Jewish Autonomy, Conditional Gittin | Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz | February 17th 2026

We should be z to a real real Yeshua. And today uh as was probably already announced the full day learning uh all of the shorim in the center today are sponsored in memory of Julian Arthur Freriedman, Yoseph Abram, Ben Yishaya by his children. May the learning be lei nishmato. Uh and this particular share is dedicated anonymously for the f lay of a batgalina anonymously eli nishma nama from marisha until today and in loving memory of Laura Spiegler Ahuva Bashimarahu by her family again. May everything be leil nisham. Uh we uh were looking last week at a letter uh that the Rambam wrote to a Dion in in Alexandria Rapinas Hakoen. Uh and we see that they had a little bit of a tense uh relationship and I'm not going to spend much more time in this letter other than to point out that yet another facet here that Rav Pinas uh basically accused the Rambam. Why did you say publicly that I'm an Ore who is ignorant of Hala? And the Rambam more or less said, well, I didn't quite say that, although I almost said that. And the Rambam offered a very interesting observation. The Rambam said there was a difference between Jews who came from Mus Muslim countries as the Rambam versus Jews who came from Christian countries such as Rapinako who came from France. And he says the difference was the ability of the Jewish community to exercise judicial autonomy. And that is the Muslims basically recognized the Jewish people as a separate legal community and allowed them to have their own courts. Granted, there was a lot of persecution for sure, but essentially Jews had jurisdiction over Jews, not only inic matters, but in lawsuits, even in criminal cases. We have some records of Jewish communities maintaining jails, which isn't even a punishment in the Torah. Mashen in Christian countries, uh, Jews were not given authority to adjudicate. They could only rule on religious matters, meat and milk, whatever it will be, but they didn't have the right to enforce judgments or monetary obligations. So the Rambam makes the point as a result even though the rabbis of France might be very learned they are learned only in a theoretical way because they don't have the experience of applying many halos to actual cases [snorts] just as the Rambam says and we're the same way when it comes to corbanos right our knowledge of corbanos the Rambam is saying is theoretical because we're not yet able to put it into action so the Rambam says says, "I didn't really say you're ignorant. I just said you lacked the practical experience of applying adjudicative, meaning the of damages, theft, and the like. and therefore your decisions are not going to be that correct simply because you don't have the experience of applying it la which is kind of a nice way of saying [laughter] you don't know what you're talking about but I'll give you a reason why you don't know what you're talking about because you lack practical experience but be it as it may that is an interesting historical observation that Muslims gave Jewish communities greater autonomy uh than Christian countries priest. Yeah. >> Say again. >> They didn't have but they bin in the >> they had but they did but similar today outside of Israel let's say uh Beth can issue all sorts of rulings but uh there's no mechanism of enforcement. So, so the baked in essentially handled you know things like cauterous questions or the like but if you were suing somebody uh in fact that's why you know actually it is also for a Jew to take another Jew to civil court but in the Christian countries there was really no no alternative simply because the buten didn't have that jurisdiction over monetary matters that's one thing and then the Ramba menures into a discussion the details are very very slim here that he criticized the Dion for invalidating a get. The Rambam said there was a situation of a man that was prone to uh outbursts of anger and the Rambam arranged a get to be sent uh through a shy uh to be delivered to the woman and thought there were some technical problems with the get uh and the Rambam was very critical. He says this is a situation of auna simply because the man was so volatile that we have to get the get to the woman as soon as possible because otherwise the man might just change his mind. Remember the way it works is um if a person writes a get or authorizes a get even if he gives it to a shy to deliver he can change his mind until the moment that the woman receives the get. So the Rambam said, "You can't fool around here." Uh, and the Rambam then indicated that the particular concerns that the Dian had were frivolous. I'll mention it quickly because it's it's an interesting debate. Um, there was a practice that was validated by the Mishna and the Gomorrah and it continued in the tufa of the rishonim that people could marry or divorce on condition. We don't do this today. But if you learn the Mishna of Kadoo and the Mishna of Gitten, we see numerous cases where either marriage or divorce were affected by condition. So for example, marriage uh uh if I get that job that uh I hope to get meaning if I don't get the job, we're not married. Meaning you don't even need a get for that. uh conditional marriages oriously if you give me if you give me $200 that I'm a coain whatever it is whatever the condition is and the same thing is true with the get now a conditional get is a dangerous thing