Q&A: Whether Violating Rabbinic Prohibitions Also Involves Violating a Torah Prohibition
Whether Violating Rabbinic Prohibitions Also Involves Violating a Torah Prohibition
Question
In the Talmud, Sabbath 94b, it is explained in the view of Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak that disobeying the rabbis is a prohibition under the negative commandment of “do not deviate.” And it permits carrying into a karmelit on the basis of human dignity, which overrides a prohibition.
A. Isn’t this proof for Maimonides’ view that the source of the obligation to obey the rabbis is the rule of “do not deviate”?
B. If so, then it turns out that with every rabbinic prohibition one also violates the prohibition of “do not deviate,” just as Nachmanides asks. But here it seems that Rav Nachman adopts this as practical law, and that is very astonishing.
And perhaps we would even go so far as to say that when one is fed prohibited foods and we say to choose the lesser prohibition first, we should prefer a Torah prohibition over a rabbinic one, because every rabbinic prohibition is both a negative and a positive commandment, and therefore a Torah positive commandment should also not override a rabbinic negative plus positive commandment?!
Answer
Before you take me there, go instead to the Hanukkah passage in chapter 2 of tractate Sabbath: “And where did He command us?” “In ‘do not deviate.’” Nachmanides, in his glosses to the first principle, answers this (that it is merely a textual support).
But in your passage I do not understand what you are saying. It says that human dignity overrides a prohibition in the Torah, and the Talmud itself in Berakhot says that the intention is only to the prohibition of “do not deviate,” meaning that human dignity overrides only a rabbinic prohibition. The expression “a prohibition in the Torah” is borrowed language there (at least according to Nachmanides), so there is no proof at all against Nachmanides.
As for the preference, this reminds me of the words of the Minchat Chinukh, who writes that one should prefer an explicit prohibition in the Torah over a prohibition derived by exposition, because with an exposition-based prohibition you have both the prohibition itself and also “do not deviate” (even according to Nachmanides). These are, of course, absurd words, with all due respect. “Do not deviate” reveals that there is a prohibition inherent in it; it is not an additional prohibition. And the same applies here.
Discussion on Answer
That’s not far at all; it’s very close. That is exactly what is being said here: that they did not decree in a case of human dignity.
It would have been more correct to write, “In a case of human dignity the rabbis did not institute it,” or something like that.
When you say about something that it overrides a prohibition in the Torah, it sounds like the prohibition exists and is merely overridden, similar to a positive commandment overriding a prohibition.
Especially since we find something like this with an actual Torah prohibition, for example in the case of an elder and it is beneath his dignity. Do we say there too that the Torah did not state the prohibition of “you may not ignore it”?
Again, you are ignoring explicit Talmudic passages. The Talmud itself sees that it says “prohibition” and explains that it is speaking about a rabbinic prohibition. So why didn’t they write “the rabbis did not institute it”? That is difficult even for Maimonides, especially since it is clear that even according to his view it is not correct that one violates a Torah prohibition with every rabbinic prohibition.
“An elder and it is beneath his dignity” is a passive omission, and there perhaps even a Torah prohibition is overridden. The medieval authorities and later authorities dispute whether passive omission overrides only positive commandments or also prohibitions when it is by passive omission.
So why did the Talmud go so far, all the way to this rule that human dignity is great? It could simply have said that they did not decree regarding a karmelit in such a case, especially since it is a double rabbinic issue: karmelit and an act not needed for its own purpose.
Just like with muktzeh in the case of a corpse, where one places a loaf on it and it becomes a base — it is obvious that this leniency is only because in such a case the rabbis did not decree.