Dispute and Truth – Lesson 3

Table of Contents

• [0:00] Introduction to the philosophy of truth and dispute
• [2:29] The development of dispute in Pirkei Avot
• [4:33] Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and the period of the destruction
• [9:26] The split between the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai
• [15:15] The topic in Berakhot: Is the evening prayer optional or obligatory?
• [19:09] The removal of Rabban Gamliel and the head of the Sanhedrin
• [21:35] Ancestral merit and converts in Jewish law
• [23:57] The appointment of Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya
• [25:32] Selection in the study hall in the days of Rabban Gamliel
• [29:45] Trust in a person versus reasoning
• [31:13] Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya and the removal of Rabban Gamliel
• [32:29] The problematic nature of Rabban Gamliel’s traditional approach
• [35:09] Rotation of the Sanhedrin presidency and the conflict between rabbis

Summary

General Overview

The speaker continues a series on dispute and truth following an introduction on logic, consistency, and concepts of truth, and argues that the existence of truth requires an account of the existence of disputes. He distinguishes between descriptive pluralism about the multiplicity of opinions in the world and essential pluralism about a multiplicity of truths, and stresses that the monotheism of one truth can coexist with the fact of many positions. He proposes a historical look at the emergence of dispute in the halakhic / of Jewish law world and argues that in the Yavneh generation there was a decisive transition from the Oral Torah as a chain of authoritative transmission to Torah as a give-and-take of reasons and rulings, a transition that generated institutional revolutions and charged aggadic stories surrounding Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Eliezer, and Rabbi Akiva.

Truth, Pluralism, and Monotheism

The speaker raises the question whether the very existence of different opinions requires a plurality of truths, and states that the fact that there are many positions is not proof that there are many truths. He defines factual pluralism as a description of a multiplicity of opinions among people and groups, and distinguishes it from essential pluralism, which claims a multiplicity of truths. He argues that someone who holds there is one truth can still recognize the existence of different positions, but from his perspective one is correct and the other mistaken, and therefore one must understand how dispute exists within a world that assumes truth.

The Development of Dispute and the Description of the Transmission of Torah in Avot

The speaker reads the opening of Pirkei Avot as a description that moves from “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it” to a chain of received-and-transmitted, and then to “he would say,” which attributes personal statements to the sages. He points to a shift in which Torah receives a “heading” in the name of a certain person, and argues that the move from describing a channel of transmission to describing independent statements marks a historical turning point in the transmission of the Oral Torah. He connects this turning point to the period of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and the transition from Jerusalem to Yavneh after the destruction of the Second Temple, and identifies the tannaim as the generations of the sages of Yavneh beginning after the pairs and the houses.

The Beginning of Dispute: From the Pairs to the Houses of Hillel and Shammai

The speaker notes that in the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud in Chagigah, an early dispute is described regarding laying on of hands on a Jewish holiday between “the two Yoseis,” and he places it in the Greek period according to Rashi. He argues that early disputes were isolated and were probably resolved by ordinary means such as voting and clarifying tradition, whereas in the period of Hillel and Shammai and the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai, dispute intensified and became a system of two study halls with many disputes that remained unresolved. He cites the Jerusalem Talmud describing that the students of Hillel and Shammai “would kill one another” as evidence that something exceptional happened there that threatened the cohesion of the Oral Torah.

A Heavenly Voice, “These and Those,” and the Inability to Decide in the Ordinary Way

The speaker quotes from Eruvin that for three years the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel disagreed until a heavenly voice came forth: “These and those are the words of the living God, and Jewish law follows the House of Hillel.” He interprets this as a sign that this was a dispute that could not be resolved by the ordinary tools of decision, and therefore an exceptional mechanism “from heaven” was required. He presents the dependence on a heavenly voice as another aspect of the same breakdown that produces violence and polemic, and as a basis for understanding the crises of the first generation of Yavneh.

The Crises of Yavneh: The Removal of Rabban Gamliel and Mechanisms of Authority

The speaker describes a series of aggadic stories surrounding Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Eliezer, and Rabbi Akiva that appear in different places but revolve around the same issue of the emergence of dispute and institutional rupture. He emphasizes that removing the head of the Sanhedrin raises the question how a body from below replaces leadership that was ordained in a chain of ordination “from above,” and suggests that this is part of a methodological struggle born with the disputes. He mentions the interpretations of “Shammuti” regarding Rabbi Eliezer, either from shamta / excommunicated or from the House of Shammai, and presents this as a hint to the connection between the identity of sages and the centers of dispute.

Berakhot 28: The Evening Prayer, the Distress of Rabbi Yehoshua, and the Revolution in the Study Hall

The speaker reads the topic in Berakhot 28 about a student who asks whether the evening prayer is optional or obligatory, and presents the contradiction between Rabbi Yehoshua’s answer (“optional”) and Rabban Gamliel’s answer (“obligatory”) as the flashpoint. He describes how Rabban Gamliel forces Rabbi Yehoshua to stand, how the public stops Hutzpit the translator, and how the sages decide, “Come, let us remove him,” and depose Rabban Gamliel. He details the considerations for appointing Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya over Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Akiva, including “wise… wealthy… tenth from Ezra,” and interprets “ancestral merit” also as social standing and not necessarily as a metaphysical claim, while making a broad aside about the status of converts in Jewish law and the dependence of authority on public legitimacy.

Opening the Gates and Tractate Eduyot: Moving from a Torah of Tradition to a Torah of Give-and-Take

The speaker describes that with the appointment of Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya, “they removed the doorkeeper” and allowed students to enter, in contrast to Rabban Gamliel’s policy: “Any student whose inside is not like his outside shall not enter.” He presents this as replacing an outlook in which a person’s reliability and tradition determine things, with an outlook in which reasons are weighed “on their own merits,” even if the person himself is not “inside like outside.” He interprets “Eduyot was taught on that day” as evidence that that day was used to settle suspended Jewish laws that had not previously been decided, and defines Tractate Eduyot as a collection of the issues that had remained in dispute until then and were decided through testimony, judgment, and voting. He connects this to Maimonides’ statement that the disputes arose when “the students of Hillel and Shammai did not fully serve their teachers,” and presents the noise in transmission as a cause of multiple contradictory traditions that required a move to a model of give-and-take.

Judah the Ammonite Convert: Deciding by Reasons and Rabban Gamliel’s Return to the Rules of the Game

The speaker continues with that same “on that day” about Judah, an Ammonite convert, who asks, “May I enter the congregation?” and presents the dispute between Rabban Gamliel (“forbidden”) and Rabbi Yehoshua (“permitted”) as an illustration that now rulings follow reasons and not presidential authority. He describes how “they immediately permitted him to enter the congregation” after the argument about Sennacherib’s mixing up the nations versus the verses “and afterward I will restore,” and how Rabban Gamliel accepts the new method and even goes to reconcile with Rabbi Yehoshua. He quotes the dialogue about the blackened walls of Rabbi Yehoshua’s house and the criticism, “Woe to the generation whose leader you are,” and describes the reconciliation and the discussion of how to restore Rabban Gamliel without demoting Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya because “one rises in holiness and does not descend,” until a rotation is established of “three Sabbaths” versus “one Sabbath.”