because if the condition is fulfilled the woman is divorced if the condition is not fulfilled the woman is not divorced and the Mishna gives a number of examples of conditions Now when we learn git or kaducian and yeshiva we spend quite a lot of time on these sugas. But I I do have to say that the universal practice today is we do not put conditions in either marriages or or divorces. So it's almost a dead letter. However, I will say that every once in a while the conditional marriage is resuscitated as a solution for the auna problem. In other words, let's imag the auna problem is a problem of a man who refuses even after a civil divorce which in Israel you don't have anyway but even after a civil divorce refuses to give his wife a get. Now why does he refuse? There could be a million reasons. Occasionally very rarely he genuinely wants shalom bay. Although I'll tell you right off the bat that that is the least common reason. Uh, sometimes it's a getter of a blackmail. Give me the house. Give me the kids and I'll give you a get or even more openly, give me a million dollars and I'll give you a get. And sometimes it is pure malice. Meaning even if you give him a million dollars, he doesn't want to give a get. He wants her to suffer. Right? This is the Auna problem. It is a worldwide problem. Uh, it is not as numerous as people think. I mean I have to say that people think oh there are like a million Auna. No, there are not. In any given moment in time uh there are less than a hundred women that are in the status of Auna. But again for every woman it's a major major tragedy and uh we try to work out different ways to help people etc. But one of the proposals to deal with auna is that let's make every marriage conditional. meaning you'd say the following under the and at that point they still like each other presumably harmed you are married to me on the condition that if you ever demand a get I give you a get within 30 days of your demand. So you see if you think about that for a moment that's a wonderful thing in the sense of let's just say they're they're married 30 years 30 years and she demands a get. If he refuses to give her a get within 30 days the marriage is nullified retroactively. Now that does mean all of the children born in that marriage are born out of wedlock. It does mean that. But you know there's no disability in being born out of wedlock. you're not a moms. A child born out of wedlock has no restrictions. So every once in a while, and this goes back more than a hundred years, and every 20 years or so, somebody revives it. It's interesting, you know, Coella says, uh, nothing is really new. So even though people will write it like it's a new proposal, they just thought of as they say, every, you know, every 10 or 15 to 20 years, this is brought up again. the notion of a conditional marriage under the kupa that would guarantee that a woman would never be an auna because if she doesn't get a guest the marriage itself is going to be invalidated without getting into that too much I don't want to get into the technicalities of that u the vast vast vast majority of postkim say that does not work at all because marriages cannot be conditional after consummation Meaning in the time of the Mishna they used to do what was called aent which did not mean engagement. It meant marriage but there was no consummation for a year. So so many postkum understand that the ability to invalidate a marriage based on a condition is only during that year when a marriage was not consummated. Once a marriage is consummated by definition marriage becomes absolute. So ma it would not be possible to import the law of conditions to a contemporary marriage because today we don't have that year between the giving of the ring and the consummation. Today we do it immediately and as a result uh conditions wouldn't work. Meaning even if you put in a condition it's not going to help in a guess. Theoretically conditions can be put in. Uh in fact uh one situation where this comes up a lot goes back to gain kama uh uh this is the idea of a soldier going to war would give a get to his wife this was in David's time already and the balurim says it was even in Mosher Rabenu's time and that's to ensure that in the event he is missing in action because missing in action we know we know from contemporary orary times can [snorts] be a well besides the inherent tragedy of missing an action it also creates extreme difficulties for a wife because she cannot remarry haka does not have an automatic presumption of death uh and therefore what soldiers used to do I understand a few still do it on a voluntary basis but they used to give a get to their wives so in the event that they were missing an action she would be divorced and be allowed to marry if she so wanted. Uh the Ra and in fact the Gaba says that that was the loophole of David to be with Bachva. David had a technical loophole because Bachva was divorced when Urya went to went to war. Now it was a loophole and David was obviously castigated for invoking it but hakally he was not committing adultery. In 1948, the Rabanut and the IDF, the Sab uh were contemplating uh because of the missing inaction potential problem to institute what are called geama. But the Rabanut decided at the end not to do this simply because it would be a severe uh impairment of combat morale because part of what keeps the going is the notion that there was someone waiting for them at home uh even if it would be a