For some the Ramban both here in the parshat Tazria as well as in the Kitvei Ramban, it's axiomatic. He doesn't even present it as a yesod; it's just so elementary to him. It's just taken for granted that what's muskal is incumbent upon a person even if one doesn't receive an explicit tzivui from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The fact that with the seichel that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us we recognize that something is a chiyuv, so that that is its own mechayev. That is its own mechayev. In Chazal, lichora, you have this idea as well. There is the famous Gemara in Eruvin daf kuf. אמר רבי יוחנן אלמלא ניתנה תורה היינו למדים צניעות מחתול גזל מנמלה עריות מיונה ודרך ארץ מתרנגול.
Even if the Torah hadn't been given, we would have learned the middah of tzniyut from the natural world, from a cat. Rashi שאינו מטיל רעי בפני אדם ומכסה צואתו. When the cat is nitzrach le-nekuvav, it goes somewhere private and then it covers the tzo'ah. Gezel minamala ואין אחת גוזלת מאכל חברתה. Every ant gathers and puts away food for itself without taking from what another ant has stored away. Arayot miyona, hayona is monogamous, שאינו נזקק אלא לבת זוגו. So even if Torah hadn't been given, so we would have been expected to, A, recognize these qualities, recognize in the sense of recognize them for what they are, in the sense of appreciating, and B, we would have known or we would have been expected to know to emulate them, that that's the way we have to conduct ourselves as well. And you have it, let's say if you look, for instance, in the Chovot HaLevavot's Hakdama. So Chovot HaLevavot says that there's a big void in Torah literature that he came to address, that there are many, that there are sefarim dedicated to chovot ha'eivarim, but there are no sefarim which are devoted to Chovot HaLevavot. So he says, so maybe you'll say that there are no Chovot HaLevavot, everything is just chovot ha'eivarim, you put on tefillin, shatnez, lulav, maybe there are no Chovot HaLevavot of אהבה יראה אמונה ביטחון etcetera? So he says, no, I'll prove it to you. A, I'll quote you pesukim from Tanach. And B, I'll quote you ma'amarei Chazal. And C, I'll prove in svara how it's just compelling in svara that that has to be the case. What a person can know, can recognize and understand and appreciate in svara, that itself is a mechayev. Rav Nissim Gaon has in his Hakdama, printed in the beginning of Masechet Berachot, הקדמת רב נסים גאון לש"ס, so Rav Nissim Gaon says the same. He says any mitzvah which is תלויה באובנתא דשכלא... מן היום ברא אדם על הארץ. From the time Hakadosh Baruch Hu created Adam HaRishon every person is chayiv in mitzvos sichliyos, in any mitzvah which is dictated by sechel. We saw the Rambam in Perek Tes Hilchos Melachim about הדעת נוטה להם by the שבע מצוות בני נח. It's also a very interesting Rambam here at the end of Perek Yud Ches in Hilchos Sanhedrin. The Rambam's talking about the din of אין אדם משים עצמו רשע. So the Rambam writes here at the end of Perek Yud Ches: גזירת הכתוב היא שאין ממיתין בבית דין ולא מלקין את האדם בהודאת פיו אלא על פי שני עדים.
Right? A person will never get malkus or misa based on hoda'as piv. A person's chayiv mamon, אשר יאמר כי הוא זה, a person's chayiv mamon based on hoda'as piv, but malkus or misa he's not. וזה שהרג יהושע עכן, when Ochan confesses, ve-Dovid le-ger amaleiki who says that he killed Shaul behoda'as pihem. Says the Rambam, hora'as sha'ah hayasa, or alternatively din malchus hayah. Both Yehoshua and Dovid were melachim, so they did it midin that the melech has that discretionary authority to give misa. אבל הסנהדרין אין ממיתין ולא מלקין המודה בעבירה, שמא נטרפה דעתו בדבר זה, שמא מן העמלין מרי נפש המחכים למות, שהרי שהן תוקעין החרבות בבטנם ומשליכין עצמן מעל הגגות, כך זה יבוא ויאמר דבר שלא עשה כדי שייהרג.
