Q&A: Slandering him by saying he does disgusting commandments because I hate him?
Slandering him by saying he does disgusting commandments because I hate him?
Question
In the two loaves discussion in Menachot 99b:
The goat of Yom Kippur that happened to fall on Friday
was eaten on Friday night, the Sabbath.
But cooking is forbidden.
Who would eat raw meat?
The Mishnah says that the Babylonians did this because they were broad-minded, and the Talmud reveals that they were actually Alexandrians and not Babylonians.
So why call them Babylonians? Because people hated them, so they pinned on them this disgusting commandment-practice, which looks like gluttony. And Tosafot says that because they got used to it, they would do this in other years too, even when it did not fall on Friday, because they had become accustomed to it.
And in Yoma 66b: all frivolous people and those who act improperly are labeled as Babylonians. And why? Because people hate them.
Can I infer from this:
1.
That if I hate a community that did not ascend to the Land of Israel (the Babylonians), it is permitted for me to accuse them of doing disgusting commandments and matters of frivolity and improper behavior?
2.
That there is no commandment on the person to eat the goat, but rather a commandment in the object-state that the goat be eaten,
and any eating not in the normal manner, for which one does not fulfill one’s obligation, or specifically the measure of an olive-bulk, applies only to a commandment on the person, like matzah or forbidden foods; but a commandment in the object-state that it be eaten, like the goat or the showbread, even if it is less central, is still a commandment, and even if eaten abnormally, because in the end it was eaten?
(I think maybe the Minchat Asher hints in this direction.)
Answer
1. You are not falsely accusing them. The Babylonians used to behave in frivolous and inappropriate ways, and therefore anyone who behaved that way was called a Babylonian. That is not slander but simply a label. And the proof is that Rabbi Yosei there in Yoma was satisfied. He understood that this was not an accusation, just a mere label.
2. In Mishneh LaMelekh, Foundations of the Torah 5:8, he was uncertain about this, and Rashash on the Menachot passage there brought a proof against him from our passage. But in Beit HaLevi, vol. 3, siman 51, section 3, he proved the opposite. However, the assumption that raw meat is like raw fat, which is not the normal way of eating, is not agreed upon by the later authorities (see the Chavruta edition on the Talmud in Menachot there, note 17).
There is an assumption throughout this whole discussion that eating the goat is an obligation, like eating sacrificial meat. Personally, I am not sure about that. In my opinion, it is only a permission and not an obligation. “It is eaten in the evening” means that in the evening it is permitted to eat it, not that there is a commandment to eat it. An explanation of the matter appears in my article on the sent-off goat: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/
Discussion on Answer
One Sephardi guy told me that in Kovetz Shiurim it appears several times that one does not say the blessing “Who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us” over commandments that are not incumbent on the person.
If so, when the Babylonians-Alexandrians recited “Who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning eating the offering,” that proves it is a commandment incumbent on the person.
And raw meat is not included in “not the normal way of eating,” because it is fit for ometz, as explained in siman 308.
*In siman 308
At least eating the offering raw really was an Alexandrian practice and not a Babylonian one.
And the Talmud admits that it is attaching a false charge to the Babylonians, and it was not them.
And Tosafot there says that this was not only on the conclusion of Yom Kippur that fell on Friday night, something statistical that happens once in seven years,
but that they had already gotten used to it, and that is how they would eat regularly.
In short, pretty disgusting.
And they just stick it on them…