proform divorce with the intention of remarrying and of when you come back and of course for a cohing that wouldn't work anyway. uh but it was thought it would be too devastating to combat morale. So they decided not to institute it as a takana. Nevertheless, I I do understand there are private individuals that do this other things as well. There are people who give to their wives before they go under surgery because what what the problem is going to be is if God forbids well if a person dies that's not [laughter] well that's a problem but that's not an Auna problem. If if a person dies the woman can marry but the problem would be that if god forbid something goes wrong and they're in a coma that could leave the woman stranded for decades possibly. So as a result there are people who actually give their wives a gets before they go under anesthesia. Again I wouldn't call this a commonakala and actually it's not a but some people in consultation with their own rav uh will do such a thing. Now there is a mlo reonim what form the get took. The simplest way of understanding it is absolute divorce. Literally, literally the Surya gave Bachev a divorce. She could have married somebody a minute later. Actually, not a minute later. It would have to be n 90 days later because of a pregnancy. A divorce cannot marry until 90 days. But others learn a little more complicated that it was a conditional get. meaning this is your get if I do not return within a year and my whereabouts are not known within a year meaning if I come back within a year it's not a get and we're married if I'm gone for a year and my whereabouts are not known right so that's one instance where conditionality uh was was used now going back in this case the following the note the word for conditionality conditions is tai and the derivation of the concept that transactions can be conditional is very a very interesting source. It is from the negotiations that Mosher Rabenu had with Ben God and Ben Ruain. Do you remember the story? Uh the Jewish people had waged war against Sikhon Mel and Moi. is east of the Jordan and Oak Melik Habashad. That's where the golden heights are. And the Jewish people had conquered that land even though that was not land within the boundaries of Arit Israel, right? It's east of the Jordan. Jordan and Syria and Ben Gadu Ben Ruain. It's interesting eventually half of Manasha joined as well, but they were not the ones who were complaining. It's interesting. They came in later. But the the initial people who were making a demand were the tribe of Ruvane and the tribe of gods. And the land east of the Jordan was very very fertile. It was actually more fertile than Eric Israel proper. And they said, "We have a lot of sheep. We have a lot of animals. Uh we would love to have this land be given to us instead of Eric Israel west of the Ardane." And Mosher Rabenu gave them quite a long speech, a speech that is actually very very relevant to the issue of in the army. And uh that is your brethren are going to war. You think that you should just benefit from what the Jewish people already conquered and you're not going to participate in the struggle of your brethren. How can that be? Again, uh you can apply it to the contemporary situation as as you will. Uh that's not our talk for today. Uh and Mosher Rabenu gave them. So what did they say? So they swore to Mosher Rabenu, we will participate. We will not go back to this land. We'll leave our women and children and our flocks here and we will participate in the conquest of Arat Israel. And only after that conquest is complete will we return home. And indeed, if you look at the end of Safer Yoshua, there's actually a formal ceremony in which Moshe discharges them. It's like almost like a military ceremony where Moshe says, "You have done your I'm sorry, not Mos Yahosua. Mosha's dead. Yahosua discharges them and says to them, "You have done your duty. You have fulfilled your promise. You have made your, you know, you have lived up to your commitments. You're now free to go east of the ardain and settle. It's very kind of a a korat." Now Moshe then phrases when he gives them the land going back to the Moshe gives them a conditional transfer. He says, "If you cross the Ardane and if you fight and if you remain with the Jewish army until the land is conquered, then you will have this land east of the Ardane." And then Moshe states it in the other way. But if you don't cross the land and you don't fight with your brethren, then you will not own this land. You will simply get a portion with every other tribe in Erit Israel. And Moshe doesn't say exactly what's going to happen to east of the ardent, but it's not going to go to Benu Ru. So essentially this is called a Tai. Mosha Rabenu is transferring this land to Benet God Ruv on a condition. If the condition is fulfilled, they are owners of the land. If the condition is not fulfilled, they are not owners of the land. And that is theic source of the notion of conditionality in monetary transactions in marriage in divorce in any type of transaction there's a concept of taii okay and it it's learned out of the benu ru now just to finish the the story itself after that after they agreed to it they agreed to the condition so the Torah says Moshe gave to Ben God, Ben Ruvane, and half of the tribe of Manasha, the land east of the Ardane. So, it's interesting that half of the tribe of Manasha seems to appear out of nowhere. They were not part of the