The Oven of Akhnai: “It Is Not in Heaven” and the Excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer

The speaker presents the Oven of Akhnai (Bava Metzia 59) as another facet of the same methodological crisis, in which Rabbi Eliezer brings “all the answers in the world” and is not accepted, and then brings miraculous proofs from the carob tree, the water channel, the walls of the study hall, and a heavenly voice. He emphasizes the sages’ response, “We do not bring proof,” and Rabbi Yehoshua’s ruling, “It is not in heaven,” as a declaration that halakhic ruling rests on human rules of discussion and decision and not on heavenly signs or on the holiness of the person. He describes the burning of the pure items that Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure, “they took a vote against him and blessed him” as excommunication, Rabbi Akiva’s mission to inform him in gentle language, and the descriptions of the afflictions of the world and Rabbi Eliezer’s anger, including the story of Rabban Gamliel’s ship and his justification: “so that disputes not proliferate in Israel.” He notes that the Talmud hints at a connection to “that day” and presents Rabban Gamliel’s response as a return to the new rules, in contrast to Rabbi Eliezer’s principled refusal.

Chagigah 3: A Study Hall of Innovation, “One Division,” and the Masters of Assemblies

The speaker reads the topic in Chagigah 3 about Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar ben Chasma who come to Rabbi Yehoshua, and he expounds: “The study hall cannot be without innovation,” and asks, “Whose Sabbath was it?” He presents the exposition, “Assemble… why do the little children come? In order to give reward to those who bring them,” and Rabbi Yehoshua’s enthusiasm as evidence that the essential innovation is opening the study hall to all the voices. He interprets the exposition “You have made Me one division in the world” as a declaration of reunifying study despite the multiplicity of opinions, and connects this to the exposition on “the masters of assemblies,” which speaks of “these declare impure and those declare pure” and the need to “make your ear like a funnel” to hear the words of all sides. He presents these things as a direct answer to the fear, “Lest a person say, how can I study Torah from now on?” and presents the principle that all of them “were given by one shepherd” alongside the obligation to listen to disputes.

Rabbi Yosei ben Dormaskit in Lod: The Clash of Tradition versus Decision

The speaker brings an incident about Rabbi Yosei ben Dormaskit who came to Lod and reported, “They voted and concluded that Ammon and Moab tithe the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year,” and describes how Rabbi Eliezer reacts sharply, “Stretch out your hands and receive your eyes,” and then cries and says, “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him,” and transmits, “So I have received… it is a law given to Moses at Sinai.” He presents this as the position of tradition, which nullifies the value of dialectic and reasoning when there is binding transmission, and sets it against Rabbi Yehoshua’s joy in innovation and in the process of decision. He notes that Rabbi Eliezer eventually restores Yosei’s sight after his mind is settled, but remains until his dying day identified with opposition to the new model.

The Day of Rabbi Eliezer’s Death: Absolute Knowledge versus Reasoning and Explanation

The speaker tells from Sanhedrin about Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues visiting Rabbi Eliezer while he is sick and excommunicated, about their sitting “four cubits away,” and his complaint, “And only now have you come?” He quotes his description, “like two Torah scrolls being rolled up,” and the claim that he learned and taught much but “there was no person who asked me…,” including “three hundred” or “three thousand” laws about a severe bright spot and about cucumber planting magic. He brings the Talmud’s statement that Rabbi Akiva received “tradition” from Rabbi Eliezer but “not reasoning,” and returned to Rabbi Yehoshua, who “explained it to him,” thus painting a transition from transmitting data by tradition to understanding through reasons. He adds the story in which Rabbi Akiva laughs in the face of the students’ crying and interprets his teacher’s suffering as evidence that “Rabbi has not yet received his world,” and his answer, “For there is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin,” as a remark about the incorrect use of knowledge even if the knowledge is complete.

Excommunication as a Methodological Response and the Danger of the Torah’s Collapse

The speaker argues that the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer was not for the halakhic / of Jewish law opinion itself, but for not accepting the majority opinion and for an authoritarian conception that threatened to dismantle the Oral Torah in a state of practical pluralism. He presents Yavneh’s steps as an extreme decision intended to save the system from disintegration, even at the price of the possibility that they are factually mistaken, and identifies in this an “it is a time to act for the Lord” in the sense of giving up traditional certainty for the sake of a decision mechanism that enables Torah to endure. He stresses that the heavenly voice confirms Rabbi Eliezer’s correctness on the level of “truth,” but “it is not in heaven” forces a different mode of conduct in order to prevent a proliferation of disputes.

“Incline After the Majority,” Truth versus Majority, and Images of Majority and Truth

The speaker sharpens the point that majority is a rule of decision when there is doubt and reasoning, but it does not decide against known truth, and in this context he brings the image, “When I’m in doubt I follow the majority… if I have no doubt, I do not follow the majority.” He also incorporates the saying about “and truth was cast to the ground” to illustrate that “against truth there is no majority,” and presents Rabbi Eliezer’s position as one holding to traditional truth versus a majority decision whose aim is preserving the system. He argues that the sages of Yavneh were willing “to go against the truth” in order to eradicate the authoritarian model of tradition and prevent the total collapse of Torah, and says that he will return to this later in connection with the “coin of truth.”

Rabbi Akiva as Synthesis and the Continuation of the Series

The speaker presents Rabbi Akiva as a student of both sides who unites “tradition” with “explanations” and creates a new balance after the revolution, and brings “and all of them are in accordance with Rabbi Akiva” as evidence of his status as the father of the Oral Torah. He argues that Torah after Yavneh is not the cancellation of tradition but a change in the relation to it within a framework of discussion, dispute, and decision. He concludes by stating that from here on he will deal with the meaning of dispute and the connection between truth, tradition, and the considerations of give-and-take, and from there continue to understanding halakhic ruling, the heavenly voice, and the relation to the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai.

