Welcome to the continuation of the classes concerning the explanation of the arguments between the school of שמאי, the school of הלל, which are known as בית שמאי and בית הלל. And the way I explained at length before, that they argue in one idea, and that is whether whenever there is a need to make a decision and there's a possibility to judge things by their potential stage or by their actuality stage, so we שמאי says we go after the potential, which is in Hebrew called בכח, and בית הלל says we go after בפועל, we judge everything according to its בפועל, actual stage. And we brought many, many examples from different, different subjects in Jewish law, in the תלמוד, in the משנה, in the גמרא, in connection to בבלי and ירושלמי, the Babylonian תלמוד, the Jerusalem תלמוד. And now we will continue and find some more examples. And all this shows how all this is the basis of their way of thinking. And this is actually a משנה in the beginning of the tractate of ברכות. We mentioned ברכות once in the one of the classes before. ברכות is the beginning of the whole ש\"ס. As I said, ש\"ס is ששה סדרים, that's all the משניות from all the six orders. And ברכות is the first one, is the first one of סדר, of the order of זרעים, of the one that deals with plants, but it is also the beginning of the whole ש\"ס, of the whole תלמוד and the whole משניות. And the משנה starts with the words מאימתי קורין את שמע בערבין? At what moment can we read the שמע in the evening? We know that there is a commandment in the Bible, in the תורה, that we are obligated to say the verses of שמע ישראל twice a day: once in the morning and once in the evening. And that's actually what we do. In the morning, when we say the morning prayers, part of the morning prayers include the שמע ישראל, the three portions of the קריאת שמע, that's what it's known, which is שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד, that's the time when we proclaim God as being one, the only one, and the rest of the verses which deal with loving God and listening to what He says, etc., etc. And we're obligated to do this twice a day: one in the morning, one in the evening. So the משנה here speaks about what when does the obligation of saying the שמע in the evening start? And the משנה explains that. Then it goes on: till when? In other words, what's the amount of time that I still have to fulfill this obligation? Till when can I still do it? It starts at a certain point, which basically is from the time when the night starts, which is nightfall, or we call it צאת הכוכבים, from when the stars come out, and that's considered, according to the Jewish law, night. So it starts from that point on we already could say the שמע of the evening. But then how late does it go? How late can we say it? So the משנה continues and says עד סוף האשמורה הראשונה דברי רבי אליעזר. רבי אליעזר, which I have to mention right away, was a student in the school of שמאי. So automatically, whatever he says is the opinion of בית שמאי. So even though in this משנה that we're quoting now we will not have the mention of בית שמאי and בית הלל, but nevertheless, this is שמאי and בית שמאי and הלל, because רבי אליעזר was a student of שמאי, and further on when it'll bring the opinion of the other חכמים, the other sages, they were students in the school of הלל. So actually, the argument we're going to have here is going to be the argument between בית שמאי and בית הלל. So רבי אליעזר says, how late does it go? עד סוף האשמורה הראשונה, till the end of the first section of the night. We divide the night into four sections, each section has the name אשמורה. אשמורה means a certain a certain cycle, a certain time. So the end of the first אשמורה, which means when three hours from the beginning of the night pass, that's it, you can't say the שמע. You have If you missed it, it's too late, you can't say the שמע, and you missed your obligation. You didn't fulfill your obligation. But it's till that time that we're able to say. וחכמים אומרים, the חכמים say עד חצות. The חכמים say you have till midnight. רבן גמליאל אומר, רבן גמליאל says עד שיעלה עמוד השחר, till the עמוד השחר comes out. עמוד השחר is the time, it's about it's over an hour, maybe 72 minutes before sunrise. And that's called עמוד השחר. עמוד השחר, the literal translation of עמוד השחר is the morning star, which really there is no such thing as a morning star, but it's a way we call the time before sunrise, which is already, to a certain degree, the beginning of the day. So רבן גמליאל says you could read it all the way till עמוד השחר, till עלות השחר, which means till the time of the morning star, which, as I said, there are different