Disputes – Lesson 1
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The dispute over laying on of hands on a Jewish holiday and the period of the pairs
- Hillel and Shammai, “dispute increased in Israel,” and the heavenly voice
- The idealization of dispute in tractate Hagigah
- Ethics of the Fathers: receiving and transmitting versus “he would say”
- A Torah created by human beings and the consciousness of innovation
- The scope of the Oral Torah, anachronism, and logical reasoning
- Yavneh, “Give me Yavneh and its sages,” and the connection to historical literature
- The Oven of Achnai, “It is not in heaven,” and the concept of authority
- Rabban Gamliel, “his inside should match his outside,” and the increase of benches
- The danger of dismantling the tradition, “they killed one another,” and the revolution in decision-making
- Tractate Eduyot and closing unresolved disputes
Summary
General Overview
The text presents dispute as a historical and methodological phenomenon that intensifies from the period of the pairs until Yavneh, and describes a tension between a “traditionalist” view of Torah as something received and transmitted, and a view in which Torah develops through human discussion and decision. It presents the dispute over laying on of hands on a Jewish holiday in the Mishnah in Hagigah as an archetype of an ongoing dispute, contrasts Maimonides’ formulation about “when the disciples of Hillel and Shammai increased, who had not served their teachers sufficiently” with the idealization of multiple opinions in the Talmud in Hagigah, and suggests that the revolution of Yavneh was meant to deal with the danger of the tradition’s disintegration when disputes could no longer be resolved solely through authority and transmission. It interprets key stories such as the Oven of Achnai, the removal of Rabban Gamliel, and the multiplication of benches as a struggle over the very model of decision-making and authority, and connects tractate Eduyot to a project of closing disputes that had remained open.
The Dispute Over Laying on of Hands on a Jewish Holiday and the Period of the Pairs
The Mishnah in Hagigah describes a chain of pairs in which each generation disagreed on the question of whether to lay hands on a Jewish holiday, from Yose ben Yo’ezer and Yose ben Yohanan to Shammai and Hillel, within a leadership structure of nasi and head of the religious court in the Sanhedrin. Rashi writes regarding Yose ben Yo’ezer that this was “the first dispute that existed among the sages of Israel,” and the speaker suggests that the meaning is the first dispute that continued over time and was not decided in a way that ended the discussion for future generations. The text raises the difficulty of how a dispute could be “undecided” if in practice action had to be taken on every Jewish holiday, and suggests possibilities such as a practical ruling that did not create a binding standard, or leaving the topic open because of the absence of a clear majority, so that the discussion kept resurfacing in each generation.
Hillel and Shammai, “Dispute Increased in Israel,” and the Heavenly Voice
Maimonides describes that “when the disciples of Hillel and Shammai increased, who had not served their teachers sufficiently, dispute increased in Israel,” and the wording comes across as a historical pathology requiring a response. The text describes a transition from local disputes to the creation of “houses” that are a coherent set of positions, so that dispute becomes two broad halakhic systems. It links this to the Talmud in Eruvin about a heavenly voice that declared, “These and those are the words of the living God,” and raises the question of “It is not in heaven,” suggesting that when the dispute concerns the very methods of decision-making, a kind of knot is created that requires an external resolution.
The Idealization of Dispute in tractate Hagigah
The Talmud in Hagigah expounds: “The words of the wise are like goads and like planted nails… masters of assemblies, all given by one shepherd,” and presents multiplicity of opinions as an internal feature of Torah: “These declare impure and these declare pure… these forbid and these permit,” and yet “all were given by one shepherd.” The text emphasizes that the conclusion is a call to hear both positions and acquire “an understanding heart,” and that words of Torah “bear fruit and multiply” like a plant. It places the Talmud in the period of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua in the generation of Yavneh, when shortly after the intensification of the disputes between Hillel and Shammai, a positive tone appears that grants dispute legitimacy and even value.
Ethics of the Fathers: Receiving and Transmitting Versus “He Would Say”
Ethics of the Fathers first describes a chain: “Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it…,” and later shifts to the language of “he would say,” which the text identifies as a move from the consciousness of a “hollow conduit” to a Torah identified with a specific person. It points out that the pairs still appear within the language of “they received from them,” but after them the language changes, and in the second chapter there is a brief “flash” in which it says, “Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai,” and then his students are listed without the formula “they received from him.” The text suggests that the Mishnah reflects a process in which at first Torah is perceived as transmission without personal creation, while later there emerges an awareness that sages add Torah of their own, which prepares the ground for dispute.
A Torah Created by Human Beings and the Consciousness of Innovation
The text presents the appearance of the words of the sages as being attributed to human beings as a revolution that is difficult to digest within a conception of divine Torah that obligates, and suggests that in that period there were struggles around this even if they are not documented. It formulates a shift from the consciousness of innocent interpretation of verses to a consciousness of creation, up to the idea of “his own Torah,” attributed to Rabbi Akiva through the verse “and in his Torah he meditates day and night.” It argues that statements such as “its general principles and details were all from Sinai” are sometimes normative statements that instruct how to relate to the words of the sages as though they were given at Sinai, even when on the historical level it is clear that there is human creation and dispute.
The Scope of the Oral Torah, Anachronism, and Logical Reasoning
The text warns against anachronism and describes the possibility that at an early stage the Oral Torah was perceived as limited and tightly attached to the verses, and that disputes were resolved quickly by clarifying “what was transmitted,” whereas later the realm of logical reasoning and innovation expanded. It brings an example from the dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad regarding reciting the Shema in any language: Maimonides requires careful pronunciation of the letters, and the Raavad objects that every language is an interpretation and who can be exact with his own interpretation, in order to demonstrate that interpretation itself introduces a human element. It integrates the discussion of logical reasoning through the Tzelach and the Pnei Yehoshua, with the position presented being that reasoning can be innovative and have the status of Torah-level law in a principled sense even if it is not necessarily a basis for punishment, and connects this to the understanding that the Oral Torah is not merely a different “medium” but a fundamental change in relation to authority and creation.
Yavneh, “Give Me Yavneh and Its Sages,” and the Connection to Historical Literature
Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is described as asking, “Give me Yavneh and its sages,” and the text presents Yavneh as a turning point at which it became necessary to reformulate how Torah is decided under conditions of multiple disputes. It describes reading a book by Lion Feuchtwanger about the Jewish war as a historical novel that illustrates that the Talmudic figures were people with motives and conflicts, and suggests that literary imagination helps reconstruct the “piece of life” behind the texts.
The Oven of Achnai, “It Is Not in Heaven,” and the Concept of Authority
The story of the Oven of Achnai is presented as a confrontation between Rabbi Eliezer and the sages, in which Rabbi Eliezer brings miraculous proofs (“let this carob tree prove it,” “let the stream prove it,” “let the walls of the study hall prove it”), and finally a heavenly voice declares that “Jewish law follows him everywhere,” while Rabbi Yehoshua responds, “It is not in heaven… incline after the majority.” The text interprets Rabbi Eliezer’s move to mystical proofs as a claim about the authority of the speaker rather than the content of the discussion, based on his image as “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop” and as one who “never said anything he did not hear from his teacher.” It presents Rabbi Yehoshua as articulating a revolution in which the mandate passes to human beings and decision is determined through rules of discussion and majority, even against heavenly “intervention,” and identifies in this a fundamental dispute about the nature of Torah in a time of multiple opinions.
Rabban Gamliel, “His Inside Should Match His Outside,” and the Increase of Benches
The text parallels Rabban Gamliel’s position to that of Rabbi Eliezer in that both emphasize authority and transmission, and describes how Rabban Gamliel places a guard at the entrance to the study hall and says, “Anyone whose inside is not like his outside may not enter,” based on a view that the main thing is the reliability of the conduit that transmits the tradition. It describes Rabban Gamliel’s removal and the increase of benches in the study hall as symbolizing a transition to examining arguments on their own merits rather than testing the worthiness of the person, so that even someone “whose inside is not like his outside” can participate if he offers reasons that can be examined. The text presents the removal of Rabban Gamliel and the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer as steps directed against a traditional elitism that endangered the ability to decide matters in a period of ongoing disputes.
