Q&A: Lesson 8 on Self-Reference
Lesson 8 on Self-Reference
Question
1. I didn’t understand the difference between someone who is responsible for a transgression and someone who is guilty of a transgression. For example, one who clothes his fellow in kilayim is flogged (when the wearer is unwitting, Maimonides, Kilayim ch. 10, halakhah 31) because he is responsible for carrying out the transgression, but certainly he did not commit the transgression. By contrast, in the lesson you raised the possibility of understanding the prohibition of rounding the corners of the head such that both the one who cuts and the one being cut are flogged because both contributed to carrying out the transgression—that is, the transgression is on the one being cut, but the cutter is also flogged because he contributed to the transgression. So I didn’t understand: if the cutter has no transgression of his own, and only contributed, isn’t that exactly what responsibility means.
2. In a transgression done by two people, where both are flogged, one can be uncertain about the reason they are flogged: is it because a transgression done by two people means the prohibition applies to the pair, and therefore both are flogged? Or is it because a transgression done by two people means that both have a contribution to the transgression, both are guilty of there being a transgression here, and therefore they are flogged?
Now, as you said in the lesson (at least as I understood it), it seems that this uncertainty is relevant only to transgressions whose normal way of being violated is by one person, but a transgression that by definition is done by two people, like forbidden sexual relations, it seems very likely that the prohibition applies to the pair.
In addition, the Aton DeOraita (rule 20) is uncertain regarding a transgression that is done by two people: when I violate it alone, do I get one set of lashes or two, or not? And you explained that his doubt can be interpreted in two ways: a. that he is itself uncertain about the meaning of “a transgression done by two people” (whether one is flogged for the pair or for contribution). b. or that he holds that one is always flogged for the pair, but nevertheless, when I am alone there is no reason to say that I should receive two sets of lashes.
I wanted to argue that the first possibility is incorrect:
For if the book means the first possibility, then according to the side that one is flogged for the pair, it comes out that someone who performs the transgression on himself certainly receives two sets of lashes (because it is according to the side that one is flogged for contribution that it comes out he gets only one). If so, it is obvious that in the prohibition of male homosexual intercourse, one who inserts into himself would receive two sets of lashes, because there it is obvious that this is lashes for the pair (as we said above). So then what is the Gemara’s question in Sanhedrin (55a) whether one who inserts into himself receives two sets of lashes or not?
Rather, it must be that one is always flogged for the pair, and regarding that we can be uncertain when the pair is made up of one person: does he receive two sets of lashes or one? And that doubt is resolved from the Gemara in Makkot (20b) and from Sanhedrin there.
Answer
A. “Contributed” means they performed an act that is part of the transgression itself. The act of transgression was done by the two people together. In kilayim, the one who dresses the other is not part of the act of transgression. The act is wearing kilayim.
B. There is room to say that each one did an act without which the result of the transgression would not have come about (namely, that there is a person whose head has been rounded). And there is room to say that the act of transgression itself was done by both of them.
I said in the lesson that, by logic, it seems that a transgression like sexual prohibitions is an act done by two people. But afterward I wondered whether that really is a criterion that works, because there are acts that are not like that, such as rounding the corners of the head, and nevertheless they are included in the doubt of the Aton DeOraita, and the Gemara rules that when one does it to himself he receives two sets of lashes. I explained that in my opinion this follows from the verse that makes the cutter liable, and from here we learn that even though the natural act does not require two people, the Torah views it as an act done by two people.
The doubt is as follows:
- If it is about contribution, then certainly he gets one set of lashes. If it is about an act done by two people, then certainly he gets two sets of lashes; and the doubt is whether the correct understanding is this or that.
- It is clear that this is an act done by two people, and still there is a possibility that when one person does it alone he gets one set of lashes or two.
Discussion on Answer
Not necessarily. The Gemara could also be uncertain whether in sexual intercourse there is an essential otherness involved (that is, that a person’s intercourse with himself is not considered intercourse at all). And the novelty is that it is.
A. Got it, thanks.
B. That strengthens my question above. If the doubt is possibility 1 in your words, then if we are dealing with an act done by two people, he certainly gets two sets of lashes. If so, in the case of one who inserts into himself, he certainly gets two sets of lashes. So what is the Gemara’s question in Sanhedrin whether he gets two sets of lashes or not?!? Rather, it must be that the whole understanding of contribution and so on is incorrect, and it is always clear that the definition is of an act done by two people and not merely contribution, and therefore even in the case of one who inserts into himself there is room to doubt whether he gets two sets of lashes or not.