Okay, so we’re in the series on dispute and truth. I gave some kind of logical, philosophical—I don’t know what to call it—introduction about concepts of truth, about consistency, about logic, and now I want to get a bit into how the whole issue of disputes developed. What’s your name? Remind me? Avinoam? Avinoam what? Giam? How? Giam. You weren’t here the previous times, right? You weren’t here the last two times? No, I wasn’t, I just got here now. Okay, are you joining this? What? Are you writing me down? I’m writing, yes. Good. So we talked about concepts in philosophy, logic, truth, and the like, and I said that the moment we talk about the existence of truth, then we have to give ourselves an account of disputes, of the existence of different opinions. How does that relate to the concept of truth? Does the very existence of different opinions mean that there are multiple truths or not? We talked about factual or descriptive pluralism, which says that there are lots of different opinions in the world among individuals and groups, and there is substantive pluralism, which says that there are multiple truths. Those two things are not identical. I can be a monist in the sense that I believe there is only one truth, and still acknowledge the unfortunate fact—or not unfortunate—that there are several positions in the world. It just means, from my perspective, if I’m a monist, that one is right and the other is wrong, contrary to the common arguments that point to the fact that there are many positions, or many truths, in the world and take that as proof of substantive pluralism, meaning there is no single truth. That’s not correct. It could be so, but the fact that there are many opinions does not force that conclusion if there is only one truth. So our next step is really to deal with the subject of dispute. I talked a bit about truth, now the subject of dispute, and I want to get into it. Last time, I said, I started getting into it from a historical angle. Meaning: how disputes arose in the halakhic world, what the emergence of dispute means, and how to relate to a dispute once it has arisen—that is, why it arose and what it means that it arose. So last time I began with the opening of Pirkei Avot, where in the first chapter it says, Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and they transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly, and so on. And then suddenly a few Jews show up who start saying, “He would say.” Before them, they didn’t say that. And then it jumps to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai in chapter two, who also somehow received from Hillel and Shammai, and then he had five students, where it also doesn’t describe that he received and transmitted to them, but rather that he had five students, and that’s where the matter ends. Meaning, from that point on it’s “he said” and “he said” and “three things,” and each one said various things. So there’s some sort of shift here in the description of the transmission of the Torah, or the Oral Torah, and that shift calls for interpretation. It starts with “received-transmitted, received-transmitted,” and suddenly shifts to statements by various people independently. Torah suddenly gets some kind of label—the Torah of a particular person. Shimon HaTzaddik was actually the first one whose name appears attached to words of Torah or the Oral Torah. There’s an intermediate stage where there’s only “received,” right? Like there’s “received-transmitted,” and then only “received.” Could be, I don’t remember now, but I don’t know how significant that is, unless he’s the last one who received. Fine. Like up to that point you have “Moses received and transmitted to Joshua,” “received and transmitted, received and transmitted,” and then once the names start it’s only “received,” there’s no “transmitted.” Ah, but I assume it’s supposed to amount to the same thing—if you received and the next one also received, then someone transmitted it to him if he received. It’s just two sides of the same coin. Maybe receiving is active and transmitting is… maybe, I don’t know, I didn’t think about that. But I do think that at the point where this “received” stops, there there is definitely some shift on the historical axis that we need to pay attention to. And my claim was basically that, in the historical background—I talked about this—in the historical background, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is really the period of the destruction, the destruction of the Second Temple. He asks for Yavneh and its sages and establishes the Sanhedrin in Yavneh. That is the first exile of the Sanhedrin. And the names, the figures we know from the Mishnah, the figures of the Tannaim, are all—all of them—generations of the sages of Yavneh. Meaning, the first generation of Tannaim is the first generation of the sages of Yavneh. That means Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Eliezer his brother-in-law, and after them Rabbi Yehoshua—Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel, let’s say that’s the first row—after that Rabbi Akiva, then Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, and so on. Ben Azzai was there too. So all of these are really the sages of Yavneh. And what we know as the Tannaim are the sages of Yavneh. Before the sages of Yavneh there was Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who was the teacher of all these people. And before Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai there were the Zugot, the pairs. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai, which is the fifth and final pair. And that is the period of the pairs, which was still during the time of the Temple. Meaning, this was still before the destruction. And the end of this process of “received and transmitted,” with the Sanhedrin moving from Jerusalem to Yavneh, apparently marks a phase change in the transmission of the Oral Torah. Up to that stage, the Oral Torah is passed along in this relay race of hollow pipes. This one received and transmitted, this one received and transmitted, this one received and transmitted. There are already names attached to Torah teachings from the beginning of the Second Temple—or middle of the Second Temple—Shimon HaTzaddik and the pairs, but still there is “received” there, or “received and transmitted,” or at least “received.” And Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, in the move to Yavneh, brings that whole thing to an end. From then on there is a rabbi and students, but there is no more “received and transmitted.” What exactly happens there? This is, of course, the generation after Hillel and Shammai. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the generation after Hillel and Shammai; he received from both of them. And this is the period of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Meaning, these are the students of Hillel and Shammai. According to scholars’ estimates, that lasted something like a hundred, a hundred and fifty years—the period of the two schools. So it definitely continues deep into Yavneh. And the question is: what exactly happened in that generation or that period that causes this change in the Mishnah’s description in tractate Avot? And I want to argue that during that period the disputes began to become established in the form we know today. It started earlier—I think I mentioned this—that there is a Jerusalem Talmud, and also in the Babylonian Talmud in Chagigah, where it says that the first dispute in the Oral Torah was between the two Yoseis regarding laying hands on a sacrifice on a Jewish holiday. That’s the first pair. But this dispute, which is known as the first dispute, is already from the Greek period, by the way, notice that. It’s during the Greek conflict; Rashi in Chagigah brings this. So that’s roughly the middle of the Second Temple period, and a dispute begins to form. But those are isolated disputes that apparently were also resolved at some stage. Meaning, there was some vote, they reached conclusions, and moved on. In the period of Hillel and Shammai, which is the final pair, and Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai immediately after them and the sages of Yavneh, two houses are formed—Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. They have a great many disputes between them, and those disputes apparently are not resolved. They are not resolved; rather they remain. Torah basically splits apart. There is the Torah of Beit Hillel, there is the Torah of Beit Shammai, and the whole thing starts splitting, and apparently also begins to threaten the cohesion of Torah transmission. Because Torah splits, and the next stage will already be four houses, ten houses, a hundred houses, and in the end nothing will remain of the Torah. And therefore a situation arises there that the Jerusalem Talmud describes by saying that the students of Hillel and Shammai would kill one another. What does it mean, “kill one another”? Again, I don’t know if they literally murdered one another, but apparently there was a fierce controversy there, that’s clear. It could be that the killing is only metaphorical. But either way, the Talmud tells us this because something happened there that hadn’t happened before. And I assume the point is that the dispute became fixed between two houses, and they stopped. There were differences of opinion before too, I assume, but the differences were resolved—they held a vote, reached conclusions, and moved on. Okay? They clarified what the tradition was, what the tradition had said, and moved on. In the time of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, the dispute hardened, right? It became solid. Meaning, they no longer closed the dispute. It became