulfill the commandment of affliction. Not just that you violated the prohibition. Because to afflict yourself means to afflict yourself by refraining from eating. That is what affliction means—not inventing afflictions of your own. No, “I scratch myself…” Not relevant. The prohibition is not to beat yourself, and the obligation is not to beat yourself. The obligation is not to eat.

[Speaker C] So he’ll tell you by logic…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that simply isn’t correct in Jewish law.

[Speaker C] It isn’t affliction…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know how the sages knew it—ask them. But that is the law. The law is that the affliction you are commanded in consists of these five afflictions. Period. If you just scratch yourself, not only are you not fulfilling a commandment, you are violating the prohibition of adding to the Torah. On the day itself, for adding to the Torah you don’t even need intention in order to violate it. Okay, that’s enough for today. More power to you.