The Danger of Dismantling the Tradition, “They Killed One Another,” and the Revolution in Decision-Making
The text describes how the phenomenon of the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai created fear that Torah was “reaching the end of its road,” because two systems of tradition had emerged that could not be reconciled according to the model of clarifying “who received correctly,” and thus “there is no way to talk,” and the matter deteriorates into sharp conflict up to the description that “they killed one another.” It presents the struggles at Yavneh as a necessary response to the danger of disintegration: anyone unwilling to engage in give-and-take and hear other arguments “brings destruction upon the Torah,” because an authority-based model of “the truth is with me because I received it” cannot stabilize a system in which competing traditions already exist. The text argues that the disputes about the oven, the meal offering, and Yom Kippur are a cover for the confrontation over the question “what is Torah” and how one decides when tradition alone is no longer enough.
tractate Eduyot and Closing Unresolved Disputes
The text connects the appointment of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah to the phrase “on that day” when “tractate Eduyot was taught,” and interprets tractate Eduyot as a collection of testimonies intended to gather disputes and matters that had not been decided in the previous period. It presents the tractate as a project of bringing “the two Torahs” into the study hall in order to open discussion, decide through give-and-take and voting, and close what had remained stuck under the model of tradition. It describes this period as an age of rupture that led to a methodological revolution: a transition from decision based on the authority of the speaker and transmission to decision based on discussion and rules of decision that allow Torah to continue existing under conditions of multiple disputes.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so what I sent over—we’re going to talk a bit about disputes, about their meaning, about the history, how they’re handled, what stands behind them. I’ll start maybe with a certain historical angle, with the development of dispute. There’s a Mishnah in Hagigah. The Mishnah says: Yose ben Yo’ezer says not to lay hands, or Yosef ben Yo’ezer says not to lay hands, Yosef ben Yohanan says to lay hands. Yehoshua ben Perahyah says not to lay hands, Nittai the Arbelite says to lay hands. Yehudah ben Tabbai says not to lay hands, Shimon ben Shetah says to lay hands, Shemaya says to lay hands, Avtalyon says not to lay hands. Hillel and Menachem did not disagree; Menachem left and Shammai entered. Shammai says not to lay hands, Hillel says to lay hands. The nasi’im were first, and second to them was the head of the religious court. Meaning, this is the period of the pairs. Basically all the pairs are mentioned here. The pairs are a duo of nasi and head of the religious court who at that time stand at the top of the hierarchy. This is a period without a king, at least not a king in the full sense, maybe in a certain period there were Hasmonean kings there, but not a king in the full sense. And there’s some ongoing dispute here about laying on of hands on a Jewish holiday, laying hands on sacrifices on a Jewish holiday. So Rashi here writes: Yosef ben Yo’ezer says not to lay hands on a Jewish holiday, and this is the first dispute that existed among the sages of Israel. So Rashi says this was the first dispute in the world of the Oral Torah. And afterward Yehoshua ben Perahyah—that is, all of them generation after generation—in other words, basically all the generations of the pairs disagreed on the same dispute. This is a dispute that didn’t end. Now, honestly, it’s not likely that there were no other disputes besides this until then. We know the personalities involved; it’s even harder to believe. Even with Moses our teacher there was a dispute with Korah. In any case, I think part of the point is the persistence of the dispute, and that’s why the Mishnah here also describes that it passed through all the pairs. Meaning, it wasn’t decided. Now, “pairs” means this was a period when there was a Sanhedrin. Pairs means head of the religious court—meaning nasi and head of the religious court of the Sanhedrin. So this dispute could in fact have been brought before the Sanhedrin, put to a vote, and decided. It’s not clear to me why—I haven’t looked enough—but I don’t know of a clear treatment of this issue, why it really wasn’t decided. But I think maybe what Rashi means here is that this was the first dispute that persisted. Meaning, that it wasn’t decided—not the first time two people ever had a difference of opinion. That’s not likely. Rather, there’s some dispute here that apparently went on and on and they didn’t manage to decide it despite the halakhic institutions that existed then, meaning the Sanhedrin and following the majority.
[Speaker B] I don’t understand what it means that it wasn’t decided. It was decided—after all, a holiday sacrifice would come. So in that generation of Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzeredah, did they lay hands or not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. They decided—what do you mean? Who said they decided?
[Speaker B] Wait, this—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One says yes, one says no.
[Speaker B] Wait, but they did something in that generation. Either they laid hands or they didn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, “in that generation”? Whoever was his student laid hands, and whoever was his student didn’t lay hands. How do you know they did one uniform thing? In Rabbi Yose’s place they ate chicken with milk, so what? Even though there was already a decree against chicken with milk. Fine, but he didn’t accept it.
[Speaker B] Are we talking about an individual sacrifice or a communal sacrifice?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think an individual sacrifice. No? Ah, but actually an individual sacrifice isn’t brought on a Jewish holiday, right.
[Speaker B] It’s a communal sacrifice. For sure they decided—what do you mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. The fact is that it’s not brought here. It’s not brought.
[Speaker B] What do you mean? Even if they decided that in that generation it should be yes, to lay hands—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or not to lay hands. If they decided, then the dispute doesn’t arise again, so then they decided it. It wasn’t decided! Not true. What, did every pair suddenly have the dispute wake up again, and then once again decide it?
[Speaker B] This one is his student and that one is his student. Fine, so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, this one is his student and that one is his student? But the Sanhedrin decided.
[Speaker B] Suppose now it was the period of the pairs and they decided, okay, so what? Is someone who held differently forbidden to remain with his opinion?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let him remain with his opinion—
[Speaker B] But Jewish law is what determines things. Wait—so he remains with his opinion and passes it on to his student. Okay, so what? Then it gets to the next generation and his student raises the question in court and says, wait, true, fifty years ago we ruled this way, but… wait, I want to raise it for discussion because I think maybe otherwise.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So it still—so it still means—
[Speaker B] that basically it wasn’t decided.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it continued. Yes, but in every generation it was decided.
[Speaker B] Fine, so maybe. I don’t know that; I have no way of knowing. They did something, and still every time it came up again. Fine, but they did something, not that they did nothing. What did they do? It doesn’t say. What—what does it mean they did?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One time they asked that one and acted that way, one time they asked the other one and acted that way. I don’t know. I don’t know what they did.
[Speaker B] It’s a communal sacrifice—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] then also a communal sacrifice. So what? Also a communal sacrifice. Every Jewish holiday has holiday additional offerings and all kinds of things, so what do you do? By the way, there’s also the festival offering, which is an individual offering on a Jewish holiday; there are also individual sacrifices. In any case, what Rashi writes here, that this was the first dispute—maybe he means to say that this was the first dispute that wasn’t decided. In a later period, after all, the last pair was exactly when Menachem left and Shammai entered. The final pair was Hillel and Shammai, and the phenomenon of dispute had already expanded and there were many disputes between Hillel and Shammai and Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. And there too these were disputes that were not decided. That’s why Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai are basically perceived as the source of disputes.
[Speaker D] I can’t picture this “they weren’t decided.” If it was brought to the Sanhedrin, then what? Then it’s over. There was a discussion and people raised their hands for or against.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Regarding, first of all, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, it’s easier to understand. Here there are even some references—I think I mentioned this once, we’ll come back to it—that there too there was an argument about what to do in the Sanhedrin, so it couldn’t be decided in the Sanhedrin. The question was whether we follow the majority in wisdom or the majority in number, and then also on—
[Speaker E] that too has to be decided—what—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but there’s no way to decide that. And then there’s no problem that it continues. What will the majority in wisdom say? That we follow the majority in wisdom. And the majority in number will say that we follow the majority in number. How will you decide? Once the question touches on the methods of decision themselves, then it’s a knot with no way out. So regarding Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel you can still understand it, but here these aren’t factions; it looks like the earlier pairs.
[Speaker D] I just can’t picture in my head what happened. I agree about the fact; I’m just trying to imagine in my head—either it was brought to the Sanhedrin or it wasn’t brought to the Sanhedrin. Are there no other options? Right? Because whoever didn’t do what they said is already in trouble.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could also be that there are situations in which—and maybe this is another point we’ll deal with later—the value of deciding a dispute. Meaning, the assumption is that every dispute has to be decided, and therefore when there’s a Sanhedrin everything is fine. Only now we have a problem because there’s no Sanhedrin. There may be things that the Sanhedrin decides not to decide, not to discuss. Could be, I don’t know. Here of course, and especially if it’s a communal sacrifice, in the end a decision still has to be made about what to do. But maybe once you see that this is really a fundamental dispute and there is no clear majority for either side—the fact is that it can swing back and forth and come up again in the next generation, meaning they saw there was no clear-cut decision there—maybe they left it open and didn’t decide it.