of opinions when it is. Some say it's about 72 minutes before sunrise, some say it's up to 120 minutes up to before sunrise, but whatever whichever opinion we'll accept, the idea is that's the beginning of the day. In certain cases, we say the beginning of the day starts from sunrise, but in most cases, we say that really the beginning of the day is from that point which is called עלות השחר or עמוד השחר. So רבן גמליאל says that we could read the night שמע, that to fulfill the obligation of saying the שמע for the evening, it could be done anytime from the beginning of the night till the end of the night, till עלות השחר. So it looks like we have three opinions here. The opinion of רבי אליעזר is you only could do it for the beginning of the night, the first אשמורה, which is 3 hours. The חכמים say till midnight, and רבן גמליאל says till the morning. Now, in truth, the way the תלמוד later explains, the חכמים, the other sages who claim till midnight, are of the same opinion as רבן גמליאל. You have to keep in mind, רבן גמליאל says a whole night, the חכמים also say a whole night. When they said it's only till חצות, till midnight, they said that the rabbis said you should do it till midnight because otherwise you might forget. If you do it wait for later, it'll happen, you might go to sleep, and you'll forget, you won't do it. But in essence, the חכמים also agree that the law is that you could say the שמע till the morning. So basically we have two opinions here: רבי אליעזר's opinion, and again, רבי אליעזר is from בית שמאי, says you could only do the beginning of the night, the first אשמורה. The other sages, the חכמים and רבן גמליאל, who are from the תלמידים, from the students of שמ- of הלל, which means they are from the school of בית הלל, they say you could do it till the morning. So here we have an argument between בית שמאי and בית הלל. בית שמאי says you have to fulfill this מצוה, this commandment of saying the שמע of the evening, only in the beginning of the night, and the בית הלל, quoted by the חכמים and רבן גמליאל, hold that you could do it all night till the morning. What is the basis of the argument? So actually, when you look into רש\"י, who is one of the main commentaries on the תלמוד, we're all familiar with רש\"י. רש\"י, whose name was רבנו שלמה יצחקי, which means his name was שלמה, Rabbi שלמה, our Rabbi שלמה. יצחקי means he's the son of יצחק. His father's name was יצחק, so he's called רש\"י. And רש\"י is from the main commentaries on the חומש, on the Bible, the main commentaries on the תלמוד. He's known by everybody, studied by everybody who just starts learning the Bible, חומש, or starts learning גמרא, learns רש\"י. It's interesting that the word, the letters רש\"י, רי\"ש, שי\"ן, יו\"ד, if you switch them around, they make up the word ישר, which means straight. רש\"י is straightforward. רש\"י tells you exactly as it is. רש\"י has another abbreviation: רבן של ישראל, the rabbi of all the Jews. He was from the first commentaries on חומש and on the תלמוד, and he's learned by everybody, and accepted everybody, and the greatness of רש\"י is unbelievable, something we can't even describe. Anyway, רש\"י says that the basis of the argument between רבי אליעזר, who is from the students of שמאי, and the other sages, which are the students of הלל, is where do we know that we have this commandment that you have to say the שמע in the evening? It's because in the שמע itself, in those פסוקים, in those verses, it says that you should say these words: בשכבך ובקומך, which means when you go to sleep, when you lay down to go to sleep, when you go to sleep, ובקומך, and when you get up. And therefore, you have to say שמע in the evening, and you have to say שמע in the morning. Those are two parts of this מצוה. The argument רש\"י says between רבי אליעזר and the rest is רבי אליעזר says when it says בשכבך, when you go to sleep, it means when you go to sleep. And that's the beginning of the night. Some people go to sleep a little earlier, some go a little later, but it's all within the first אשמורה. We said before אשמורה is the 3 hours. At that time, that's usually when people go to sleep. The other opinion is that בשכבך doesn't mean when you go to sleep. בשכבך means when you're sleeping. So the time for doing this מצוה of reading the שמע is all the time that people are sleeping. When do people sleep? Throughout the whole night. So that's why רבי אליעזר says you could only say שמע in the beginning of the night, because he learns that when the תורה says ובשכ- בשכבך means when you go to sleep, and that's only the beginning, later on you're not going to sleep, you're sleeping already. And