Q&A: One Who Is Unaware and One Who Acts Unintentionally Regarding Forbidden Fats and Sexual Prohibitions
One Who Is Unaware and One Who Acts Unintentionally Regarding Forbidden Fats and Sexual Prohibitions
Question
Hello Rabbi,
It is known that the rule is that one who acts unawares regarding forbidden fats and sexual prohibitions is liable, since he derived pleasure. Maimonides extended this rule to all Torah prohibitions involving eating:
One who eats food from among the forbidden foods in a joking manner, or unintentionally while occupied with something else—even though he did not intend the act of eating itself—since he derived pleasure, he is liable just like one who intended the act of eating itself. But benefit that comes to a person against his will through any prohibition—if he intended it, it is forbidden; and if he did not intend it, it is permitted.
Yet elsewhere Maimonides wrote:
One who eats an olive-sized amount of forbidden fat intentionally is liable to karet; if unwittingly, he brings a fixed sin-offering.
Why do we not also say regarding eating forbidden fat that was done unwittingly that, since he derived pleasure, he is liable for that reason as well (and likewise for the other prohibitions involving eating)? After all, it should be no less than one who acts unawares.
Best regards,
Answer
First of all, I did not understand what you brought from Maimonides. The rule about one who acts unawares regarding forbidden fats and sexual prohibitions applies to all cases of deriving pleasure (or at least to prohibitions whose basis is pleasure). Beyond that, Maimonides discusses forbidden fat in both contexts, so for your question this extension is not really important.
As for the question itself, it takes us to the very distinction between unwitting action and acting unawares. This is a very difficult question that touches on the definition of acting unawares (and also its relationship to one who acts without intention. See Kovetz Shiurim, part 2, sec. 23).
Simply put, an unwitting violation in eating forbidden fat means eating the item without knowing that it is forbidden fat, or without knowing that forbidden fat is prohibited. Acting unawares means not knowing that you are eating, or eating absentmindedly (without awareness). This emerges from Rashi on Keritot 19:
One who acts unawares regarding forbidden fats—for example, forbidden fat and permitted fat were before him, and he knew that this was forbidden fat and that was permitted fat, and he intended
to eat the permitted fat, but he looked elsewhere and his hand went to the forbidden fat and he ate it. Or alternatively,
forbidden fat and forbidden fat were before him, and he thought it was permitted fat, and intended to eat this piece but ate
that one. And this is not like one who acts unwittingly, for one who acts unwittingly means that he intended this very piece but
thought it was permitted fat.
Now, in Jewish law, the reasoning of “since he derived pleasure” covers for acting unawares, meaning it turns you into someone who is indeed engaged in eating, or in eating this particular thing. But if you still do not know that this thing is forbidden fat, or do not know that forbidden fat is prohibited—then you are still acting unwittingly, even if you derived pleasure.
There is much more to elaborate on here, depending on how one understands the reasoning of “since he derived pleasure,” but this is not the place.