Q&A: Retroactive Nullification and the Laws of Doubts
Retroactive Nullification and the Laws of Doubts
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In the lecture on atonement and repentance, the Rabbi goes into doubts about whether a religious court should accept repentance in order to exempt sinners from legal punishment, but he mainly addresses the question of whether repentance really works or whether it is proper to take it into account. I don’t recall (or at least I didn’t find) the Rabbi addressing the question of why a religious court does not simply entertain a doubt about whether the sin exists at all—if repentance nullifies the sin retroactively, then the religious court has a doubt whether the sin exists in the first place. It seems to me that the same question can be asked regarding annulment of vows and naziriteship, and even more strongly in matters of betrothal—regarding "they nullified it" and mistaken transaction in betrothal.
I found Tosafot in Gittin 33a that answers the issue of "they nullified it," but it is still not clear to me why, in the case of a married woman for example, the religious court does not take into account that perhaps this is a mistaken transaction and therefore maybe she is not a married woman at all. Perhaps one could answer that some sort of basis is needed in order to raise a doubt, and one cannot just entertain a doubt out of nowhere?
Answer
I did not understand the question.
Regarding mistaken transaction, there is no doubt if there is no reason for doubt. It is like asking how the Talmud can execute someone who curses his father or mother, when perhaps he is not really his father at all (it is only a presumption based on the principle that most sexual relations are with the husband). The rule is that we burn and stone on the basis of presumptions.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t see a difference. After all, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) ask how it is possible to stone a woman who committed adultery, since perhaps her husband will send an agent to divorce her and then cancel it not in his presence, in which case the Sages uproot her betrothal retroactively. This is the consideration of “lest he cover up,” which operates retroactively. And even for that we are not concerned. If there is no reason for doubt, we do not entertain doubt—neither about the future nor about the past.
It seems to me that there is a difference from the Talmudic question above. I’ll try to explain: following a reasonable presumption makes sense when we want to clarify a reality about which a doubt arose in the past (a tool for deciding doubts). Here, the case is, for example, a woman whose betrothal will be retroactively uprooted in the future because of a mistaken transaction (more similar to the Rabbi’s explanation of Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s view regarding betrothal not given over for intercourse—there are two legal states resting on her, and we have no way of knowing right now where the wave function will collapse). How can one rely here on a presumption?
As for “there is no doubt if there is no reason for doubt” — does that rule even apply in this case? After all, the doubt was never really born; there is not a single moment in reality in which the woman is a “doubtful case.” She is a married woman (or in the second formulation, both the legal status of a married woman and the legal status of an unmarried woman rest on her), and afterward it becomes clear retroactively that she was unmarried. The religious court is not entertaining a doubt here about reality and does not need to decide anything by means of a presumption, but simply has to take into account that she is also unmarried right now, and therefore not execute someone who had forbidden relations with her. And likewise for the other matters that take effect retroactively.