the other opinion is that it means the whole time when you're sleeping. This really is based on the same logic as we said before from בכח and בפועל. Going to sleep is the potential of sleeping. That's what it is. In order to sleep, you have to go to sleep. When you go to sleep, that's what you're doing, what you're doing is you're starting off the sleep that this because you went to sleep, this includes that you will now sleep throughout the night. Sleeping through the night is the בפועל, that is the actuality of sleeping. Now, the מצוה is at the time of sleeping, but בית שמאי says, in this case it's רבי אליעזר who is from the school of שמאי, says that we look at the potential more than we look at the actuality. So, he says when the תורה says you should say the שמע, ובשכבך, when you sleep, when you're going to sleep, so he says, \"Well, here we have a choice. Should we say that the תורה means at the time of the potential of sleeping, or do we say it means actually when there's an actuality of sleeping?\" So, בית שמאי, רבי אליעזר who's the תלמידים of שמאי, says that we always say that when we have to judge between the potential and the actuality, we always judge it by the potential. So here, when we have a question does it mean the potential of sleeping or the actual sleeping, so we follow the potential. So therefore, he learns that the meaning of the verse ובשכבך means going to sleep, which is the potential of sleeping. While the others who are from the school of הלל, and they say we follow the בפועל, the actuality, so they say that when we have to judge between the two, we judge the actuality. So when the תורה says about sleeping and that שמע is supposed to be said at the time of sleeping, we don't look at it that it's the time when you go to sleep, which is the potential of sleeping, it means at the time when you actually are sleeping, in actuality. That's why they say that the time for שמע is throughout the whole night, because that's the time when you actually sleep. So here we have another example of בית הלל, בית שמאי going according to בכח, and בית הלל going according to בפועל. Now, we will go to another argument between בית שמאי, בית הלל, and show that there, too, they argue based on the differences whether we learn we go according to the בכח or בפועל. And that is going to be in another tractate in פסחים, which is part of the section of משניות called מועד, which deals with the holidays, with the ימים טובים, therefore we have the tractate שבת in that section, we have ראש השנה, סוכה, all the different holidays that are included in that section, including פסחים which deals with the holiday of פסח. And here we have in פסחים דף קט\"ז עמוד ב', which means the page is 116, the second side. There is an argument between בית שמאי, בית הלל. There it talks about the סדר. We all know פסח night we have a סדר, and we say the הגדה. The הגדה are all different things that the rabbis told us to say at the night of the of פסח, the night of the סדר. Part of the הגדה is הלל. There is a section in תהלים, in Psalms, which is referred to as הלל, and that is those chapters starting from chapter 112 through chapter 118. And that is called הלל. We say הלל different times of the year. הלל basically is praising God for the great things He did for us. We say it on פסח, we say it on סוכות, on שבועות, all the holidays, we say it on ראש חודש, the first day of the month, we say it on חנוכה, different times. One of the times that we have to say הלל is פסח night during the סדר, which is besides when we say הלל on פסח during the prayers, we say it during the סדר. The only thing is during the סדר we divide the הלל into two parts. There's a part of הלל that we say before the meal, and there's a part of הלל that we say after the meal. The meal includes eating the מצה, eating the מרור, the מצה and the bitter herbs that we eat, and then the meal itself that we eat, and then at the end of the meal, in the time of the בית המקדש, when we had the holy Temple, they used to eat the קרבן פסח, a certain sacrifice that they had to bring on ערב פסח, on the day before פסח. פסח is the 15th day of the Hebrew month of ניסן. The סדר is the night of the 15th day of ניסן. The day before, which is the 14th day of ניסן, known as ערב פסח, the day before פסח, they had to sacrifice a קרבן פסח called the קרבן פסח, and during the סדר they would eat that meat. And that was the last part of type of food that they would eat during the meal of the סדר, and then afterwards they would say the בענטשינג, which is grace after the meal, and then they would continue with the הגדה, and the beginning of that continuation was continuing