Rachmana litzlan, you hear such cases of someone who's rachmana litzlan suicidal, so he puts himself in a position that he should get killed. He'll do something that will elicit a response that the police have to fire. And it's a way of rachmana litzlan of acting on a suicidal impulse, on a suicidal wish, rachmana litzlan. שמא מן העמלין מרי נפש המחכים למות, שהן תוקעין החרבות בבטנם,
they thrust the swords into their stomachs, or משליכין עצמן מעל הגגות, rachmana litzlan, כך זה יבוא ויאמר דבר שלא עשה כדי שייהרג. So the Rambam's giving us a sevara why you can't believe him. If the guy says I was mechallel Shabbos, the guy says I did this, I did that, so why don't you believe him? The Rambam says because there is reason for him not to be telling the truth. It could be rachmana litzlan that he's שמא מן העמלין מרי נפש המחכים למות. Then the Rambam says וכללו של דבר גזירת מלך היא. So the Rambam begins by saying geziras hakasuv hi, גזירת הכתוב היא שאין ממיתין בבית דין ולא מלקין את האדם בהודאת פיו.
It's geziras hakasuv hi. And the Rambam finishes by saying geziras melech hi. So why does he give you the sevara in between? The point of geziras melech hi is don't think that, I don't know, don't think if you make a psychological assessment and the person doesn't have any suicidal impulse, that then the din doesn't... No, then it's geziras hakasuv hi. It's geziras hakasuv hi. Okay, so it's geziras hakasuv hi. So why the sevara? Why did the Rambam have in between... the first one in the subject is geziras hakasuv hi and the last one in the subject is וכללו של דבר גזירת מלך היא? So why the intervening words? So I didn't hear this, but my brother Hashem yikom damo told me from the Rav in the name of his father that he said the nafka mina is for bnei Noach. That if it's only geziras hakasuv hi, only in quotation marks, if it's only geziras hakasuv hi, so then the din will be noheig only in בית דין של ישראל, only when you're dan a Yisrael. But if there's a sevara, so then again the same way sevara is a mechayev for issur gezel, and sevara is a mechayev to act. that you have to take this possibility into account and that you wouldn't give misa על פי הודאת פיו. So that's what the Rambam is saying: כל שדבר גזירת הכתוב מהימני within the ma'aracha of din Yisroel, so never mind the svara, it's just an absolute din which has no exception in terms of the din. Again, ha-rasha is not an exception built into the din, it's an overrider as it were. So you see here also reflection of the Rambam also subscribing to that again what we had explicitly in Hilchos Melachim, so you see here implicitly. And that's why the Rambam is telling us, you know, it's gezeiras hakasuv, that's the first and final word, but you should know it's also svara in many cases. A nafka mina being for bnei Noach. The Chinuch talks about this question, not from these categories, but the Chinuch I think raises the question of whether אין אדם משים עצמו רשע in terms of misa applies to bnei Noach. Not exactly in these terms, but sort of מענין לענין באותו ענין. Not mamish the same. It's important not to blur. But מענין לענין באותו ענין. So there is a famous question that the acharonim ask. So the authority for Chazal to be mesaken, let's say like the Rambam, all dinim de-rabonon comes from lo sasur. Now, according to the Ba'alei HaTosafos, this is true of all de-rabonons, excuse me, of all mitzvos, according to the Rambam it's true of some, but the chiyuv chinuch that a katan who higia le-chinuch has to be mkayem mitzvos, that that chiyuv is muttal al ha-katan. It's not only מוטל על האב לחנכו, but mi-de-rabonon the katan is a mishubad le-davar. So the Ba'alei HaTosafos say, the Rambam also thinks that under certain circumstances a katan could be motzi a gadol in Birkas HaMazon. Okay, so Tosafos stipulates that the katan ate kdei svia and the gadol only ate ke-zayis. And for the Rambam, even if the gadol ate kdei svia, you can also do it. But either way, the point is that the katan mi-de-rabonon is a mishubad le-davar. That when Chazal imposed the chiyuv chinuch, it's not exclusively al ha-av. It certainly is al ha-av as well, but that's less man de-palig. The question which is nidon in the rishonim is whether the chiyuv chinuch is also al ha-ben. So again, many rishonim, the Ba'alei HaTosafos, the Rambam hold that yes, according to Ba'alei HaTosafos, every chiyuv chinuch, according to the Rambam, some chiyuvim of chinuch, it's also al ha-ben. So the question which is raised, the classic question is, but how does that work? If the katan's not metzuve min ha-Torah in lo sasur, so how is he bound by a de-rabonon? I mean, meila for a gadol, so a gadol is, so we're metzuve in lo sasur. We're metzuve in lo sasur, so we're metzuve to recognize the authority that the Torah delegate to Chazal to make dinim de-rabonon. So that's how a then, that's how we incur a