demands. Uh it does not even say that they asked for that land. Why is Mosher Rabenu all of a sudden why does he shle them in? Uh the Torah gives no reason whatsoever. meaning to say you're reading the you literally have no reason given for the appearance of Shvet Manasha. Uh apparently seemed to understand that Ben Ruain possibly might be Nimsh by not being Israel. They might be Nimsh to idolatry and and and and the like as indeed was sometimes the case. And u Manasha was seen to be a good influence. But why Manasha specifically? Manasha had its own problems. But nevertheless, it seems to be that they were intended to be a spiritual influence. And maybe by splitting manasha in half. So manasha itself would be influenced by the other part of the tribe that was initel proper. Now because of this I'm getting a little far a field but it's I think it's interesting point for general yas tanim in order for conditions to be valid conditions they have to meet certain formalities similar to the ben ru meaning [snorts] if now again what do I mean here I have to be very uh very clear in defining my terminology what do I mean by a valid condition. And what do I mean by an invalid condition? If a condition is valid, that actually means if it's not fulfilled, the transaction is null and void. A valid condition can invalidate a transaction. Got that? If on the other hand it's an invalid condition, it drops out and the transaction will be valid. People get a little confused. A valid condition means a transaction can potentially be invalidated if the condition is not kept. An invalid condition means the transaction will be valid even if the condition is not kept because it's an invalid condition. So the formalities for a valid condition are the following and I can't really give you logic behind this. It is simply looking at the looking at the form of the condition. First of all, it must be what is called a tai kaful. It must be doubled. You got to state it in the positive and in the negative because look at the way Mosher Rabenu said it. Mosher Rabenu didn't just say if you cross you get the land. He he said it the other way and if you don't cross you don't get the land. So uh as a result this is literally called Tanai Kaful. The condition must be doubled in both the positive and the negative. Again, I'm not giving you logic here. I'm just giving you the formalities of conditions. Second is the deny must be stated before the transaction. The way Mosher Rabenu said it is if you cross you get the land. He didn't say you get the land if you cross. meaning the condition must precede the articulation of the transaction. Right? So you can't just say uh I sell it to you on this condition. You have to say on this condition I sell it to you. Okay? And there are other formalities. I don't have to go over all of the all of the formalities, but the basic idea is that conditions are valid only if the formalities of uh was giving that the Rambam supervised. The guy insisted he would not give the get unless there were conditions uh such as the return of a dowy. In other words, he had brought money into the marriage. Uh he wanted it back. Okay. And the Rambam put in the condition, but the I'm I'm sorry. Um okay. Uh there were there were those conditions. uh but there were other conditions as well regarding prior representations. Now let me explain that the Rambam makes. The Rambam says that the rule that you must comply with formalities of conditions only refers to conditions that are pertaining to future activity such as Ben Ruain. Uh if you will fight, you get the land. If you don't fight, you don't get the land. But there's another type of condition that pertains to past representations such as if I am a co. In other words, one is called a laabah >> to the future and one is a that's one versus I I'll say how that plays out. And then there's another kilok. So it's a complicated thing but but it's addressed in this letter. So I'll mentioning it between a retroactive condition and a prospective condition. Again I feel like I'm teaching law school here. Uh remember contracts. Yeah. Uh let me give you an example. Let's take the situation where a man gives a get to his wife on the condition that she gives him $1,000. Now, if she doesn't give him $1,000, she's not divorced. But the question is, if she gives him $1,000, is she divorced retroactively? Let's imagine the sequence. He gives her a conditional get on Monday. She gets married, although she's violating the 90 90-day rule, but she gets married to somebody else on Tuesday, but she doesn't give her first husband $1,000 until Wednesday. What does a condition mean? Does a condition mean if it is fulfilled, she is divorced from the time she got the get or she's not divorced until she fulfills the condition. meaning to use the yeshiva language. Is the getal take effect lima retroactively or is the get only meaning what is the effect of a tai in a get or anything but let's use get is it leafa or is it mikuabak So based on the Gammorrah, the Rambam says this depends on how the Tai was phrased. You could say the word him. This is your get if you give me $200. If which is defined as when. Or you could say almanat. This is your get almanat on the condition. And the gammor itself says when you have the words almanat that conotes retroactivity. When you have the word im, that conotes prospective. Is the same as when. Saying if is like saying when. when the suit >> if and when are treated as the