two study houses, two schools, with lots of disputes between them. Simply that. And there is praise that they did not refrain from marrying each other, but it was already on the table to begin refraining from marrying one another. Meaning, this was really on the way to becoming a major split, and it’s no wonder that the students of Hillel and Shammai were not helpless. Meaning, you can’t close the dispute, you get into quarrels up to the point of murder maybe. Yes, that kind of violence. And the Talmud in Eruvin, for example, when it tells of the dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, says that for three years Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed and could not decide, until a heavenly voice came out and said, “These and those are the words of the living God, and the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel.” What does that mean? It means there was a dispute there that apparently could not be settled through the usual tools, and therefore they had to resort to a heavenly voice from heaven. There is some significance to this matter, but it was a ruling not by the normal means through which rulings are given. They didn’t hold a vote and reach a shared conclusion; rather, there was something else there. There was some sort of dispute that could not be settled. So it’s pretty clear that this is the other side of the coin of that Jerusalem Talmud description that they killed one another. There was some dispute there that began to threaten the Oral Torah, its very existence. Now I want to argue that there are several sugiyot in the Talmud—aggadic sugiyot, these stories—and they all revolve around the same sages: Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Akiva, all around the same sages, and they appear in different places and in different contexts, but it’s pretty clear that all of these stories, which have very strong literary force, sometimes even tragic, all revolve around the same issue. There’s something common to all these things, and it happens in the first generation of Yavneh. Meaning, it’s the explosion of the crisis that begins to form between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, the emergence of dispute, and there some kind of explosion occurs. They depose Rabban Gamliel, stage a coup there, bring in Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, restore him, excommunicate Rabbi Eliezer in the story of the Oven of Akhnai. All kinds of things happen there, things whose background is not clear. Suddenly they depose the president of the Sanhedrin. What, is there even a legal mechanism for deposing the president of the Sanhedrin? We have to remember that the president of the Sanhedrin, and ordination itself, comes from above, not from below. There are no democratic elections for the president of the Sanhedrin or for the sages of the Sanhedrin, the members of the Sanhedrin. It comes from above. Meaning, Moses our teacher was ordained by the Holy One, blessed be He, and he and his colleagues ordained Joshua son of Nun, the elders, the prophets, and so on. There is a chain of ordination; it is not an appointment made by the public’s consent. It is an appointment that comes from above. And now suddenly people from below stage a coup and replace the president of the Sanhedrin. On what authority? What are you, in place of the Holy One? He received ordination from the Holy One through the chain. Never mind—but how do the sages below, or the public below, suddenly take for themselves some kind of authority that was never given to them at all? What happened there? I want to argue that this is part of the same issue of the emergence of disputes, and to see this matter—what? The dispute was between them. I think it’s connected; it’s not written explicitly, but I think it’s connected. About Rabbi Eliezer it says that he was “of Shammai.” But “of Shammai” has two interpretations among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). It either means from “shamta,” excommunicated, because he was excommunicated in the Oven of Akhnai story, or from Beit Shammai—“Shammai-ite,” from Beit Shammai. Two interpretations among the medieval authorities. I assume it’s connected somehow to this dispute. I’m not sure it maps exactly onto Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, but it does stand at the point where the disputes become revealed. Meaning, the disputes are formed and they’re not really able to settle them. Is it exactly between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai? Not sure. In terms of identifying the sages, I can’t identify most of them. “It happened in the upper room of Rabbi Hananiah ben Hezekiah ben Garon”—that’s something else. There was one particular day when they became more numerous, but ordinarily of course the Jewish law was ruled according to Beit Hillel, as the heavenly voice says. But I’ll get to that later. What is halakhic ruling? After we understand what dispute is, we’ll try to understand what halakhic ruling is and what it means that the law was ruled according to Beit Hillel, and what this heavenly voice business is, and then why in some cases they ruled like Beit Shammai after the heavenly voice. There are things that were ruled like Beit Shammai. This whole story is the later stages. So let’s begin to deal a bit with disputes, and I want to read together with you some of these sugiyot I mentioned before. We’ll start with a sugya in Berakhot. “The rabbis taught: It happened with one student who came before Rabbi Yehoshua. The Talmud in Berakhot 28. He said to him: Is the evening prayer optional or obligatory? He said to him: Optional. He came before Rabban Gamliel, and said to him: Is the evening prayer optional or obligatory? He said to him: Obligatory. He said to him: But Rabbi Yehoshua told me it was optional! He said to him: Wait until the shield-bearers enter the study hall. When the shield-bearers entered, the questioner stood and asked: Is the evening prayer optional or obligatory? Rabban Gamliel said to him: Obligatory.” Right? Wait until the shield-bearers enter—the Torah scholars, the ones who sit at the head of the group in the study hall. The study hall and the court, by the way, are the same thing in the Talmudic period, there is no difference. The study hall and the court are the same thing. The sages sit there in the study hall, and if a case arrives it becomes a court. So these are not two different concepts. In any case, the shield-bearers enter, that fellow asks, yes, is the evening prayer optional or obligatory, and once again Rabban Gamliel answers him. You wanted to hear other opinions now, not you—we already heard you, you said it’s obligatory. The other fellow said Rabbi Yehoshua says it’s optional. Now a Jew comes and asks, he wants to hear the shield-bearers. Rabban Gamliel says to him: Obligatory. Rabban Gamliel brings them in, but he’s the one who talks, not them. Okay? Then this is just the beginning of the story. After that, Rabban Gamliel said to the sages: Is there anyone who disputes this? You can already understand the heavy atmosphere there—nobody chirps. Huh? Right, nobody chirps. That’s it, nobody disputes this. Maybe yes, maybe no, but they keep it in their stomachs. Okay? And then Rabbi Yehoshua himself, who says it’s optional, says to him: No. No, no, nobody disputes it. Terrible fear. He said to him: But was it not said to me in your name that it is optional? I caught you, in short. You yourself said it was optional, so what are you pulling here? He said to him: Yehoshua, stand on your feet and let them testify against you. Right? Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet, and “let them testify against you,” I assume that means shaking legs. Meaning, let’s see whether you tell the truth. Right? Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: If I were alive and he were dead, the living could deny the dead. But now that I am alive and he is alive, how can the living deny the living? Right? That student who asked me is here, he isn’t dead, he’s alive. I can’t tell him to his face that I didn’t say it. Right, you caught me. I said it was optional. Rabban Gamliel sat and expounded while Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet. He left him standing like a student—stand in the corner, stay standing, yes? Until all the people murmured and said to Hutzpit the interpreter: Stop. “Interpreter” means the Torah scholar who would explain the words of the lecturer, who translated and explained the words of the lecturer. The people said to Rabbi Hutzpit the interpreter, who was translating the words of Rabban Gamliel, Rabban Gamliel’s lecture, they said to him: Stop translating him. The public said to Hutzpit the interpreter, and he stopped. He stopped translating him. Now the opposition starts to work; until this point it was one-man rule. They said: How long will we let him keep tormenting Rabbi Yehoshua? Last year, on Rosh Hashanah, he tormented him. Right, this is the well-known Talmud about Yom Kippur that fell on the Sabbath according to Rabbi Yehoshua’s reckoning, and Rabban Gamliel harassed Rabbi Yehoshua when he disagreed with him, so he tormented Rabbi Yehoshua on matters of Rosh Hashanah. In Bekhorot, in the incident involving Rabbi Tzadok, he tormented him too, with the issue of inflicting a blemish on consecrated animals and so on. Here too he torments him? Come, let us remove him. So let’s remove him from office. Let’s depose him from being president of the Sanhedrin. Whom shall we appoint in his place? The sages there discuss whom to put in his place. Shall we appoint Rabbi Yehoshua? He is involved in the case. So there are debates here, yes, and “involved in the case,” and therefore what? Therefore Rabban Gamliel