[Speaker B] But they did something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so each time they did what they did based on whichever authority was asked, without establishing a fixed standard of what is always done. I don’t know, there could be many possibilities. So basically we have documentation here of some ongoing dispute, and Rashi says this was the first dispute. Maimonides, following several rabbinic sources, already says that when the disciples of Hillel and Shammai increased, who had not served their teachers sufficiently, dispute increased in Israel. Meaning, then many disputes arose. And again, he describes some historical stage here in which a more significant kind of dispute begins to form, and you have to remember the connection to what we have here. Hillel and Shammai are the last pair; we’re really talking here about a dispute that arose with the first pair, continued through all the pairs, and with Hillel and Shammai it already starts to expand and becomes many disputes in many areas between two houses, which is a new phenomenon. Because usually disputes—even if there were any, and I assume there were—were unrelated. Meaning, maybe on this question you align with him, and on another question you actually think like someone else. Meaning, it doesn’t have to be that “houses” are formed here with a whole basket of halakhic worldviews that form one package—meaning, all these go in one direction on all questions, and those go in another direction on all questions. That’s already the meaning of “houses.” Here there is some broader dispute, and it happens at the end of the period of the pairs, meaning with the last pair and onward. So maybe here too is what in some way also brought that period to an end. But in any case this is some milestone in the development of the concept of dispute. And the question that arises here is: first, historically, how did this happen, what existed before that? Second, how should we relate to this phenomenon? What do you do with it? Because from Maimonides’ wording it sounds like this is a problem, a pathology that developed. Yes—when the disciples of Hillel and Shammai increased who had not served sufficiently, a problem arose. Meaning, there’s some problem here that has to be dealt with. In other places, though, and in Hagigah too in fact, it seems that the concept of dispute is treated very positively.
[Speaker B] In the Gemara, in Maimonides’ language, I think Rashi sounds like the plain meaning—that there really weren’t other disputes, that this was the first dispute.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but I don’t assume—again—that there were no differences of opinion between people. There was no “dispute” in the sense that it was perpetuated, it remained over time, it wasn’t decided. I assume that’s the intention. It’s hard for me to believe that people sat there over halakhic topics and didn’t argue, everything was agreed on by everyone, and then suddenly some new phenomenon started to arise. You know, in physics—or in science generally—phenomena are always continuous, meaning there isn’t a phase transition. A phase transition is a fiction—in a finite system there isn’t really such a thing. Only in an infinite system is there a true phase transition. In a regular, normal system, it’s always continuous in some way. Things don’t happen out of nowhere. The Gemara here in Hagigah on page 3 addresses this. The Gemara expounds the verses: “The words of the wise are like goads and like planted nails, masters of assemblies, all given by one shepherd.” Why were words of Torah compared to a goad? To tell you: just as a goad directs the cow to its furrows to bring life to the world, so too words of Torah direct those who study them from paths of death to paths of life. Never mind, I’m skipping a bit. The text says “planted.” Just as a plant bears fruit and multiplies, so too words of Torah… Actually, it’s worth reading what comes before too. If a goad is movable, then perhaps words of Torah are movable—meaning flexible—therefore the verse says “nails.” Fixed like a nail, doesn’t move. The Gemara says: if so, just as a nail diminishes and does not increase, perhaps words of Torah diminish and do not increase? Therefore the verse says “planted.” Just as a plant bears fruit and multiplies, so too words of Torah bear fruit and multiply. Torah develops. “Masters of assemblies”—yes, that’s the continuation of the verse: “The words of the wise are like goads and like planted nails, masters of assemblies, all given by one shepherd.” What are “masters of assemblies”? These are Torah scholars who sit in many groups and engage in Torah. These declare impure and these declare pure, these forbid and these permit, these disqualify and these validate. Lest a person say: how, then, can I study Torah from now on? The verse says: all were given by one shepherd. One God gave them, one provider said them, from the mouth of the Master of all deeds, blessed be He, as it is written: “And God spoke all these words.” So you too should make your ear like a funnel and acquire for yourself an understanding heart to hear the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure, the words of those who forbid and the words of those who permit, the words of those who disqualify and the words of those who validate. So in short, there is a kind of treatment here that idealizes dispute. Meaning, on the contrary, dispute is something positive.
[Speaker C] Yes, like we said before, Maimonides is basically more or less quoting the Jerusalem Talmud.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right. I said that’s the source of the Gemara, to a certain extent—
[Speaker C] It’s a word-for-word quotation. Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And still, here we really do see a positive treatment. Meaning, there is dispute, and everyone says his view, and listen to everyone, and words of Torah bear fruit and multiply. It’s hard to miss the positive connotation in this Gemara. Now here again I want to anchor this—first of all, where is this located historically? This takes place in the period of Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer, meaning the second generation of Yavneh, you could say. Hillel and Shammai are the end of the pairs, meaning two generations earlier. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was a student of Hillel and Shammai, and the generation after him is Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel. So basically we’re talking about Hillel and Shammai as the formation of dispute, and when their students had not served sufficiently, dispute arose. Two generations—two generations after the beginning of that formation, suddenly there are new tones here, meaning some approach that idealizes dispute. Dispute is positive, and it bears fruit and multiplies, and hear all the opinions and listen carefully, and that’s how Torah bears fruit and multiplies, and all kinds of statements of this type—those who declare impure and those who declare pure—and nobody is upset by it and everything is wonderful. What happened, in a fairly precise historical sense? What happened between the end of the period of the pairs and the beginning of the period of Yavneh? Meaning, something happened there that perhaps caused—again, it could just be a contradiction between sugyot, it could be different approaches of sages—but it seems to me that I can show that something happened in that period, in that historical period, that changed the attitude toward disputes. And perhaps in fact we aren’t used to this kind of attitude in the words of the sages. The sages usually operate anachronistically, meaning that from their perspective, what existed in their own time always existed. So when it says “incline after the majority,” then obviously you go and take a vote and follow the majority. And I’m not at all sure that was always the case. It’s not clear to me. It’s entirely possible that something like that came into being somewhere along the course of history, and perhaps—or at least some part of it, it seems to me—came into being in this period. Now I want to focus the lens a bit on this period. In Ethics of the Fathers there is a description of the transmission of Torah, and it says this: “Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: be deliberate in judgment, raise up many students, and make a fence around the Torah. Shimon the Righteous was among the remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly. He would say: the world stands on three things—on Torah, on the service, and on acts of kindness. Antigonus of Sokho received from Shimon the Righteous and said all kinds of things too. Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzeredah and Yose ben Yohanan of Jerusalem received from them.” That’s already the first pair we talked about here; this is where dispute already begins to emerge. After that the pairs continue. Yose ben Yohanan of Jerusalem says such-and-such.