the הלל. So part of הלל we say before the meal, which means before the קרבן פסח, and part of the הלל we say afterwards. Nowadays that we don't have a קרבן פסח, so we eat the אפיקומן, that's piece of מצה that we eat at the end of the meal, which is to remind us of the קרבן פסח that they used to eat in the time of the בית המקדש. So part of הלל we say before the meal and part of הלל we say after the meal. How do we divide the הלל? And this is where the argument between בית שמאי and בית הלל comes in. The משנה says: עד היכן הוא אומר? How far do you say, how much of הלל do you say before the meal? בית שמאי אומרים, בית שמאי say, עד אם הבנים שמחה, till the words אם הבנים שמחה. These are the words that are the beginning, the end of the first chapter of the הלל. The next chapter, which starts with the words בצאת ישראל ממצרים we do not say. We say that according to בית שמאי, the second half after the meal which is after the קרבן פסח. The second chapter starts with the words as I said בצאת ישראל ממצרים, which talks about the Exodus of מצרים. So the first part of הלל before the meal is just the first chapter. The second part starts בצאת ישראל ממצרים. בית הלל אומרים, בית הלל say, עד חלמיש למעינו מים. They say that the first part of הלל which we say before the meal includes the second chapter of הלל, which starts as I said with בצאת ישראל ממצרים, when the יידן, when Jews went out of מצרים. So here we have an argument between בית שמאי and בית הלל what we say in the first part of הלל before the קרבן פסח. Now, it does say in the ירושלמי that בית הלל says that the reason why we say בצאת ישראל ממצרים before is because there is no need to wait. בית שמאי says, you have to say it later. If you're going to say it before the meal, you're saying it at the time when the Jews didn't leave Egypt yet. Because if we look into the Bible, into the חומש, we see that they brought in the in Egypt at the time of the Exodus, they brought the קרבן פסח during the day, but they didn't leave Egypt till in middle of the next day, in middle of the 15th day of ניסן. That's when they left Egypt. But at night, they didn't leave Egypt yet. So בית שמאי says to בית הלל, why would you say בצאת ישראל ממצרים, why would we talk about the Exodus of Egypt that the Jews left Egypt at the time before the meal and before the קרבן פסח, when at that time they didn't leave yet? So בית הלל answered בית שמאי, so therefore what do you want? They should say it later at the time when they left? Then you'll have to wait till the next day, because even afterwards, at night, after the meal, which is after the קרבן פסח, at that point they didn't leave yet either. They only left the next day. And this is the argument the way it says in ירושלמי between בית שמאי and בית הלל. בית שמאי says we should say בצאת ישראל ממצרים, which means talk about the Exodus of Egypt after we already ate the קרבן פסח, or nowadays after we eat something instead of the קרבן פסח, which is a substitute takes the place of the קרבן פסח, but we only say בצאת ישראל ממצרים after the קרבן פסח. And בית הלל says, this is not going to help you. If you don't want to say it before, you claim we shouldn't say it before because it's too early, it's not the time when they left, so after the קרבן פסח is also too early. So you might as well wait till the next day, and that we cannot do. So therefore it doesn't matter if we say it before. The basis of this argument really is whether we look at בכח or we look at בפועל. And I'll explain why. We know that the זכות, the merit it says that the Jews had to leave Egypt, was the fact that they brought the קרבן פסח. It says God wanted to take them out of Egypt, and He said, but they're empty of מצוות, they're naked of commandments, they're not, they don't have much merit. So He gave them it says two מצוות, and He says now I want you to fulfill these two commandments, and with the merit of these two commandments you will merit to leave Egypt. The two were the מצוה of מילה, circumcision, and the מצוה of bringing the קרבן פסח. Now we know the מצוה of circumcision was given many, many years before. It didn't come here. It was given yet to אברהם אבינו, to Abraham. But for many reasons while the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, they did not do this מצוה. They couldn't, it was dangerous, whatever it is, they did not do the מצוה. So השם said, God said, in order for you to leave Egypt, I want you to do the מצוה of מילה. So the Jews circumcised themselves. They also did the second מצוה, which is the מצוה of קרבן פסח, and in merit of these two מצוות they left Egypt. So it comes out that the מצוה of קרבן פסח is the potential