will be hurt too much? Or therefore it will look like an agenda? Meaning, you’re basically deposing Rabban Gamliel and the whole thing was a plot by Rabbi Yehoshua to inherit his role. In any case, Rabbi Yehoshua is not an option. In terms of ages, just to understand, age-wise there was Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer his brother-in-law, that older generation, and Rabbi Yehoshua was of their age, the disputant opposite both of them. In the Oven of Akhnai it was Rabbi Yehoshua against Rabbi Eliezer, and in these three disputes it’s Rabbi Yehoshua against Rabban Gamliel. Meaning, they were the two brothers-in-law and he was their contemporary, but the disputant opposite them. So that’s their generation. The elders. Okay? So Rabbi Yehoshua is not an option either. Shall we appoint Rabbi Akiva? So maybe let’s appoint Rabbi Akiva? Rabbi Akiva is already a student of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. I don’t know whether younger than them in age, but he began late, yes, so he is a student; he’s basically another generation after Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. Perhaps he will be punished because he does not have ancestral merit; he was the son of converts. So he has no ancestral merit, and if Rabban Gamliel punishes him because he came in his place to serve as president of the Sanhedrin, there will be no merit to protect him. Rather, let us appoint Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. Because he is wise, and he is wealthy, and he is tenth from Ezra. Right, so Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who was young as is known, “like a man of seventy years,” the well-known midrash—he is wise and he is wealthy, in short he is an established man, and he has ancestral merit. “Ancestral merit” here means he is wise and wealthy, as is known—like is accepted today, yes, ancestral merit, someone who marries into a family with ancestral merit means there’s a lot of money there. And he is tenth from Ezra; he really does also have ancestral merit. “Wise, because if someone presses him with questions, he can answer him. Wealthy, because if he has to go serve in the emperor’s house, he can go and serve. And tenth from Ezra, because he has ancestral merit and they cannot punish him.” All right? So that is basically the claim. By the way, I think that this whole story of punishment and ancestral merit protecting from punishment doesn’t have to be interpreted metaphysically. Meaning, it may well be that ancestral merit is something that plays publicly. Meaning, someone who comes from a special family has some kind of standing. Rabban Gamliel won’t be able to go after him so easily, because the public also gives him credit; he too has a certain standing. Someone from a simple background is more vulnerable to being hurt by people of high status. That was the reality. I once wrote an article on the status of a convert in Jewish law. You know, it’s not exactly permitted to say this openly, but according to Jewish law converts are discriminated against. With all the warnings to be careful with the honor of the convert and to love the convert and so on, they are discriminated against. Meaning, for example, you may not appoint them to any position of authority; they may not marry a priest; various things of that sort. And I wanted to argue there in the article—and there is evidence for it, it’s not apologetics, not because of apologetics—that this is simply a consequence of the convert’s low social status. The moment you want to give him a public role, if he has low status he won’t be able to fill it. The public won’t listen to him, won’t give him the respect due to him, and he won’t succeed in managing what he needs to manage. And therefore you can’t entrust public roles to him. And the practical implication is that in a proper society, which gives converts an appropriate attitude, then there’s no problem; you can appoint him to roles and to authority and to everything. Meaning, there is a lot of evidence for this in Jewish law, though I haven’t seen anyone point this out. And here too, the same thing. Meaning, perhaps Rabbi Akiva was the son of converts, and therefore what? Not because of that his Father in heaven won’t protect him when Rabban Gamliel fires metaphysical ballistae at him. Rather, when Rabban Gamliel goes out against him—goes against him publicly, sorry—he won’t have the social backing, he doesn’t have the status. Therefore they look for someone who is wealthy and wise. You see that the criteria are not necessarily metaphysical; the point is, he has standing. And if he has standing, it will be harder to go against him. You want to appoint him president of the Sanhedrin, then appoint him. By the way, one more interesting point—I’m only now thinking of it—they wanted to appoint Rabbi Akiva as president of the Sanhedrin. According to the law, that’s forbidden. If he is the son of converts, then you can’t appoint him to any authority. So how could there even have been an initial thought to appoint him? And in the answer too they say he has no ancestral merit. According to the way I explain it, maybe this works well—I just thought of it now. Because “he has no ancestral merit” doesn’t really mean he has no ancestral merit and therefore metaphysically he is more vulnerable. Rather, “he has no ancestral merit” means he is the son of converts; that’s a polite way of saying he is the son of converts. And if he is the son of converts, you can’t appoint him. Okay? In short, they came and said to him—to Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah—Would the master be agreeable to becoming head of the academy? He said to them: I will go and consult with the members of my household. Yes, I’ll consult with my wife, my family. He went and consulted with his wife. She said to him: Perhaps they’ll remove you too? They removed Rabban Gamliel. He said to her: Let a man use one precious cup for one day, and tomorrow let it break. At least for one day I’ll have a precious cup; afterward it can break. She said to him: You have no white hair. In short, all kinds of nice parables. “That day he was eighteen years old. A miracle occurred for him and eighteen rows of white hair appeared.” Yes, white hairs grew for him. That is what Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah meant when he said, “Behold I am like a man of seventy years,” and not seventy years old. The Talmud says this, not Hasidic sermons. The Talmud says that when he said, “Behold I am like a man of seventy years,” the meaning is that a miracle occurred to him and he was really eighteen years old. And again, these miracles too did not necessarily happen literally; the point may simply be that he wasn’t really in the appropriate standing before, but suddenly his authority was recognized and he was accepted. It doesn’t matter to me right now whether there were actual metaphysical matters there or not. It was taught: On that day they removed the guard at the door and permission was given to the students to enter, because Rabban Gamliel used to proclaim and say: Any student whose inside is not like his outside may not enter the study hall. Rabban Gamliel made a selection at the entrance to the study hall—someone whose inside is not like his outside, someone who is not of the very highest level, doesn’t get in. If you remember the story with Hillel the Elder who froze in the snow on the roof of the study hall, the same policy. Okay? And yes, “whose inside is not like his outside” can also mean… it’s the same as ancestral merit, yes. And when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah was appointed, benches multiplied in the study hall, meaning they opened the gates, the selection stopped. That day several benches were added. Rabbi Yohanan said: Abba Yosef ben Dostai and the Rabbis disagreed about it. One said four hundred benches were added, and one said seven hundred benches. Again, this disagreement is just there—frankly I don’t care how many benches were added there, why is that interesting? I think it’s just there to direct our attention: notice, something happened there, something significant happened. It’s not just that they brought in a few more benches to the study hall; it’s a change of approach. Then—even within the dispute, within the story of the dispute, there is a dispute. What does that mean? About exactly how many benches. Yes, but that dispute itself isn’t really interesting; I think it’s just a literary device to tell you: pay attention, something happened here. Rabban Gamliel became distressed. Rabban Gamliel saw this and suddenly got weak in the knees. He said: Perhaps, heaven forbid, I prevented Torah from Israel? Maybe I really wasn’t right in this elitist policy of selecting who gets into the study hall. They showed him in a dream white jugs filled with ashes, to show that their inside was not like their outside. Right, outside it’s a white jug, inside it’s ashes—meaning they strengthened him in a dream. But the Talmud says: It was not so. They did not really strengthen him. That was shown to him only to put his mind at ease, because his mind had become distressed beforehand. So they showed him some kind of dream from heaven, but the truth is that he was wrong; his policy had been a bad policy when he denied benches in the study hall. It was taught: Tractate Eduyot was taught on that day, and everywhere we say “on that day,” it means that day. And there was no Jewish law left pending in the study hall that they did not explain. The entire tractate Eduyot was taught on the day they replaced Rabban Gamliel with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. And everywhere we say “on that day,” in all the passages where you hear “on that day