[Speaker B] Yehoshua—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] ben Perahyah and Nittai the Arbelite received from them; they too say various things. Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetah received from them. Shemaya and Avtalyon received from them—yes, that’s another pair. Hillel and Shammai received from them and also said various things. Rabban Gamliel would say. Not “received from them.” Rabban Gamliel would say, after Hillel and Shammai. Okay? And from there on there is no “received from them.” “And his son Shimon would say”—after Rabban Gamliel, the next one is his son Shimon. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: on three things the world stands—that’s probably Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel the second. They skipped one Rabban Gamliel, and that’s it—now each one simply says. Not “received from them,” just “says.” In the second chapter Rabbi says—this is already the end of the dynasty of Rabban Gamliel and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and so on. Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says: “he would say,” and then various things. They go back to Hillel: “Do not separate yourself from the community.” Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, Mishnah 9 in chapter 2: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. Suddenly we’re back. He would say: if you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself, for that is what you were created for. Now in terms of chronology, you have to remember: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai—that’s jumping far back again. We already got to Rabbi and Rabbi’s son, which is much later. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the first of the tannaim—in other words, what’s called the tannaim comes after the pairs; this is the period of Yavneh. So Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was the first of the tannaim, he received from Hillel and Shammai, he concluded the period of the pairs. So that is still “received.” But this Mishnah comes after eight mishnayot in chapter 2 and several mishnayot in chapter 1 that already speak about Rabbi and Rabban Gamliel and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel the second and so on. Here too it says “received.” Only suddenly they go back to the fact that he received—this kind of flash. And his five students are listed: Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkanos, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah—Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, yes, those two—Rabbi Yose the Priest, Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel, and Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh. And it doesn’t say that they received from him. They were his students, fine, they learned with him; students always learned with him. This really is that flash. That flash of “received” pops up once, and even that is anachronistic, because it appears but speaks about a period much earlier. Historically, the receiving probably ended from Hillel and Shammai to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, and that’s it. From then onward it is no longer described in the language of the Mishnah as receiving and transmitting, but rather as “he said,” “they studied with him,” “he was his student,” “he was his son.” Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Shimon are father and son, and that’s all. There’s no more “received and transmitted.” That ends with Hillel and Shammai who transmitted to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. Now again I’m locating the historical period—this is the period we’re talking about here, exactly this period. Meaning Hillel and Shammai were the beginning of the formation of dispute, right? There’s still something there where Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai receives from both of them. But notice—from both of them he receives. Meaning somehow he belongs to both sides of that dispute. But there the dispute is already being waged between those two houses, and from then on there is no more “receiving.” They don’t receive anymore. More than that—and I once heard this from someone, I think from Moshe Shapira, of blessed memory, who has already passed away—the description at the beginning of Ethics of the Fathers too: “Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly.” “They said three things”—the Men of the Great Assembly—but it’s still anonymous, some kind of thing that came out of the Men of the Great Assembly, where we’re talking about many dozens of people. Who said it? Did they say it in a choir? What is that? And afterward: “Shimon the Righteous was among the remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly. He would say.” Meaning, this is basically the first time there are words of Torah attributed to a person. That a person basically said words of Torah and they join Torah—meaning, even though they come from a person, they are attributed to him. Again, it seems there is some process here in which at first the Mishnah describes a process where the receiver and transmitter are a hollow conduit. Meaning, there is receiving and transmitting, like a relay race. You receive from Sinai, pass it to your student, your student receives from you, passes it to his student, and so on. You add nothing of your own, you only pass it on. Again, this is a description which I am almost sure was not literally the reality, but still the Mishnah comes to convey guidelines, or how to look at this, even if it is not a precise and sharp description—meaning, not that there was no dispute and then there was dispute, or there were no human additions and then there were. Right now we’re not yet talking about dispute, but about human additions. Shimon the Righteous—or the Men of the Great Assembly, which is a somewhat collective thing—but Shimon the Righteous was the first named person who added things to Torah, and this is attributed to him, his name is attached to them. And from then on it continues already—now others too say things and it is attributed to them and so on. It seems to me that Shimon the Righteous—who is already among the remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly—we’re talking, I don’t know, maybe a hundred years before Hillel and Shammai, something like that, maybe even more, because there are five pairs, so probably more—there some formation begins, not of dispute yet, but of a Torah whose basis is in human beings. You understand that the next step is dispute. Meaning, if Torah is passed along in give-and-take through a hollow conduit, then dispute doesn’t arise. We’re simply transmitting to you what we received; there is nothing that is mine or yours. Where would dispute come from? At most maybe forgetting. But in principle there is no dispute here. You just have to clarify what the correct Torah is and pass it on. With Shimon the Righteous a phenomenon begins in which Torah is created by human beings, attributed to a person. Now, obviously not long after that disputes begin to arise. Shimon the Righteous was among the remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly; the first pair right after him—the two Yoses—that is the first dispute. Why? Because once Torah is created by human beings, different human beings create different Torah, and then dispute arises. After another four pairs you get to Hillel and Shammai—that’s already two houses, it’s already become a phenomenon, two different study halls, maybe even two different Torahs. And so I think you can see here in the Mishnah in Avot and in these passages in Hagigah a phenomenon that is like a fingerprint of the emergence of dispute, and it passes through the emergence of a Torah created by human beings. “Words of Torah bear fruit and multiply”—I’m reminding you of the Gemara in Hagigah—basically words of Torah are created by human beings, elements are added to Torah that are products of human beings, which on its face is something difficult to digest. In that period there were surely struggles over this—that is something hard to digest. You’re talking about Torah received from the Holy One, blessed be He, divine Torah, we are obligated by it, He said it. Suddenly a person comes along and says all kinds of things—okay, he said it, so what? Why does that enter the Torah texts? What is it doing there? Do you have recommendations? Write a little book of recommendations on the side—how to conduct yourself according to the recommendations of Shimon the Righteous, how to run your life, what is good to do and what less so—like Dale Carnegie, you know. Give recommendations. But what is that doing in Torah? That’s why this is no simple revolution. We today treat it as obvious, but we are sitting on the shoulders of those Jews. And I assume there was a pretty intense struggle around this, even though I don’t know of documentation for it. But I think the description in Ethics of the Fathers is aware of it. The description is very collective, very vague until Shimon the Righteous, and suddenly it moves to concrete things that people said, and then he said, and then he said. There are centuries—centuries—“Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly.” All of them said nothing? Only Shimon the Righteous “would say”? What did they say? I don’t know—maybe they didn’t “say” in the revolutionary sense of self-awareness. Because I assume they did say things, but the feeling about them was that they were only interpreters. Meaning, they were only explaining what we received from Moses our teacher; they didn’t add anything of their own. Now, there is no study hall without innovation—there always is, and every act of interpretation has some element that adds something. But the question is how you relate to it. Meaning, if everyone sees it as some kind of interpretation, then naturally it is seen as some kind of transmission from Moses our teacher, and that’s it—I added nothing of my own, I only explained what Moses our teacher said, that’s all. At some point an awareness is formed—and again, I’m saying, it’s not sharp, so I assume it existed earlier too—but at some point an awareness is formed: no, these are words of Torah that you created. Meaning, this is not just some innocent, natural interpretation of Moses our teacher; sometimes it’s not even an interpretation of anything. The things Shimon the Righteous says—“the world stands on three things: on Torah, on the service, and on acts of kindness”—okay, maybe for that you can bring some source, I don’t know. But after that: “Do not be like servants who serve the master in order to receive a reward,” and so on—where do you get that from? Do you have a verse for that? How do you know that? You have reasoning? Okay, so what? How does your reasoning become Torah? Meaning, there are things here that are said that maybe you can identify with them, maybe these are arguments you can accept, but they are arguments. Meaning, they are things that human beings created, and that gets added to Torah. So it’s no wonder that within very few generations—not immediately, okay, not very few generations, but right away—the dispute between the two Yoses is formed, immediately after Shimon the Righteous, very close by. And after another few decades or a hundred years or something like that, Hillel and Shammai and the two houses.
[Speaker F] What does it mean that this joins Torah? That it becomes Torah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—for example, meaning that it gets treated as binding, that it’s not—I don’t know, it’s not exactly Jewish law there so it’s hard to say whether it’s binding or not, but I assume it’s some expression of what happened in the halakhic world. Ethics of the Fathers doesn’t deal with Jewish law, but I assume that this process described here in Ethics of the Fathers—after all, it starts with “Moses received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua,” and the Torah he received includes Jewish law too. After that, all the things they said are things not connected to Jewish law.
[Speaker G] Jewish law usually is based on verses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker G] It is based on verses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not always. Logical reasoning—we talked about the Pnei Yehoshua, we once already talked about reasoning—no, people can add laws of their own, halakhot too. I talked about the Tzelach and the Pnei Yehoshua, where that dispute about reasoning comes in. The Tzelach argues that reasoning can only interpret, and then indeed reasoning is only interpretive reasoning. But the Pnei Yehoshua understands that even innovative reasoning has the force of Torah-level law. And I said that I think the Pnei Yehoshua is right on the principled level, that it has the status of Torah-level law even though you don’t punish on that basis. Meaning, it’s true that it isn’t considered Torah-level law in the sense that you have a warning explicitly from the Torah on which you can impose punishment, but in terms of status, reasoning is Torah-level law.
[Speaker B] What is called reasoning? What Shimon HaPakoli expounded—all the “ets” until he reached “the Lord your God shall you fear,” and then Rabbi Akiva really innovated, as his own Torah, meaning “et” comes to include Torah scholars. Because “his desire is in the Torah of the Lord, and in his Torah he meditates day and night”—at first it is “the Torah of the Lord,” and afterward “his Torah,” his own Torah. So the innovation of Rabbi Akiva is that Torah is constantly being renewed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s Rabbi Akiva’s innovation. Rabbi Akiva’s innovation is to derive it from the verse, “and in his Torah he meditates” — meaning, his own Torah. Rabbi Akiva, by the way, was one generation later, meaning after Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua; he was their student, one generation later. Which means that in that period it’s clear that a lot of things are revolving around this issue, that a human Torah is beginning; suddenly there is dispute, and suddenly also “incline your ear to hear.”
[Speaker B] But in the end it’s all interpretation. What? Ah — in the end it’s all interpretation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker B] It’s not the invention of another Torah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know if it’s another Torah, but I’m not sure it’s interpretation. What is interpretation here: “Let your house be a meeting place for the sages, and sit in the dust of their feet”? Interpretation of which verse?
[Speaker B] Moses, when he came to Rabbi Akiva’s study hall, they showed him, and he didn’t understand anything.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall that’s talking about Jewish law. But here I’m talking about this — about the words themselves, what’s written, what they’re talking about.