chiyuv de-rabonon. But if you're not bi-khlal lo sasur, same question as you have certain dinim de-rabonon that affect non-Jews. It's the same shaila. So Rav Shlomo Zalman has in, again he's not the first one to talk about this, but he has in Minchas Shlomo, I think it's in perek bais. He says that once Chazal are megale that this is the right thing, so then a person is mchuyav to do the right thing. You don't need lo sasur. That once Chazal say that, and again the truth is even without Chazal saying it, we should recognize, maybe you're not going to put the switch and that... That when a child becomes twelve or thirteen, that all of a sudden, the child's gonna know everything they need to know and change all their habits, obviously you need a hachana. And once, okay, so would we have known on our own that z'hirus is also svara? I don't know, maybe yes, maybe no. So let's say once Chazal revealed to us that that is the case, so the katan doesn't need a mechayev of laasosa. He has this mechayev of netzirut machashavos. That that's the mechayev that he has to abide by by dinim d'rabbanan. All this assumes, you know, אלוקים עשה את האדם ישר. It assumes that the sevara hasn't been corrupted. Obviously, when people come up with sevaros which are a product of ivut hasechel, so that's not what we're talking about. But as long as it's, you know, bechinas אלוקים עשה את האדם ישר, so then the sevara is a mechayev. You have it in many other places in the Rambam as well. And the code word, as it were, in the Rambam is a word that, again, we use it differently but the Rambam often has his as meaning associated with it. The Rambam in several places uses a lashon of what's raui to do, what's eino raui to do. So we think raui means, you know, pas and pas nisht, it's appropriate, it's inappropriate. But the Rambam clearly means more than that. Maybe just to give one or two examples. So in Hilchos Avodah Zarah, the Rambam writes that after Avraham Avinu discovered Hakadosh Baruch Hu and he begins to disseminate the belief in Hashem Echad, v'shiber es hatzelamim, right, the famous midrash. ושיבר את הצלמים והתחיל להודיע לעם, so now listen to this lashon, שאין ראוי לעבוד אלא לאלוקי העולם. Raui obviously doesn't mean appropriate, it's not, you know, it's a good thing, it's only a good thing to be oved Hashem, it's not such a good thing v'lo l'avodas kochavim, v'lo raui, פרק א הלכה ג in Avodah Zarah. ולא ראוי ולא ראוי להשתחוות להם ולהקריב ולנסך וראוי לאבד ולשבר כל הצורות.
So it's quite clear that each of these three instances of raui don't mean, you know, pas, it's a good thing to do, it's a good thing to do. No, it means raui means something which is מוכח ומוכרח מתוך הסברא. That's what it means. And you have several other instances in Rambam where that's clear as well. It means what's מוכח ומוכרח מתוך הסברא. And that's what Avraham Avinu is telling them, that this is self-evident. This is muchach u'muchrach that there's one God, so it's only only only He can be worshipped. You can't worship, if there's one Ribbono Shel Olam, then all avodah has to be directed towards Him. At the beginning of Hilchos Deos when the Rambam talks about going in the middah habeinonis, which is a mitzvos aseh d'oraisa, which is a chiyuv, he says שני קצוות הרחוקות זו מזו אינן דרך טובה ואין ראוי לו לאדם ללכת בהן.
And ein raui, it's assur. No, that's what it means. Ein raui means that that already mitoch hasevara it's muchach u'muchrach. So when there is also a tzivuy, does it make a difference? That's nicha when there's no tzivuy. Let's say nicha in the case of the way we're explaining the fact that the kattan incurs a chiyuv chinuch. Nicha in terms of שבע מצוות בני נח that ignorance is not a defense, because it's a mitzvah muskeles. So nicha there perhaps a nafka mina. But let's say when you have a mitzvah and the person knows about the mitzvah, is there a nafka mina whether it's also something which is מוכח ומוכרח מתוך הסברא or if it's not, if it's something that we only know because of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's tzivuy? So lechora, we mentioned yesterday I think in the Rambam in perek vav of shemonah perakim when the Rambam talks about which is greater, the chasid mitivo or kovesh es yitzro? So that's one nafka mina, it's not the only nafka mina. But that's one nafka mina that whatever again is something which is intuitive and is natural, so then a person is supposed to be doing it naturally, he's not supposed to be doing it in a way that he's kovesh es yitzro. He's supposed to be doing it naturally. Ma she'ein kein something which isn't מוכח ומוכרח מתוך הסברא, that's something on the contrary that a person is being machnia himself to the tzivuy and that's what the Rambam says that for those mitzvos, the kovesh es yitzro is greater. So that's one nafka mina, maybe we'll talk about others, but we'll stop here.