such and such happened,” it means this day. And that’s an interesting key, because we’re going to see more passages—“that day.” And there was no Jewish law left pending in the study hall that they did not explain. “Did not explain” here means did not decide; there was no dispute left open without a decision. This is a very important point here, notice: what is the meaning of this policy of Rabban Gamliel putting a bouncer at the door of the study hall? Not just one opinion—not only that, but he examined people according to their spiritual qualities, or intelligence maybe, doesn’t matter, but he examined the person himself and not the issue itself. And we’ll see this later too. And when they multiply benches in the study hall, what are they really saying to Rabban Gamliel? We are opening all the positions. People will present a reasoned opinion; we’ll either accept it or not. Why do I care whether his inside is like his outside? Why is that interesting to me? “Inside like outside” is a view—let’s call it a traditionalist view. What does that mean? Rabban Gamliel lets into the study hall only a person whose words you can trust. Why? Because in his view Torah is a Torah of tradition, and I have to be sure that the Torah being transmitted to me is reliable, that it is really what he received. His inside is like his outside; there’s nobody here pulling tricks on me. The young revolutionaries who deposed Rabban Gamliel understood Torah as a Torah of give-and-take, not a Torah of tradition. Meaning, he has nothing personal here. Yes, yes. And therefore what he received he transmits, meaning he doesn’t add anything of his own and I can trust him. And the basic infrastructure is that I’m supposed to trust the person in order to receive what he says. Opposed to Rabban Gamliel stood a conception that says no. If a person presents a position—his inside isn’t like his outside—why do I care? Give me your argument and I’ll weigh it. If I accept the argument, excellent. Why do I care? You can be a complete scoundrel, a hypocrite, inside unlike outside, yes like outside, what difference does it make? He offers an argument; we examine it on its own merits. If we agree, excellent; if we disagree, also fine, everything’s okay. Why do we need selection at the entrance to the study hall? Because Torah has undergone a phase shift from a Torah of tradition to a Torah of give-and-take. And what is the indication? What sets tractate Eduyot apart? Tractate Eduyot—yes, but tradition there is almost the opposite of tradition. Tractate Eduyot—that’s what is being said here, what the Talmud says here—has no topic at all. There is no single topic that characterizes tractate Eduyot. It is a collection of all the issues that remained disputed and could not be resolved up to that day. That is what characterizes the tractate; that’s why it is called “testimonies.” Testimonies were brought on every one of the issues, they examined them, there were conflicting testimonies—hence the dispute—they examined the testimonies, reached conclusions, and decided. Therefore not a single Jewish law remained pending in the study hall that they did not explain. That is tractate Eduyot. Tractate Eduyot is the tractate of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah after they threw out Rabban Gamliel. Because in Rabban Gamliel’s time it was impossible to decide any dispute. Why? I have one tradition, that fellow has another tradition. What are you going to do now? The question is who is more reliable. One is lying, one is telling the truth, yes? The assumption is that everyone is just a hollow pipe. So if you tell me X and he tells me not-X, one of you is lying or missing something, I don’t know. How do you decide? Arguments? There are no arguments. We don’t deal in arguments. The question is what is authentic. What was transmitted to Moses at Sinai. That is the important question, not the arguments. Right? And conflicting traditions came regarding disputes. We’ll see in a moment: the Oven of Akhnai appears in tractate Eduyot besides the story in Bava Metzia. It is one of the Jewish laws decided in tractate Eduyot, the Oven of Akhnai. And there it was two traditions: is it impure or pure, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. Okay? And they decided it. The decision in tractate Eduyot is essential to this whole story, because give-and-take had begun. Once there is give-and-take, in the end you can hold a vote or persuade and reach conclusions and close disputes. You see that they are beginning here to close what opened in the days of Hillel and Shammai or Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai—where the disputes could not be decided. And the sages suddenly understood that the reason they couldn’t decide the disputes was because of Rabban Gamliel and his group and those of his approach. Because in a traditionalist approach, the moment a dispute arises there is nothing to do with it. He has a tradition that says it is permitted and he has a tradition that says it is forbidden. What are you going to do now? What are you going to do? Conduct archaeological excavations to see which tradition is correct? How will you check? Only if you are willing to hear arguments, weigh them, see whether you agree or disagree—if there are differences of opinion and we couldn’t persuade one another, then we vote and make decisions. And that is a Torah of give-and-take. And when they deposed Rabban Gamliel, the Torah of tradition was replaced by a Torah of give-and-take. That is basically what happened there. And therefore the entire tractate Eduyot, immediately after Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah rose to power, they brought all the Jewish laws that had remained unresolved during the period of the Torah of tradition, because it had been impossible to decide and the traditions got corrupted—the Rambam says, following the Talmud, that disputes arose when the students of Hillel and Shammai did not sufficiently serve their teachers. What does that mean? What does it mean, “did not sufficiently serve”? It means their inside was not like their outside. Meaning, they did not properly transmit the tradition they received. They were not hollow pipes. Exactly. Noise started entering the transmission. And once there is noise in the transmission, suddenly two different traditions are formed. Now, if you are not willing to engage in give-and-take and examine the arguments, you are stuck. All you can do is kill each other. But once the sages here in Yavneh discover that this is the future awaiting us—wars—they say: enough. We are deposing Rabban Gamliel. In a moment we’ll also see that they excommunicate Rabbi Eliezer his brother-in-law. They are both the traditionalist camp. And they replace them with a Torah of give-and-take. Because otherwise the whole thing falls apart completely. Could it be that what Rabbi Yehoshua said about the evening prayer was his own reasoning and not tradition? Yes, of course. That is exactly the claim. The claim is: it seems to me that it is optional. And Rabban Gamliel says: what do you mean? I’m the authorized one here, and I tell you it is obligatory. He is not willing to hear arguments, he’s not willing—now what are you going to do? Rabbi Yehoshua won’t change his mind. He may be pleasant and all that, but he won’t change his mind. And now there are two Torahs here, there is no way to decide between them, and this business is a recipe for collapse. And when the sages understand this, that is the background to the story. It’s not personal abuse of Rabbi Yehoshua. The background is that when the dispute arises in the first generations of Yavneh, a bit before and a bit after, the sages understand that if there is not a fundamental change here, this whole thing will collapse. And therefore—they didn’t appoint him because he was involved in the case and so on—but he was the leader of the opposition. Yes, we’ll get to that in a moment. Then this revolution that takes place there in Yavneh is really an expression of the way one deals with dispute. Because a Torah of tradition cannot deal with disputes. It cannot. A Torah of give-and-take is the only way to deal with disputes when, of course, once there is give-and-take and we follow reasoning, you can also make mistakes. Reasoning—it could be yes, could be no. If I have a tradition—here, Moses our teacher said it—I’m set, I’m on safe ground. As long as I have one clear tradition. Once that falls apart, it falls apart. What can you do? So after the fact you say okay, we’ll do give-and-take and reach conclusions, there’s nothing to do; you can’t dismantle the system. The point is that this means we understand that our decision may not be correct. That is our reasoning, but maybe we are wrong; we are not certain we are right. But what can we do? There is no other way to deal with such a split in tradition. A Torah of tradition cannot stand in a condition of practical pluralism. In a situation where there are many opinions—it can’t. A Torah of tradition doesn’t know how to deal with such a thing. A Torah of give-and-take can deal with such a thing. Why do you say that Rabbi Yehoshua gets placed in the more extreme slot? What do you mean? Like, if he says—basically if he tells someone the evening prayer is optional, and now they discover that his inside isn’t like his outside, then he wanted to throw him out. He made him stand, and basically that’s throwing him out. And there’s also the parable about Rabbi Akiva, who would expound and so on—are you going to get to that? No. There? The one where he expounded things that Moses our teacher hadn’t heard, the midrash where Moses our teacher is in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall. Yes, that comes