[Speaker B] Right. Jewish law, not Jewish law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but there it was Jewish law, it was a halakhic discussion, and then they said, “a law given to Moses at Sinai.” That’s Jewish law. But here we’re not talking about a halakhic discussion. Here we’re talking about things people innovate from their own minds, from their own reasoning; these are even modes of conduct, it’s not even a halakhic category. And therefore I think that Pirkei Avot, even though it doesn’t deal with Jewish law, still reflects a process that Jewish law is also going through — meaning some process of humanization, with an aleph, yes, personification. Meaning the humanization of Torah. Meaning Torah becomes something like a human thing. And this is a very important point, because very often people present things as if the Oral Torah came down together with the Written Torah from Mount Sinai, and in essence the Oral Torah too is just some closed corpus that gets passed from generation to generation by tradition. We received everything from Sinai, everything is from the Holy One, blessed be He, we’re just a conduit, everything is excellent. We can be certain, fully confident, about this whole matter. And we still understand that there is Oral Torah and Written Torah, but the attitude is that this is only a difference in medium, not something essential. Everything comes from the Holy One, blessed be He, just as forcefully. We’re a hollow pipe. But here suddenly the Oral Torah is revealed as something that is not only a change in medium; it is a change in essence. Meaning, this is a Torah that doesn’t pass down from Mount Sinai at all; it is a Torah created by sages over the generations. That is something very hard to digest.
[Speaker B] How do you explain Rashi at the beginning of Behar, where—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Its general principles and its details were from Sinai” —
[Speaker B] Sinai?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine, come on, obviously that’s like the dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael: whether the Torah’s general principles were at Mount Sinai and its details in the Tent of Meeting, or whether both its general principles and its details were at Mount Sinai. Now there they usually connect this to the Oral Torah, but that’s not correct. “Its general principles and its details” plainly means what is written in the Torah. Of what’s written in the Torah, also the details that appear in the Torah, also the things that seem as though they were given later — everything came from Sinai, the Written Torah. It’s not necessarily talking there about all the details of the Oral Torah. That’s even on the interpretive level. Beyond that, even if it is true — and many commentators do indeed apply this also to the Oral Torah — it’s quite clear that this is a normative statement, not a historical one. Meaning, the intent is: you should relate to words of Torah that are created over the generations by sages as though they were given at Sinai. Its general principles and its details, from our standpoint, were all given at Sinai — even though it’s clear that much of this was not given at Sinai; most of it was not given at Sinai, because after all they argue about it, which means one of the two certainly is mistaken. Mistaken in the sense that it was not given at Sinai. But normatively, from our perspective, we have to relate to it as though it was given at Sinai. That’s a normative statement, not a historical one — if it is even speaking about the Oral Torah at all, because plainly these disputes — after all, that’s what they say there — what was given there, say with Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael it’s much more explicit. Meaning, there the question is what was given at Mount Sinai and what was given in the Tent of Meeting; it’s all talking about the Written Torah. And when the Holy One, blessed be He, appears to Moses in the Tent of Meeting and tells him various things, they debate whether this was essentially already given at Sinai, and then repeated in the Tent of Meeting, detailed in the Tent of Meeting — I don’t know exactly what — but that everything was given at Sinai; or not, that truly the Torah was given in stages, in an ongoing process, not everything was given at Mount Sinai.
[Speaker H] But if someone explains that everything was given at Sinai, then what about all the verses that say they were spoken in the Tent of Meeting?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what I just said, I noted it in passing — I said I don’t know, it’s hard to understand. Either they repeated it there, or they detailed it there, or I don’t know exactly what. It really is hard to understand, because the Torah itself contains things that were said in the Tent of Meeting.
[Speaker D] Wait, what is the Oral Torah in the sense that… I mean, is it just the outline, no? He had a commandment and he explained it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying: here you’re already living in a later period; don’t be anachronistic. And that’s what I’m trying to reconstruct here — how people related to it. So I’m saying that in the early period, people understood that the Oral Torah was not that everything is in your head and whatever you think. The Oral Torah was simply things passed down orally from Sinai.
[Speaker D] I just want to understand what they passed down orally from Sinai. That if an ox gored a donkey, then Rabbi Yosi says such-and-such?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That there is goring, eating, and trampling; that eating and trampling are exempt in the public domain and goring is liable in the public domain; that “the fruit of a beautiful tree” means an etrog; that “frontlets” means tefillin.
[Speaker D] If we filtered out from the Mishnah only those quotations, then it’s really not that much. Meaning, everything else is just oral?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning it was only passed down? Who said there even was all the rest back then?
[Speaker D] No, I’m trying to understand.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In that period, when they thought that the Oral Torah was only things transmitted at Sinai, then indeed the Oral Torah was very limited.
[Speaker D] So I imagine that it was all basically what people explained to one another. Not that they studied… I imagine that if we filter the Mishnah of all the names of the people and who said all the possibilities, and just take “the fruit of a beautiful tree” means this, and an ox… the agreed-upon things? Yes, the things about which there is no dispute, the things that the hollow pipe said. That really isn’t much. Right. And that’s what they transmitted. Yes, but I imagine they explained things to each other. Meaning there was the Written Torah,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And also, as I said, I also said that even when there were disputes, I assume there were disputes earlier too, as I described regarding Rashi in Chagigah. I assume there were disputes earlier too, but those disputes were decided. In the end they had to clarify what had been transmitted to Moses at Sinai. So people argued with one another: I heard it this way, he heard it that way. Maybe they also inserted a bit of logic, and it wasn’t only documenting what we heard, but in the end it got closed up very quickly. Because every question that came up, they immediately checked what the previous generation had received, tagged it, and moved on. So on the principled level, it’s a hollow pipe. There are always frictions in a hollow pipe, there are always twists… things, exactly. Twists, things, that’s true. But on the principled level — I once told this story, that my uncle… my uncle, yes, he’s a Hasid, so he said that Abbaye and Rava certainly studied in Yiddish, because they knew how to study, and anyone who knows how to study studies in Yiddish, meaning that’s obvious. Often when people issue rulings… well, he himself was joking, of course, but very often we grasp reality that way not as a joke. We make an anachronism; we’re sure that what is familiar to us is what existed from time immemorial. But no. What we call today the Oral Torah is something much broader and more detailed than what was probably considered Oral Torah in the period up to Simeon the Just, say. There was some Oral Torah then, but it was probably basically things fairly close to the verses, and not human reasoning, but only interpreting the verses. And again, interpretation always involves reasoning, but the consciousness was the consciousness of interpreters. Meaning, when we related to it, from our perspective we did not see ourselves as adding anything. Rather, yes, this is what is written here. Now if someone looks from the outside — if you have reflexivity, yes, that reflexivity is a somewhat modern phenomenon — when you look at things you say, wait a second, this is not a hollow pipe. When you interpret something, you’ve inserted something that already depends on your own reasoning. As in the dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad about the recitation of Shema. Maimonides says that one may recite it in any language, provided he articulates the letters precisely. The Raavad objects: but all languages are interpretation, and who can be precise about his interpretation? Meaning, translation into another language is not a hollow translation; it’s a translation that contains interpretation. And once there is interpretation here, what sense is there in being precise about the letters? This has already become a human matter, no longer the Torah, the verse in the wording of the Torah as it came from the mouth of the Almighty, whose letters one must pronounce precisely — that is what the Raavad asks. So fine, this is your wording; say your wording and that’s all — why this insistence on the letters? But the idea is that there is no such thing: even translation from one language to another is interpretation. So all the more so when we argue about meaning and so on — interpretations enter here, and those interpretations are our interpretations, meaning they depend on our reasoning, our structure, our way of thinking.