same here. Okay. So that's a between now obviously in the case of a past tonight it's always retroactive because it already happened meaning if a man gives a get on the condition that something already happened then if it already happened she's divorced at the time. You understand this? The whole shila about retroactive or prospective can only apply to future conditions. It cannot apply to past conditions. Past conditions if they're done, they're already done. So all of this is in the gamarra itself. But the Rambam has the following. The Rambam says the requirement of formalities of condition only apply to prospective conditions. such as what did Mosher Rabena say to Ruain? He said, "I if you cross meaning they did not own that land until they completed the war." And that's what you have formalities. But the Raam says a condition of almanat does not require what are called. See, this this explains a very very good question because the Mishna gives gazillions of examples of all sorts of conditions and it never indicates that they're to be doubled or they have to be articulated in a certain sequence. So most people learn well the Mishna didn't want to be Marus in the exact way you say it. So it gave it in shorthand. For example, alman I'm a coain or whatever it is. Technically that's not a good condition. I have to say and then I also have to say if I'm not a coain you're not married to me. The mission never says that. How do you explain the omission? So some commentaries say well the mission didn't want to repeat the whole formula every single time so it didn't bother to say it even though you have to have it that way. But the Rambam's answer is a different answer. The Rambam's answer is that any condition which is either linked to a past event or is almanas and it's retroactive does not require the formalities of tonight to be a valid condition. And the only time you require those formalities if it's a future condition with the word im. This is you know this is your get if you give me $200 would not be a valid condition. you'd have to say if you give me $200 etc. Okay, again I apologize for being a little complicated. Uh but now you can understand wanted to say that certain conditions in a get were not valid because they were not doubled and you didn't place the tai before the transaction. And the Rambam says all of these conditions were almanas, retroactive conditions, right? The get said, uh, this is your get on the condition almanat that you return the dowy to me. The Rambam says it's a put that alman does not require compliance with the mishpet. And the Rambam says everybody knows that although I wouldn't say everybody knows but everybody knows Almanas and a prospective Tanoyam are totally different. Again, a little a little technical, but you get to see [snorts] an issue of Maklo where Rav Pinas had wanted to invalidate a condition because it failed to comply with formalities of conditions. And even though the Rambam himself supervised the sket and the Rambam says you don't need these conditions when it's a retroactive tonight, you only need the conditions for a prospective perspective tonight. And again, we actually asking them we actually like the Rambam. But again again I I need to emphasize that this is very much a theoretical question because today we do not allow conditions in gidden and in fact when a person gives a get if you've ever been present uh the baston says to him if you have made any conditions on this transaction you are you are required to nullify them to cancel them. So the get would be absolute because you understand a get on a condition is a time bomb because that means that even if she gets married I mean in the case I gave you uh this is your get if you give me $200 even if I say almanaz retroactively well so she gets she receives the get on Monday she marries another guy on Tuesday and then she does not give the the $1,000 she's not divorced she committed adultery right so conditional gen are time bomb So even though the Mishna didn't seem to have that problem, the Mishna is full of time bomb conditional gets. Uh but the universal practice today is we would not we would not allow it at all. Yeah. >> So does this apply to other contracts? Let's say I sell you my field when you give me $1,000 or >> Yes. Yes. It's exactly the same. In other words, with respect to monetary transactions, we do utilize conditions just like business contracts are often conditional. Uh if it's an English contract, you'd have to have a base and determine what the equivalents are. But but in lotes, if it was written in that language, we would very much differentiate between an alman condition and an im condition in terms of when is the transaction effective. In the case of im, uh it is only when the condition is fulfilled. In the case of Almanas, it'll be a retroactive uh vesting of the condition. >> That's correct. That's correct. So that that that would make very big differences. So the laws of Tana but but then of course if it's an im it would only be a valid condition if you had the formalities. >> You see so that's a hidden that's a hidden pitfall. That is a hidden pitfall. Now there is a standard form in documents that are made uncondition that even if the condition is not spelled out in the requisite way it'll say something like this contract was done in accordance with the tanoim of benad ru now it's hard to know how that helps because it wasn't done that way I mean the language is not there but somehow the declaration that this will follow is in some considered to be. So often you instead of spelling out positive negatives they will have that sentence in there and that is said to be enough. Yeah. >> This is a little bit complicated. You're saying if you're doing an the has to be stated before the condition. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um and the Rambam is by an alman it does not and it does not have to be doubled positive negative is retroactive. That's a retroactive a retroactive transaction uh does not require any of the formalities of bod again that's a that's a of the Rambam but as I say like that although it's not relevant forget because we don't do conditional yet. Okay. So again, this is just a little example of the complexities that that arise. And again, the Rambam is a bit annoyed. The Rambam says, "I'm very surprised that you're not aware of this uh of this." Okay. All righty. So now I want to move on to uh the next next letter which is a very very fascinating letter. Uh and this is a letter to uh a man who's very important in the Rambam's life and in the Rambam's writings. Uh Shuel Iban Tibon. Now the Iban Tibon family are the great translators of Arabic. >> Huh? >> I didn't hear you. >> The last name >> Iben Iben is T-Bone. T-Bone. >> T-Bone. Tibon, Ibon Tibon, the Ibon Tibbon family uh were great great I mean they actually were very eminent philosophers in their own right and they wrote books on their own but their primary fame is that they were the great great translators of the Torah literature that was written in Arabic and they translated them into Hebrew and as a result that is how these books became known in the non-Arabic in Christian Europe in the non-Arabic uh community. Uh it's a whole family there quite a few more than two but I'm only going to mention two because they are the most famous. Uh the patriarch so to speak is Yehuda Iben Tibon. And Yehuda Iben Tibbon was born in Spain, Granada. But as a young man he left Spain because of the almad Islamic persecutions. very similar to why the Rambam's family left Spain and Iben Tibbon I'm sorry I'm sorry Yehuda Iben Tibon migrated to France and he was in Proancece which is the southern part of France uh Yehuda Iben Tibbon translated some very very important he translated the Alavos from Arabic to Hebrew one of the greatest of the ethical swarm In fact, the Rambam is May that the Kabas Alabos which he read in Arabic was his father's favorite savor is before the Rambam uh Yehuda Ibon translated the Kuzari Yudah's famous work which the Rambam didn't like so much but nevertheless the Kuzari's translation is Ibon and the third one is Ravajon actually this is the earliest of the books of Sajjon wrote a great book really the it's really considered to be the first book of Jewish systematic Jewish philosophy and that is amuno vidot uh and he translated it from Arabic to Hebrew so these are three classic works that were written in Arabic >> didn't hear you >> what year done >> well he did it in the uh the early 1100s But's work is from the 900s, the 10th century andos is the 11th century um the 1000s. Uh so these are again and there are other books as well and u wrote books of his own but again you know maybe uh I don't know if he would be insulted. He is known as a translator although once again uh he he was an original thinker on on his own. uh and uh we will see that the Rambam may not have known him. I I'm not sure if they ever met but the Rambam greatly admired him and uh at least in a letter to his son to Ibon Yea's son he is Mishabak the greatness of his of his father. Now uh Yehuda had a son. I believe it was may have been his only child Iben Tibbon and Shul Iban followed in the footsteps of his father. Now Shu Ibon grew up in France, not Spain. His father had already left and Ion uh is best known for translations of many of the Rambam's works. most famously Ibon is the translator of the Morinim. Uh he is also the translator of the Rambam's commentary on Perot which is preceded by a great great great philosophical introduction called the Shimona Praim. Okay. Perky itself was only five chapters. The introduction of the Rambam is eight chapters. So the Rambam's introduction is more chapters than the book itself. But Shimona Praim is one of the great great little treatises on ethical character, free will and the [clears throat] like. In fact, a lot of what we talked about in the letters are themes that are developed in the Shimona Pra. Hopefully we'll even get we'll even get to that. He also translated different portions, not the whole thing, but different portions of the Rambam's commentary on the Mishna that were written in Arabic and in particular the introduction to Perk. Pericle is the last chapter of San Edin that is where the Rambam articulates the 13 principles of faith. the and the translation that we have is from Iban. Uh he also translated some of the public letters of the Rambam. He translated the great letter on resurrection of the dead and actually there were other people who translated it but he's he drove the others out of the market so to speak. People favored uh his translation. Okay. So we have these two Iben Tibons. We have Yehuda Iban who as far as I know did not translate any of the Rambam's works but the Rambam greatly admired him. And then we have the son ib who translated uh the marim. And the letter that we're going to look at uh is a response a long response to a letter