of their leaving Egypt. They left actually Egypt on the first day, on the 15th day of ניסן, which is the next morning in middle of the day. בעצם היום הזה, it says in פסוק, in middle of the day they left. But the potential, the merit that they had which brought them the ability to leave Egypt, that came through eating the קרבן פסח. So בית שמאי says like this: Don't say בצאת ישראל ממצרים, which means don't talk about the Exodus before the meal, before you ate the קרבן פסח, because at that time it's before the time they left. So why speak about בצאת ישראל ממצרים, about their leaving Egypt? After the קרבן פסח is no problem, because even though they didn't leave yet, but since you already ate the קרבן פסח, so you already have the potential of leaving. And since בית שמאי says we follow the potential, so that's important, so we consider that they left. בית הלל says we don't follow the potential, we follow the בפועל. בפועל, they didn't leave till middle of the day. So בית הלל says there is no difference whether you're going to say it before the eating of the קרבן פסח or afterwards, because in both cases you're not going to have it at the right time. So then there is no reason to wait till after the קרבן פסח. So here again we see another example where בית שמאי follows the בכח and בית הלל בפועל, and again in short, בית שמאי says we have to say this chapter of הלל, בצאת ישראל ממצרים, which deals with the Jews leaving מצרים, wait till after the קרבן פסח, and בית הלל says you're not going to gain anything. If you want to wait for the right time, you'll have to be for the next day, but that time it makes no difference if you say it before or after, and the reasoning is because בית שמאי holds that the potential is what counts, and since the potential of leaving מצרים started with the קרבן פסח, because that was the merit that they had that gave them their ability to leave, so בית שמאי says before the קרבן פסח, it's before the time they left, after the קרבן פסח, it's already when they have the potential of leaving, so we could already say בצאת ישראל ממצרים, we could already talk about them leaving. And בית הלל says we look at בפועל, and בפועל, even after the קרבן פסח, they didn't leave yet, and the potential doesn't count, and therefore there is no difference before and after, and therefore בית הלל says we could even do it before. So here we have another example of where we have an argument between בית שמאי and בית הלל, and it depends on the idea of בכח and בפועל. Then we will go to another example that will show how they argue in the בכח and בפועל. Although, as I will show, according to the ירושלמי, this will not exactly fit, but according to the בבלי which doesn't mention what the ירושלמי will say, we could explain it that way. And that is in the tractate בבא מציעא. בבא מציעא is, as we said before, part of נזיקין, it's part of the משניות or the ש״ס, in the order of נזיקין that deals with monetary disputes and monetary cases. So here we have a case in the תלמוד, which is actually a משנה in בבא מציעא דף מ״ג עמוד ב׳. It's on the 43rd page on the second side. And this is what the משנה says: החושב לשלוח יד בפקדון. Now, I'll have to explain what that means. We're dealing here with a concept of שליחות יד. That's the name of this law: שליחות יד. What does that mean? This is a law that deals with a שומר. A שומר is a person who's giving something, given something to watch. And the law is, if a person gives you something to watch, and then something happens to it, and it gets stolen or it gets lost or it gets broken or whatever should happen to it, there are different laws in what kind of שומר you are, what category of a watchman you are considered. And I'll just say some of the general rules of what is the גדר, the type of a שומר, of a watchman. There is there are four categories, but we're only going to discuss two, just the main two ones: שומר חנם and שומר שכר. A שומר חנם means somebody who watches something for you for free. You don't pay him, he gets no benefit, he just does you a favor and he watches for you. Then you have a שומר שכר: somebody who watches for pay. You pay him to watch. And there are different laws concerning each one of these. A שומר חנם, a person who watches for free, means without pay, is not obligated if something that he watched is stolen or lost. Certainly, if something out of the ordinary happens and it gets broken or something, certainly he is not obligated to pay. But even if it got stolen or lost, he's not obligated. The only time he's obligated to pay if he is negligent, and that that's called a פשיעה, but if he's not negligent, he doesn't have to pay. A