[Speaker D] That’s how we’ll study during the break period — if not that, then between the times…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the meantime. In the meantime. So the transition here is not only a real transition but also a transition of consciousness. We move here from a consciousness of a hollow pipe, of transmission in which we have no impact whatsoever — though I assume we did — but the consciousness is such that we didn’t touch it, as if I’m just passing on what I heard. To a consciousness that emerges at the end of the Second Temple period, or really in Yavneh already, in which words of Torah are fruitful and multiply, are created by human beings, are attributed to human beings. That is already a completely different consciousness. And again, as I say, the phenomena were always there — that’s not the point — but the form of the attitude is the form of the attitude. Torah scholars know how things happen in the Talmud. They understand that the Talmud derived laws from human reasoning and that there are disputes there; not everything was transmitted from sage to sage back to Moses our teacher. But the ethos is like that, and you cling to it at all costs because that’s the ethos, so you don’t sharpen for yourself: wait, but this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny; there really is human creation here. No, because the ethos is that everything came down from Sinai, so you don’t sharpen that for yourself. And at a certain stage it did become sharpened. And the sharpening of these things is very significant, because even though this existed earlier too, if you weren’t aware of it, it created certain problems that I’ll get into in a moment; when you conceptualize it and define it and put it on the table, suddenly you know how to deal with it. Because as long as it wasn’t conscious, it led to a kind of tangle, it led to a kind of paralysis. Now I want to go a bit more into detail about what happened there at the end of that period, at the beginning of the Yavneh period, really among the students of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, at the time of the destruction, asks: “Give me Yavneh and its sages.” Now I happened to read — this reminds me — I just now finished a book by Lion Feuchtwanger on the Jewish War. It’s about Josephus Flavius, a historical novel in Feuchtwanger’s usual style. And it was very interesting — I’m not sure how accurate it was; quite clearly not entirely — but a literary reconstruction of a period is always interesting because suddenly you live inside it: you meet the people, the people speak, think, they have goals, they have motives, there are arguments. You’re not used to relating this way to things you read about in the Talmud or in various non-literary texts. But these people were flesh-and-blood human beings. They lived, they acted, they argued, there were such opinions and other opinions, such worldviews and other worldviews. Very often you need to reconstruct this through a writer’s imagination and turn it into a story, meaning to create from it a slice of life, not just approaches or conceptions. You plant it inside flesh-and-blood people. There is something about the historical novel that is very eye-opening even if it is not accurate, even if it is not correct, because it still suddenly makes you understand that we are dealing with people here. And what exists among people probably existed there too. Then you have to understand how that connects to what you see when you encounter these things in the Talmud or in their writings and so on. All right, now I want to make the following claim, which I’ll now try to show: that this period is basically the period in which the attitude toward the transmission of the Oral Torah changed, and the emergence of disputes is both a result of this and also the cause of it. Meaning, the emergence of disputes is a result of the fact that Torah begins to be created by human beings, but once dispute emerges, we can no longer ignore it either, and then suddenly it is on the table. The elephant in the room suddenly stops being transparent. Suddenly you see that Torah is created by human beings; it’s on the table and you have to deal with it. What do we do with this? Wait, how can that be? And from here come “he meditates in his Torah day and night,” all these expositions are created in order to anchor the status of such words of Torah, that they too are Torah. Because it’s really not easy to grasp this as we read it today as though it were trivial. Fine, “he meditates in his Torah day and night,” his own Torah, all very nice, yes, a nice sharp insight. Not a nice sharp insight — there is an enormous innovation here, an enormous innovation that already seems obvious to us because we come after. But in that period Rabbi Akiva had to do this, and we’ll see Rabbi Akiva’s role in the matter, because without this we would not have known how to cope with the phenomenon of dispute, which only intensifies in these generations. Now there is a whole series of stories in the Talmud that I think it’s very easy to discern that there is some connection among them, even though on the face of it there isn’t — other than the fact that the people involved are all from the same period, always the first and second generation of Yavneh, all of them. But it’s a collection of stories whose literary power in the Talmud is very strong. I’m talking about the Oven of Akhnai, I’m talking about the removal of Rabban Gamliel from the patriarchate on that day, the disputes between Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel, that he should come with his staff and his satchel — various sugyot of that type whose literary force is very rare. I don’t think there are many others, stories not belonging to that period that have such force. And I think there is also some essential connection among them, not only a historical one. And I want to look at things a bit through that prism. All right, so the generation after Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who asks “Give me Yavneh and its sages,” and thus Yavneh was created, yes? And that is basically the first generation of Yavneh. His students are Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua — that’s more or less the first generation. After that comes Rabbi Akiva, who was their student, and in the following generations Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, yes? The five students of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai appear in Pirkei Avot. So these fellows, yes, the second generation of Yavneh, are basically the players in all these stories. The Oven of Akhnai describes a certain dispute over the impurity of a segmented oven. A certain dispute — it also appears in Tractate Eduyot, regarding a segmented oven — and there was some disagreement between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua what its law was, whether it is impure or not impure. So the Talmud says: It was taught, on that day Rabbi Eliezer brought every answer in the world, and they did not accept them from him. He said to them: “If the Jewish law is like me, let this carob tree prove it, let this stream prove it, let the walls of the study hall prove it” — I’m skipping a bit — a heavenly voice went forth and said: “Why are you opposing my son Eliezer, since the Jewish law accords with him everywhere?” Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: “It is not in heaven.” We pay no attention to a heavenly voice, for You already wrote in the Torah at Mount Sinai, “incline after the majority.” Meaning, there is here ostensibly some innocent halakhic dispute, but notice: the period is one in which halakhic disputes are beginning to intensify, the first generation of Yavneh, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Eliezer brings all kinds of proofs that are non-substantive proofs, mystical proofs: let the walls of the study hall prove it, let the stream prove it. Talk to me substantively. What are you doing here with signs and wonders, dear sage? Bring me arguments. You have a claim? Tell me why the oven is impure or not impure. And Rabbi Yehoshua stands on his feet and says, “It is not in heaven,” “incline after the majority,” and we go by what we think. This description opens with the words: “It was taught, on that day Rabbi Eliezer brought every answer in the world.” What does “on that day” mean? I once saw this in a book by Menachem Fisch, a professor at Tel Aviv University, son of Professor Hillel Fish, of blessed memory, who has already passed away, and brother of David Harel, the mathematician from the Weizmann Institute. He wrote a book called Da’at Chokhmah. In that book he draws an analogy between philosophy of science — that’s his field — and the book of Ecclesiastes. He tries to show that basic conceptions of modern philosophy of science appear in Ecclesiastes. There are some interesting points there; other parts I think are a bit more forced. But among other things, I got this idea from there, from that book. He argues that “on that day” here in the Talmud, “on that day Rabbi Eliezer brought every answer in the world,” means bo bayom — “on that same day.” What does “on that same day” mean? The Talmud in… well, I see I didn’t bring it here, but the Talmud says there that after they removed Rabban Gamliel and reinstated him — after they removed Rabban Gamliel and appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in his place — every “on that same day,” that whole period was “that day.” Every place it says… now obviously it doesn’t mean one day; it means that period, that span of time in which all these struggles were taking place. Menachem Fisch’s claim is that “on that same day Rabbi Eliezer brought every answer in the world” also happened in that same period. “On that same day” means, again, in the framework of these disputes. And it really is a little hard to understand the intensity of the dispute around the Oven of Akhnai. What exactly happened there? Why did they excommunicate Rabbi Eliezer? What, is it forbidden to think differently?
[Speaker C] Why did Rabbi Eliezer need all these mystical proofs? Why doesn’t he conduct a discussion the way a halakhic discussion is normally conducted? I think the background to all this is exactly what I described earlier. Because Rabbi Eliezer is basically the figure who is unwilling to see a human Torah as part of Torah. Rabbi Eliezer is “a plastered cistern that loses not a drop” — that is one of the things Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai says about
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] his students, and Rabbi Eliezer is a plastered cistern that loses not a drop. He never said anything he had not heard from the mouth of his teacher, Rabbi Eliezer. So Rabbi Eliezer is basically this kind of figure, one who champions the hollow-pipe conception, the traditional conception of Torah. Traditional in the sense that Torah has to pass through tradition. He is not willing to accept a Torah created by man. Therefore Rabbi Eliezer, once they argue with him about the impurity of the oven, is unwilling to accept what they say. They raise substantive arguments, and at first he too offers substantive arguments, but very quickly it moves into mystical arguments. And why? Because Rabbi Eliezer is not trying to show them that he is right on the content level; he is trying to show them that he is right because he is the most authorized, because the Holy One, blessed be He, agrees with him. Because what he says is what our masters said. Meaning, he is saying: put
[Speaker B] all your reasoning
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] aside. I’m telling you what the truth is. The truth is what I received from my masters. “I learned much from my teachers, and I took from them no more than a dog licks from the sea” — that is what Rabbi Eliezer says in Sanhedrin on the day of his death; he speaks there about this, we’ll get to it. Meaning, Rabbi Eliezer basically had three hundred laws about planting cucumbers — that’s what Rabbi Eliezer says — meaning he possessed the whole Oral Torah that he received from his masters. That’s one side of the coin. The other side is that he was not willing to accept anything else. What he received from his masters is Torah; anything else is invention. Therefore, in general, I am not even going to argue with you on the plane of proofs, on the plane of who is right; it’s irrelevant. I’m telling you what I heard. What do I care what you think? Meaning, Rabbi Eliezer represents the traditionalist conception, the conception that says Torah is a hollow pipe; we pass on what we heard from previous generations. Where did his teachers get those three hundred laws about planting cucumbers? An interesting question, because I don’t think that was given at Sinai. But again, I’m saying, the consciousness is a traditionalist consciousness — meaning, a consciousness that we are supposed to receive Torah from our teachers. Suddenly he has a heavenly voice, the stream, and I have confirmation of my tradition, and that’s it. Why is there this ranking — it’s a ranking, you know, stronger and stronger. No, the stream is also confirmation. The stream — I perform miracles for you. What does that mean? It means that the Holy One, blessed be He, testifies that I am the authorized transmitter. Understand: if you bring non-substantive proofs, what does that mean? It means you are not bringing proofs about the issue itself; you are bringing proofs about the person. You are bringing proofs that you are the most authorized person, and from Rabbi Eliezer’s perspective that’s what matters. From Rabbi Eliezer’s perspective, we do not test words of Torah by whether they are logical; we test words of Torah by whether they are authentic. Meaning, am I the authentic transmitter or are you the authentic transmitter? And who gives the seal? Right, so therefore in the end it concludes with a heavenly voice. But all the proofs — again, there’s no explanation exactly why it unfolds in this way, but I don’t think that’s problematic. Meaning, he tries mystical proofs of increasing strength, until you get an actual stamp from the Holy One, blessed be He, on what he says. And against that comes Rabbi Yehoshua with a statement that we are already so used to that we’ve grown blasé about it, but it is an astounding statement: “It is not in heaven,” and even if the Holy One, blessed be He, testifies in your favor, we will rule against you. What does that mean? Rabbi Yehoshua is basically the leader of the opposite camp, the opposition that later became the coalition after the revolution. Meaning, he argues that Torah is not a Torah of tradition; Torah is a Torah created by human beings, on the basis of tradition, but Torah is a Torah created by human beings, and what human beings decide — “it is not in heaven.” Torah is a human Torah after the revelation at Mount Sinai.