that I tone sent to Ramba. And there's a number of things in the request. Number one, he very much wants to travel to Egypt to meet with the Rambam in person. Number two, he asks the Rambam for guidance as to how do you translate a difficult philosophical work. This is before he completed the translation. Uh he wants general guidelines. And number three, he asks the Rambam a number of technical questions. How would you translate this Arabic term, this Arabic term, this Arabic term? So he's asking the Rambam for translation help as well as asking the Rambam to explain what he regarded as different ambiguities in the text of the Morinim. And in fact, the Rambam responds in a lengthy letter going over all the translation requests, clarifying the ambiguities, [snorts] indicating at some point that there were mistakes in the manuscripts that Liberton saw, you have to correct it in that way. So the Rambam, at least with the Maram, we're not really sure about the other one. The Rambam was kind of a very involved collaborator. You can almost call the Rambam the co-ransator. of the Minim because he responded in great detail to all of these different different questions. Yeah. >> If the Rama was so proficient in in Hebrew, why didn't he write these things to begin with? >> Yeah. So, of course, remember that the Mishna Torah was in fact written in Hebrew and the Rambam expressed regret towards the end of his life that he should not have written his books in Arabic. He should have written a Bashesh. The reason why he did write it in Arabic was essentially uh this was the art scroll of the day. Meaning the Rambam lived in Muslim countries and uh there were people who were very very smart, very intellectual who did not have a great uh great grasp of of lashes. So the Rambam wanted to make his works more accessible. Now there is another reason too which is a problem that exists to this very day and that is when it came to philosophical work the Hebrew language was not necessarily the best vehicle to convey philosophical abstract ideas. It is said that Hebrew is a or at least biblical Hebrew is a very robust language. It is connected to action and doing. Uh it is not a language that deals with abstraction. And even though it's lashesh is lashesh but for certain areas uh sorry. Okay. I just want to announce an an additional elishama kale shimon and velv. And may the Torah be elish. Okay. Uh so the Rambam actually felt that Arabic was more suited for philosophical discourse even though lashesh was perfectly suited for lemisim. And this was part of the problem that Iben Tibbon had in his Hebrew translations. In fact, some people criticize it to this very day that he introduced new words into the Hebrew language which were really derivatives from Arabic. So he kind of Arabized if there's such a word he Arabized lashes by inducing. Now this is a this was a problem again. I mean this is kind of the similar problem. Huh? Father or son? >> Who? >> The son. The son. Yeah. Uh the father did not well the father introduced it in some other works but but uh with the same reason but within this was a a problem. Now again this was a similar not the same problem that Eleazar Ben Yehuda uh faced in introducing Hebrew uh 19th century 20th century uh obviously classical Hebrew did not have words for different aspects of science and technology and the words had to be invented so to speak whether it's matsman now again there are two different shitos in inventing and this was a major major issue in the uh pre-state years in the 1910 1920 you know all when when these words were being created do you try to create new words within the Hebrew language like for example in modern Israeli Hebrew today you know so we call telephone auto that's not that's not Hebrew I mean you're just taking uh you're just taking a word from another language and you're writing it in Hebrew letters so the original people they there was like a vat alone not now there's the academy of Hebrew language used to be called vad alon some of the vashon said everything has to be Hebrew so uh they would kind of invent uh some complicated Hebrew word when later today we're more lazy so we just take uh the the English word so this is a mlo and again when it came to philosophy there was a similar type of problem in the middle ages do you simply kind of just adapt the Arabic term and put it [clears throat] into some type of Hebrew form or do you really have to fetch it into making it a a genuine Hebrew word. So Iban Tibon did opt very of actually both father and son the father inot and the son in the morim they often opted uh to use kind of an Arabic formulation within the within the Hebrew language. So uh some people to this day they have a China and even tibon for corrupting the Hebrew language in his translations. And of course since then there are newer Hebrew translations of the borim Kapak who is a very great Yemenite rabbi just died a few years ago uh did his own translation from the Arabic in a more modern Hebrew and then um there's a professor I think Mikl Stern and there are I mean there are new English translations but there are actually new Hebrew translations as well and this is true about all of these books new translations of Alabos in Hebrew, new translations of Amunot, uh new translations of of Kuzari, new translations of Morin. So they build on Iben Tibbon, but uh they're a bit more readable. Another problem, which is interesting because the Rambam warned him not