שומר שכר, on the other hand, does have to pay even if it just got stolen or lost. He's not obligated if something out of the ordinary happened, we call that in Hebrew an אונס, and then he is not obligated, he is פטור, but otherwise he's חייב. Otherwise he has to pay. But a שומר חנם does not have to pay even if it just got stolen or lost because he watched it for no benefit and he did you the favor. But there's another exception to the rule. Besides the exception that if he was negligent he has to pay, there's another case where he has to pay, if he was שולח יד. Now שולח יד means, the literal translation is, he stretched out his hand to take it. What does that mean? It means if he used it. If someone takes upon himself the responsibility of watching an object for someone else, he has no right to use the object, unless using it will be beneficial for the object. Like something that you have to air out, and if not it'll get spoiled, so it's worthwhile to take it out and air it out, or something that you should put on because that's going to save the object, but otherwise you're not allowed to use it. If you used the object, and that's called you were שולח יד, the general rule is that even if you put it back in its place, and later it got stolen or lost, you have to pay. Not only if it got stolen or lost as a result of your using it. The fact that you used it, when you were not allowed to use it as a שומר, as a watchman, automatically obligates you to pay if it got lost or stolen. That's the הלכה called, the law called שליחות יד. The משנה says, החושב לשלוח יד בפקדון, if someone thought, had in mind to be a שולח יד, which means he had in mind to use the object that he was watching, he didn't use it yet, he had in mind. And here itself there are differences of opinion in the commentaries, does it mean just in his mind, or he had to say it. But whichever way, he didn't actually do anything to it, he didn't use it. He was planning to use it. Or according to the other opinion, what בית שמאי meant, that he said to somebody, \"I'm going to use it\", but he never did. בית שמאי אומרים חייב. בית שמאי says you're still חייב, he's still obligated, if something happens to it, he has to pay. ובית הלל אומרים, בית הלל say אינו חייב עד שישלח בו יד. No, you're not obligated till you actually use it, till you stretch out your hand. And the תלמוד here goes into different verses of the חומש that each one says shows his opinion. But the bottom line is, if we start thinking about it, we see here the idea that we said before. בית שמאי follows the בכח and בית הלל follows the בפועל. בית שמאי holds that potential is what counts. So he says, when you thought to use it, or you said you'll use it, which is the potential of actually using it, because when you actually use it, you have to first think about it, you have to first say it, so planning to use it is the potential of its actual use. So בית שמאי says that when the תורה says that if you do שליחות יד, if you use it, you're obligated, it doesn't mean only use it, it means even if you have the potential of using it. And therefore בית שמאי says if you planned to use it, already you fall into the status, this category of שליחות יד and you are חייב, you're obligated to pay. ובית הלל אומרים, אינו חייב עד שישלח בו יד, בית הלל says you're not חייב until you actually use it. So here we see again that בית שמאי follows the potential, and בית הלל follows the, not potential, but the actuality. Why did I say before that it's not really 100% that this really should fit? Because in the ירושלמי it says that if the object was standing in the street, and a person had a mind to take it, the שומר, the person who was watching it, it happened to be in the street, rightfully, he didn't do anything wrong about keeping it in the street, and while it was in the public domain, he planned to use it, even בית שמאי agrees that he is not obligated. Now if we're going to say that the reason בית שמאי says that when you think to use it, automatically you are חייב because that's already the potential, what difference does it make whether it's in the street or not? So obviously, according to the ירושלמי, there must be some other reason why they argue. But superficially, without going deeper into the ירושלמי and finding other things, this seems to follow along what we're saying till now, that בית שמאי follows the בכח and בית הלל follows the בפועל, and therefore בית שמאי says thinking or saying is is enough to make you חייב, because that's potential שליחות יד, potential using it, and בית הלל says that it's not enough, and only when you actually use it, that's when you are חייב.