[Speaker E] After the revelation at Mount Sinai, the mandate passed to human beings. The mandate — “and you shall send her to her land” — the mandate was handed downward. Torah is created by human beings and not by tradition, and that is the dispute between
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, that Rabbi Eliezer was unwilling to accept
[Speaker E] all the proofs they brought,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] not necessarily because he had rebuttals to them — I don’t know, maybe — but that’s not the point. The point is that he is not willing to accept proofs at all; it’s not relevant, it’s not up for discussion. I’m telling you what my masters said, and that is Torah, that’s all. This is what we received from Moses our teacher. What are you even looking for here — some rationale in it? Yes. Two weeks ago or something like that, first of all, it says that he answered them with every answer
[Speaker B] in the world, not
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that they answered him with every answer in the world, so it sounds as though specifically he was the one who… I said: at first he began with substantive explanations. “He answered with every answer in the world,” but they didn’t accept them from him because they didn’t agree with his logic. Then he abandoned logic and said, leave it — I tried to explain it to you in your way, but I’m not… it’s not relevant. Even if I’m not right logically, that doesn’t matter; I’m telling you what the truth is. Okay. I didn’t understand why the Rabbi connects this specifically to tradition. Seemingly what we see is that he’s trying to bring divine intervention, not tradition. Right, but I’m connecting it to Rabbi Eliezer’s characteristics in general. Rabbi Eliezer doesn’t say things he didn’t hear from his teacher’s mouth, and now it just follows to say, okay, so what does that actually mean? We’ll see this even more in a moment. It basically means that Rabbi Eliezer speaks about the speaker, about the person, about the pipe, and not about the content being transmitted. That is his principle. That’s why they excommunicate him. So why doesn’t he tell them, I received from such-and-such teacher that this is what I heard? That’s exactly what he tells them. He tells them: this is what I received. Leave me alone with all your proofs.
[Speaker I] Now, who says? We don’t find it logical, it can’t be that they said this, it doesn’t make sense. What do I care whether it makes sense to you? I’m telling you that this is the fact.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There — let the stream prove it, and let the carob prove it, and let them all prove that I’m sure I’m right, that I’m the most authorized person here. They agree about me — about my personality, my greatness, and so on. And they are unwilling to accept that because they insist that it has to pass through their filter, it has to pass through
[Speaker J] their logic; they are not willing to accept it otherwise. Now, understand, these are students of Rabban Yohanan ben
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Zakkai. This is the stage where the dispute between Hillel and Shammai, or between the students of Hillel and Shammai, comes into being. And the ones at the top of the pyramid in that period — it’s not the Zugot, but it’s almost like the Zugot — are Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel. Now what was with Rabban Gamliel? Just stories. Rabban Gamliel pushes Rabbi Yehoshua around and is unwilling to recognize his arguments — when is it
[Speaker E] Yom Kippur, when do you pray the afternoon prayer, all kinds of things of that sort.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He tells him to come with his staff and his satchel on Yom Kippur that falls on the Sabbath, to the point that the sages are no longer willing to tolerate it. And they remove Rabban Gamliel from the patriarchate — completely parallel to the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer. By the way, they’re brothers-in-law. Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer were brothers-in-law. And the two of them stood at the top of the pyramid, both with a very strong traditionalist conception, a very strong authority, unwilling to conduct discussion on the merits of the issue, because they determine it, they know what the truth is, and that’s it, there is no room for discussion. Now both of them get slapped in the face, so to speak. Meaning, the second generation is no longer willing to accept this, and the reason it is no longer willing to accept it, it seems to me — and again, much of this is conjecture, but it seems pretty well grounded in the historical circumstances and the Talmudic passages — is that the dispute between Hillel and Shammai really brought things to a point where you simply can’t continue anymore. Meaning, this is what the Talmud says: for three years they disputed, or two and a half years Hillel and Shammai disputed and could not reach a decision until a heavenly voice emerged. The Talmud in Eruvin says that a heavenly voice went forth and said: “These and those are the words of the living God, but the Jewish law follows the House of Hillel.” Meaning, the dispute there could not reach a resolution until they needed a heavenly voice. And again, Tosafot there asks: but “it is not in heaven,” so what is this — why did they need a heavenly voice? I think I spoke about this once. I said there wasn’t much choice, because once the dispute is about the very methods of decision-making, how are you supposed to decide that dispute? “It is not in heaven” means that you need to decide according to the halakhic rules of decision, meaning if there is a dispute, if there is doubt, there are rules — follow the majority or something like that. But if the dispute is about which majority determines it, or how decisions are made, then how will you decide that dispute itself? Something has to come from outside, so a heavenly voice has to come. If there really is a conception that the transmission of Torah is purely a pipe, then what meaning can Torah study have? Then it’s just memorization. Right, here you reach — first of all, there can’t be study. Right. Now no, it’s not just memorization; as I said, a lot of this is a matter of consciousness and not of facts. I assume there were innovations there too. I assume there were interpretations that came out of worldviews there. I assume there were innovations there too. But the awareness was such that they didn’t notice; it was transparent to them. It was obvious that we are only interpreting what we received, which is itself what we received. You’re not aware that you are actually adding something of your own here. You have no reflexivity about it. Now this is something we can also see today. Meaning, even in the conservative conceptions that exist today — ask conservative people — they live in that consciousness. Even though it is clear to them that people innovate and that there are disputes and that it depends on reasoning — they know all that. But the consciousness in which you live is the consciousness that you are only passing on what we received from our teachers, yes? You hear that all the time. We only received this from our teachers, as though it came down from Sinai. Meaning, from Sinai they studied in Yiddish, from Sinai there is a Council of Torah Sages, from Sinai one has to vote this way or that way, or be or not be in the government, or all sorts of things of that kind. Now, no one really means that literally, but I do believe they mean it seriously as an ethos. Meaning, there is some kind of lack of awareness here. People less rooted in modern culture have less reflexivity. Meaning, they are less aware of what they themselves are doing. They do not look at what they themselves are doing; they don’t give themselves a methodological accounting: what exactly are we doing, what did we innovate and what did we receive? That is more a matter for researchers, for academics who deal with this and check you: wait, do you understand that you inserted something of your own here? This is not innocent, naive interpretation. And in the introduction to Ketzot, he addresses this himself and says that even though it is an innovation, that is what Torah is, yes. Fine, but that you can say as a normative statement — I’m willing to accept that. But if you see it as a historical statement, then it means you are basically living in a kind of denial or lack of awareness. And I think that’s what existed until that period. No, I think that… I don’t know. Ox, goring, eating, and trampling, okay? So in principle that’s from Sinai. Its application in reality is usually more complex. The analysis of that — that’s what they dealt with. It seems to me that in this generation what got raised a level was not the practical dispute about its application in reality, but the principles themselves. Meaning, it’s like, I don’t know, today — women and testimony, fine? That’s something dramatic, not just practical. That’s roughly the kind of wars we have today. It seems to me that’s what happened then. The more you deal with foundations and less with applications, the less you can allow yourself not to be aware that you have a part in it. You have a part; you can’t ignore that. It’s not that you receive Torah and you just need to apply it, okay, and you added nothing. But that application seems to me to have bothered them less, and that they did not call dispute. They called dispute what people fight over today. In the first period people perceived themselves as applying a given set of principles. And in the second period they suddenly understood that they were also creating new principles here; it wasn’t only application. They added tools — it’s not that they added tools of understanding; they didn’t use the tools they had in that way. Right. And a heavenly voice also came out for Rabbi Eliezer — what does that mean? Does that mean they agreed with Rabbi Eliezer’s fundamental method? The fundamental method, not specifically for him. Yes, seemingly — again, you see, I’m not… you assume this was a historical event, that a heavenly voice actually emerged. I’m not sure that’s true. The sages describe it that way in order to convey the message. To convey the message that… the Ritva writes, “the Holy Spirit appeared in our study hall,” in several places he writes that. So to him it is obvious that it is such-and-such. What, was the Ritva really a prophet? The Holy Spirit — one degree below prophecy. He meant to say: it was clear to us that this was the truth. That is the intent. And there too, when a heavenly voice went forth and said the law is like Rabbi Eliezer, it’s as though there was some feeling that Rabbi Eliezer was saying: listen, the Holy One, blessed be He Himself, agrees through me. Meaning, I