to do this, is that uh Iben Tibbon tried to be as literal a translator as possible. uh which means he would follow the order of words. Now the problem is Hebrew and Arabic are two different languages and you can't follow. Let me give you a very simple example although Iban was not guilty of this. In biblical Hebrew a verb precedes the subject that says Hashem. Now we'll translate that as saying Hashem spoke. But the words don't say Hashem spoke. The word says and spoke Hashem. Meaning syntactically, this is a minor uh difference. Syntactically word order in Hebrew differs than at least in biblical Hebrew than word order in other languages. Uh in English the subject precedes the verb. In Hebrew, the verb may precede the subject. Now, Iben Tibbon was lit literal in following the Arabic word orders and the like. And as a result, in Hebrew, it comes across a bit awkward and difficult to follow because it is not always the normal way the Hebrew language is presented. uh you see a similar thing I'll give you a similar example to this um the hers of the 19th century Rahers wrote his great perish Torah in German in German. So any English translation is a translation from German. Now the original translation of hers there have been other translations since then was by I think Isaac Levy who was a grandson or just a member of the family and he translated it in a very very literal way. Now German happens to be a very verbose language you know the words are huge huge words whatever it would be and uh multi-elabic and it's ponderous and it's heavy >> the verb is always at the end >> yeah and you don't know what the sentence is till the very end of it uh so as a result uh what was a beautiful German style for a hers is very very difficult to read in English. But the first translator wanted to be very very faithful to the way refers wrote it. So that's why if you look at the the hir translation, it is sometimes very ponderous, very heavy and you know you might lose interest even though there's beautiful points there because it goes on and on and on and on and on. Now the more recent translations try to translate or adapt with English syntax and the like which makes them much more readable. So this was the problem with the ibon thing. Now what's fascinating is that in the Rambam's letter and we'll talk more about it next week. The Rambam warns him when you translate from language to language, you absolutely should not translate it word for word and in the same order because languages have different orders and you have to be sensitive. It's the language that you're translating it into. And sometimes what is one word in the original needs to be several words in the translation and vice versa what are several words in the translation uh in the original should be one word in the translation. The rabb was not even talking about you know the specific issues of lashes that was he was talking about translation in general. He says, "A translator needs to have the freedom to adapt." Now, that itself is a little controversial. In fact, I think there's a saying, it's an Italian in in in in Italian, it's it's a rhyme. It's a pun. Um, but it says, "Every translator is a traitor." Again, in Italian, it it rhymes. uh and the concept is because every translator is imposing his meaning on the text. That's why translations are never complete and that's a danger. So that's an argument for the Ibent Tibon approach. I will make it as literal as possible. So if there's ambiguities, I'll preserve the ambiguities. If there are multiple meanings, I'll preserve the multiple meanings. The Rambam seem not to take that position. even though it's his own work. You might think on his own work with Davka he would have a certain proprietary interest but he said no your job is to thoroughly thoroughly thoroughly understand what I wrote and then paraphrase it in a way that maximizes clarity and comprehension. And if you're not going to use my exact words, fact, we wouldn't even call it a translation. We would call it an adaptation today. But he says that's fine. Change the word order. Change the sentence order. Uh one word becomes many words. Many words become one word. The goal is you under you must understand the text thoroughly and then you put it into intelligible speech. Interestingly enough, I would have to say that did not follow that particular because he went in the direction of to be extremely literal and preserve the word order. Perhaps he didn't feel he had the right to tamper with the Rambam's ideas in that in that in that way. Uh but as I say to this very day uh the two criticisms of the Iban Tibone translations are number one the introduction of too many Arabic structures in Hebrew philosophical discourse uh and number two the overliteral uh adherence to the Rambam's text which does effect intelligibility and understanding and comprehension. The Iban Tibon translations are notoriously I mean Morim is not an easy book in any event. Uh but his translations are an additional difficulty in comprehension. If you look at the more modern translations the Morim again it's never going to be an easy word but it's a much easier book to read than under the Iben Tibon translations. And the same is true for Rabie Hudas translations of Salavos and and the like. But again to me it's very very fascinating that this was the very thing the Ramba warned not to do and did not completely follow that. Okay. So we'll continue next week with with this letter. Go to