have a very strong feeling that this is the truth. But they tell him: it may be that you are right in your feeling, but you need to persuade us on the merits of the matter itself. I’m not sure there really was some transcendent event there, that a heavenly voice went forth and all that, but it is a story whose role is to convey to us that there was a dispute there around this issue — around the issue of whether you go by the person or by the content. Look what happened with Rabban Gamliel. After they removed him because he treated Rabbi Yehoshua this way and was unwilling to accept other positions, more benches were added in the study hall. Right? More benches were added in the study hall. And then Rabban Gamliel began to be troubled in heart. As if to say: look, all these people I prevented from studying Torah. Four hundred benches — I don’t remember, there were even numbers there, doesn’t matter. Four hundred more? Yes, maybe, I don’t remember. It’s told there that many benches were added in the study hall. What does that mean? Rabban Gamliel had stationed a guard at the entrance to the study hall and said, “Whoever’s inside is not like his outside should not enter here.” Almost like Plato’s academy. Meaning, you can’t enter here. Why “whoever’s inside is not like his outside should not enter”? Because from my point of view what matters is your reliability. Because now you are coming to receive Torah and transmit it onward. So what determines it? What determines it is whether you are a reliable person. Your inside like your outside, so that we can rely on what you say. That if you say you received something from someone, then presumably you did receive it, and you’re not inventing things and hanging them on someone else. What happened when they multiplied benches in the study hall? Multiplying benches in the study hall means that they moved to examining the content itself rather than examining the person who says it. So what do I care if his inside isn’t like his outside? Let him bring good arguments and I’ll check whether he is right or not. So I’m willing to accept even people whose inside is not like their outside, because they can participate in the discussion; those people are not the source of authority. Those people express positions. They express positions; I’ll examine whether I agree with the position or not. What do I care how righteous they are, how reliable they are, or whether heaven agrees with them or not? So you see that the dispute between Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah is the same dispute as Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. These two brothers-in-law, both of them, are fighting for a kind of Torah elitism that basically says: I want to examine the people who transmit, because for me the reliability of the transmission is what determines whether this is Torah or not. By contrast, the younger generation that argues with them says no — we evaluate it with our own reason. Therefore I don’t care whether his inside is like his outside. Let him come in and say what he thinks. If he doesn’t persuade us, we won’t agree; if he does persuade us, we will agree. What do I care whether his inside is like his outside or not? Meaning, it becomes much less relevant. And again, there is some weight to the fact that someone says, I received this law from so-and-so. There is some weight to that even in the later period too; it’s not that everything is only logic and that’s it. It’s some interplay between logic and tradition. But the weight of the person’s reliability definitely goes down. Because after all, we can also examine the reliability of the content itself. Therefore I say that Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer, both of them, are basically defending — the two brothers-in-law, or the older generation among the students of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai — the traditional conception, and their students rebel. Now what happens there? Why really were the disputes so intense? Because when the students of Hillel and Shammai began to disagree, as I said, they couldn’t reach a decision. The Talmud in Eruvin says, and in the Jerusalem Talmud it appears that they killed one another, the students of Hillel and Shammai. Why? They killed one another — again I’m saying, I’m not sure there was literally killing there, but it was probably a very
[Speaker C] very severe dispute.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe they literally killed too, I don’t know.
[Speaker C] But even if not, clearly it is coming to say that there was a very, very severe dispute there. Why was it like that? Because the phenomenon of dispute between the schools — now it’s no longer the two Yoseis that we saw
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] in Rashi on Chagigah,
[Speaker C] but rather it will
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here you have two schools, each one developing its own Torah on a great many questions, and it becomes a kind of package deal: all of these think this way, and all of those think that way. In effect, two Torahs are developing here. And a certain fear arose there that the Torah was reaching the end of its road. The Torah was reaching the end of its road—each person was basically developing his own Torah, he was no longer talking with the other, there was nothing to talk to him about, he thought differently, the conceptual tools were already different; they were no longer dealing only with applications but with the tools themselves. That was it, finished. And then there was hysteria. There was hysteria because this whole business was falling apart, the entire tradition was falling apart. To the point that the Talmud describes that they even killed one another, out of sheer frustration, out of the fact that it was no longer possible to talk. When you can’t talk, then the blows begin. You can’t persuade, you can’t, because I say that this is what I received from my teachers. Beit Hillel received from Hillel, Beit Shammai received from Shammai—there was no way to talk, no way to vote, no way to decide. So we stopped belonging to the same tradition. Now each one—there are now different sects, and this would develop into many sects, each one would basically do whatever he wanted, and that would be the end of this whole episode of the Torah tradition from Sinai. And because of this fear, a very, very great crisis arose there, to the point that they killed one another. But of course that didn’t help, because killing is not a solution. In the end, two schools remain, and you have no way to decide.
Then what happens is that Rabbi Eliezer—by the way, about Rabbi Eliezer it says that he was of Shammai, right? I don’t know whether that means Beit Shammai or in excommunication, yes, under a ban; that’s a dispute among the commentators there. But Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel still represent the outlook of tradition. The younger generation says: with this outlook, we’re headed for total collapse. Meaning, this cannot continue. And therefore the argument there was not about the oven; it was about the afternoon offering, it was about Yom Kippur. The argument there was about what Torah is. Is Torah a Torah of tradition—and then we are facing a broken trough, because now we already have several traditions, and we have no way to determine who was right? They did not serve their teachers sufficiently, as Maimonides says. True—but what can we do? We have no way to determine it. So what do we do now? If we do not accept the possibility of discussing matters on their merits, with proofs, and reaching conclusions, then we are facing total disintegration. And that’s why these stories have such tremendous force.
They lifted the ban—but he remained under the ban until the end of his life. That was not because, in the case of the oven, in the impurity of the oven, he thought differently from the other sages; it was because he was not willing to accept their proofs. Someone who is unwilling to accept give-and-take brings destruction upon the Torah. Someone who thinks the truth is in his possession, and that he is the one who holds it because he received it from his teachers, and therefore is unwilling to hear other opinions, brings destruction upon the Torah. This could work as long as there were no disputes. The problem is that once a dispute arises that can no longer be closed in a simple way—these disputes that persist, from Yose ben Yoezer and Yose ben Yohanan onward, and later Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai—that is a broken trough. If we do not make a revolution here—the revolution of Yavneh, yes, when they removed Rabban Gamliel, excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer, threw out these two elders who had led that whole generation, and everyone had been their students—you have to understand what a move that was; it was madness.
And they put Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in their place. On that very day, tractate Eduyot was taught. The whole tractate Eduyot was taught when they appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. Why? Because the whole tractate Eduyot—what is common to tractate Eduyot? Every tractate has a certain subject. Tractate Eduyot is a tractate with no subject. It’s a collection of things: so-and-so testified that the Jewish law is such-and-such, so-and-so testified that the Jewish law is such-and-such. What connects these things? What connects them is that these are all the things that remained unresolved and that they had been unable to decide until that period. There were testimonies of this kind and testimonies of that kind. In the end, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah came and said: okay, these two Torahs that have remained stuck—bring everything into the study hall. From now on we are opening discussion. We will close all these disputes. We will settle them through give-and-take and voting, not by determining who is more right. There are testimonies—they also testify in this one’s name and that one’s name—but in the end the discussion was a discussion. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah closed all the disputes they had not managed to close before his time. Why had they not managed to close them? Because in a Torah of tradition, you cannot close a dispute. I say this, you say that—okay, now what? And therefore they made the revolution there and put Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in their place, and he closed all the disputes. And the whole tractate Eduyot is the documentation of what he did. And all these details in tractate Eduyot had in fact remained open in the previous period. They mark this era of rupture, of this split, when there was an actual fear that the Torah was coming to an end. Okay, I know…