out of the continuation of the same matter. We’ll get to that; that, yes, I will get to. So the Talmud says: “And even Rabban Gamliel did not refrain from the study hall for even one hour. As we learned: On that day a Judahite convert from Ammon came before them in the study hall.” After they deposed him, to his credit, Rabban Gamliel entered the study hall and sat as one of the Torah scholars sitting in the study hall under the presidency of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. And you see that the point is not Rabban Gamliel’s bad character traits. He had good character traits. He had a different Torah conception. He had an authoritarian conception. Meaning, if I hold the truth, then anyone who says otherwise is harmful, and must be dealt with harshly. The moment he understands that they have taken the authority from him, he understands that his conception was not accepted, and he enters the study hall like an ordinary person and continues to be there. Meaning, you have to think about the situation—it’s an amazing situation. It deserves a film. An amazing situation. If there is someone with ancestral merit and then they choose someone tenth from Ezra, and Ezra also started preserving tradition with the enactments he instituted—not in this style. Okay. Yes. After ten generations, apparently that too changes. I’ll get to that soon. Tradition is not abolished; the relation to tradition changes. I’ll talk about that in a moment. Yes. So there came before them in the study hall a Judahite convert from Ammon, and he said to them: Am I permitted to enter the congregation? “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the Lord.” Rabban Gamliel said to him: You are forbidden to enter the congregation. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: You are permitted to enter the congregation. Now he’s no longer embarrassed. Rabban Gamliel is no longer president of the Sanhedrin. Okay? Rabban Gamliel said to him: But has it not already been said, “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the Lord”? Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: Do Ammon and Moab still dwell in their place? Sennacherib king of Assyria already came and mixed up all the nations, as it says: “I removed the borders of peoples and their treasures…” and so on. Yes, doesn’t matter. Rabban Gamliel said to him: But has it not already been said, “Afterward I will restore the captivity of the children of Ammon…” and so on, and they have already returned. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: But has it not already been said, “And I will restore the captivity of My people Israel,” and they have not yet returned. Immediately they permitted him to enter the congregation. So they permitted him. Meaning, what happened? They ruled according to Rabbi Yehoshua against Rabban Gamliel. Which of course couldn’t happen as long as he was president. And this is the expression, first, of the revolution, and second, of the fact that Rabban Gamliel accepts the verdict. He is part of this. He gives arguments and so on, yes, exactly. He gives arguments; he is a lawyer now, not the president of the Sanhedrin. You can raise arguments because now the business goes by arguments. Bring arguments, no problem. No arguments? Go home. Meaning, in the end Rabban Gamliel accepts the new rules of the game. You can see that. Rabban Gamliel said: Since this is so, I will go and appease Rabbi Yehoshua. Because in a moment we will see that Rabbi Eliezer his brother-in-law did not accept it. Meaning, there was a different reaction of these two brothers-in-law to what happened there. Rabban Gamliel said: Since this is so, I will go and appease Rabbi Yehoshua. I suddenly understand that I wasn’t right, and I’m going to appease Rabbi Yehoshua for everything I did to him. When he reached his house, he saw that the walls of his house were black. Because he was a charcoal maker. Rabban Gamliel said to Rabbi Yehoshua: From the walls of your house it is evident that you are a charcoal maker. He said to him: Woe to the generation whose leader you are, for you do not know the suffering of Torah scholars, how they earn a living and how they are sustained. You sit in the study hall; you don’t know that there are people here who work very hard, who come to the study hall with soot-blackened hands, yes—not everyone grows up in a cream pot. You are not among the people. You are this kind of scholarly elite detached from what is happening around. Its leader. “Parnas” means leader. No, no, one who sustains the public means the leader of the public, yes. So he says to him—he said to him: I submit myself to you, forgive me. Fine, I understood the criticism, I accepted it, forgive me. I came to ask forgiveness. He paid no attention to him. No, he didn’t agree. Then he said: Do it for the honor of my father, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel—his father, yes. Then he was appeased, for the sake of his father’s honor. They said: Who will go and tell the sages? Who will go tell the sages that Rabbi Yehoshua was appeased and reconciled with Rabban Gamliel? That launderer said: I’ll go. Rabbi Yehoshua sent to the study hall: Let the one who wears the garment wear the garment, and let one who does not wear the garment not say to the one who wears the garment: Take off your garment and I will wear it. In short, an amazing story with garments and the launderer. It’s obviously a play on words. In short, you can’t tell Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, whom you appointed to be president of the Sanhedrin, that now he is being deposed back again. He has already put on the uniform, he has already put on the clothes. A launderer, of course, with clothing and washing, so it’s that kind of wordplay. You can’t depose Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, even though we now want to restore Rabban Gamliel, because he repented, he made peace, he accepted the new rules of the game. What do you do? Rabbi Akiva said to the sages: Lock the gates so that the servants of Rabban Gamliel won’t come and torment the sages. Fine, close the door so Rabban Gamliel’s people won’t come and trouble us. Rabbi Yehoshua said: Better that I myself rise and go to them. I’ll go myself to explain to them that we have reconciled and everything is fine, they can restore Rabban Gamliel. He came and knocked at the door and said: Let the one who sprinkles, son of one who sprinkles, sprinkle. Again, with the garments, the same wordplay. There are a lot of these games because, again, these games are indirect speech—everything here was very sensitive. You have to understand, there is a tragic force here that is very, very strong. So everything is said in a very poetic, indirect language. They don’t say things directly. You can’t say to a person, “Get out of here,” especially if he is the president of the Sanhedrin, yes. So they said: What shall we do? Shall we remove him? We have a tradition that in matters of holiness we ascend and do not descend. What should we do—remove Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? We ascend in holiness; he became president of the Sanhedrin, we don’t descend. We don’t remove him back down. Shall one expound one Sabbath and the other one Sabbath? That will lead to jealousy. So they said: Rather, let Rabban Gamliel expound three Sabbaths and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah one Sabbath. Rabban Gamliel will be president of the Sanhedrin three weeks, and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah one week. And this is what the master said: Whose week was it? It was Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s. And that student was Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai. They reveal to us at the end that that student—the one with Rabbi Yehoshua who said that Rabbi Yehoshua said the evening prayer was optional or obligatory and stirred up the whole story—was Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai. In any case, after everything was settled, you can also say who it was. Before that it would have been slander. In any case, this whole business of “Whose week was it?” that appears in several places in the Talmud basically expresses what happened during that period when there was a rotation in the presidency of the Sanhedrin. And then they ask: Whose week was it? Was Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah president of the Sanhedrin that week, or Rabban Gamliel? Now notice, this is really the background to the next story I want to discuss, and that is the Oven of Akhnai. The Oven of Akhnai is another facet of the same story in a completely different place. This one is Berakhot 28, and that one is Bava Metzia 59, okay? But now look—suddenly the same story. “We learned there.” What does “Whose week was it?” mean? Who served that week as president of the Sanhedrin? “Sabbath” here means week. Every time someone comes and says something about what happened there in Yavneh in the Sanhedrin, they ask him: Whose week was it? This is a typical question in the Talmud; it’s not something specific. We’ll see later a passage in Chagigah where they ask this explicitly. Did they open with a new idea? Meaning, to say a Torah teaching? Yes. Whose week was it? Who sat there at the head of the academy? Exactly. Who expounded. So the Talmud says there: “We learned there in Bava Metzia 59: If he cut it into rings and put sand between each ring, Rabbi Eliezer declares it pure and the sages declare it impure. And this is the Oven of Akhnai.” Akhnai means snake. What is Akhnai? Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: They surrounded it with arguments like this snake and declared it impure. Yes, meaning they raised all sorts of arguments and declared the oven impure. “On that day Rabbi Eliezer answered with every answer in the world, but they did not accept anything from him.” Rabbi Eliezer argued that the oven was pure, and he brought all kinds of arguments, but they accepted nothing from him. He said to them: If the Jewish law is like me, this carob tree will prove it. The carob tree was uprooted from its place one hundred cubits—and some say four hundred cubits. They said to him: One does not bring proof from the carob tree. You’re talking to me about an oven—we’re discussing the impurity of an oven—don’t do magic tricks for me. Meaning, we want arguments on the merits of the issue. You already see the root of the dispute. Rabbi Eliezer is Rabban Gamliel’s brother-in-law. What are all these proofs? Yes, afterward the walls of the study hall and the roof and the wood and the stream—what are all these things? They are meant to prove that he is righteous, right? They don’t prove that the oven is pure. What does the wall of the study hall have to do with the oven now? It proves that he is righteous, right? But they say to him: One does not bring proof from the carob tree. What do they mean? You are from Rabban Gamliel’s party. You’ve come to tell me that your inside is like your outside and you are reliable and what you say can be trusted. We know you are reliable, and you are talking nonsense. Not because you are lying or because you’re telling us false things. We are not discussing the person; we are discussing the matter. You bring me proofs that you are righteous; we need arguments. If you persuade us with arguments, excellent. If you don’t persuade us, then no, we won’t accept it. And that is exactly the dispute here. Therefore this is the second facet of the same coin as the Talmud in Berakhot, only here it is Rabbi Eliezer and not Rabban Gamliel. And look at the aggadah. Rabban Gamliel came back, repented, accepted the new rules of the game. Rabbi Eliezer did not accept them until the day he died. The Talmud says—yes, let the stream prove it, and the stream flowed backward. They said to him: One does not bring proof from the stream. The water flowed back. If the Jewish law is like me, let the walls of the study hall prove it. The walls of the study hall inclined to fall. Rabbi Yehoshua rebuked them and said to them: If Torah scholars contend with one another in Jewish law because they are bringing arguments, what business is it of yours? What do the walls of the study hall have to do with the question of the impurity of an oven? Meaning, you understand that the whole discussion here is a discussion over whether this is a Torah of tradition or a Torah of give-and-take. Rabbi Eliezer says this is a Torah of tradition; I’ll show you that I am the greatest transmitter of tradition there is. By the way, the Talmud says in several places that Rabbi Eliezer never said anything he did not hear from his teacher. He is the number one traditionalist. A plastered cistern that loses not a drop. He heard, he repeated—we’ll still see later too—hundreds of Jewish laws about an intense white patch and so on. He held the entire Torah, everything. “If all the seas were ink,” and so on. “All I learned from my teachers, I did not diminish from them even as a dog lapping from the sea.” On the other hand, it says somewhere that nevertheless he… yes, that’s Rabbi Kook’s eulogy. Since he understood this—I’ll get to it—that’s Rabbi Kook’s eulogy on “ha-soheq le-oved.” He brings Rabbi Eliezer, a contradiction in Rabbi Eliezer. So the dispute here is the same dispute we had in the Talmud in Berakhot. And therefore they did not fall because of the honor of Rabbi Yehoshua, and they did not straighten because of the honor of Rabbi Eliezer, and they remain inclined. The walls of the study hall remained halfway. He said to them: If the Jewish law is like me, let heaven prove it. A heavenly voice went out and said: Why are you opposing Rabbi Eliezer, for the Jewish law is like him in every place? Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: “It is not in heaven.” Meaning, we are not willing to accept proofs that Rabbi Eliezer is righteous. I know he is righteous too. You know, it’s like—for example—someone comes to testify that a husband died in order to permit an agunah to remarry. If there is a concern called in the Talmud “he imagined it,” meaning not that he is lying but that he simply did not correctly see who the dead man was and did not identify him correctly, then a legal presumption based on “he could have lied better” won’t help him. Why? Because that type of argument proves that if he wanted to lie he could have lied better, so it shows he isn’t lying. But if the concern is not that you are lying, but that you are simply mistaken, what use is that kind of argument? If you bring me proof on the merits of the matter, like a presumption or something of that sort, that is an excellent proof; it is a proof that her husband died. But if you bring proof about the person—and that kind of argument is always proof about the person and not about the matter—then it doesn’t help. Proof about the person doesn’t help me; I’m talking about the case, not the person. Only if I suspect that the witness or litigant is lying can such an argument prove otherwise. But if we’re not talking about a suspicion of lying, what use are proofs about the person? Same thing here. We didn’t suspect Rabbi Eliezer of lying, but you are mistaken. In your reasoning you are mistaken. So what will it help me if you prove that you are righteous? It’s irrelevant. And again, Rabbi Eliezer of course is speaking from a Torah of tradition, like Rabban Gamliel. A bit—more than a bit—stubborn, stubborn until the day he died. We haven’t even begun his stubbornness yet. Then he says: What does “It is not in heaven” mean? Rabbi Yirmiyah said: Since the Torah was already given at Mount Sinai, we pay no attention to a heavenly voice, for You already wrote at Mount Sinai—You already wrote—they turn to the Holy One, because the heavenly voice coming out is as if the Holy One is speaking, and Rabbi Eliezer says: stop, You wrote at Mount Sinai, You’re not in the game. Okay? Again, this whole story is of course aggadah, but the aggadah is coming to say something. It is coming to say that we are moving from a Torah of tradition to a Torah of give-and-take. From now on what determines things are arguments on the merits of the issue. That’s it. And everyone can enter the study hall. Give your arguments and we’ll hear whether you are right or wrong. Then Rabbi Natan met Elijah and said to him: What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do at that moment? He said to him: He smiled and said, “My children have defeated Me, My children have defeated Me.” They said: On that day they brought all the pure things that Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure—does that remind you of anything? Exactly like all the cases in tractate Eduyot, right? Exactly the same thing. On that day they brought all the pure things that Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure and burned them in fire. They took a vote about him and “blessed” him—they cursed him. They really excommunicated him. And they said: Who will go and inform him? Who will inform Rabbi Eliezer? Awkward—the greatest sage of the generation. Who will go inform him? What? Because he was wrong here in impurity and purity. He argued that the oven was pure, right? And they said the oven was impure. Now it turns out he was wrong. Once he was wrong, everything he had declared pure in the past had to be burned because it was impure. Not everything he ever ruled was automatically invalidated, but what had now become clear to be wrong. They said: Who will go and inform him? Again you see the same thing, like with Rabban Gamliel—who will tell, who will tell? Sensitive matters here. Rabbi Akiva said to them: I will go, lest an unfit person go and inform him and thereby destroy the whole world. Exactly like there, you see, one-to-one, it is the same story. What did Rabbi Akiva do? He put on black garments and wrapped himself in black, and sat before him at a distance of four cubits. Rabbi Eliezer said to him: Akiva, what is different today from other days? He said to him: Master, it appears to me that the colleagues are keeping away from you. You are excommunicated, in gentle language. And he comes to his teacher, yes? and says such a thing. Hard story. He too tore his garments, removed his shoes, slipped down and sat upon the ground. Tears streamed from his eyes. The world was stricken: one third in olives, one third in wheat, and one third in barley. And some say even dough in a woman’s hand spoiled. In short, the world was destroyed in honor of Rabbi Eliezer. Of course none of this moved the sages who disagreed. We pay no attention—not to dough, not to the walls of the study hall, not to olives. Okay? But they show us how highly heaven regarded Rabbi Eliezer as a righteous person, a person for whose honor all heaven was mobilized. It didn’t matter; the sages did not budge from their position. They ruled, and they ruled, and nothing would help. And they excommunicated him. It was taught: Great was the pain on that day. You see? What is “that day”? Here too there was “that day,” I remind you. Look, you see above? “It was taught: On that day.” And here too now again, “Great was the pain on that day.” What does that mean? It is the same day they deposed Rabban Gamliel, because everywhere it says “on that day” or “that very day,” it means that day. That is a clear hint that this story, which appears in another context, is clearly another facet of the same story appearing there, and the analogies are impossible to ignore. Okay? Great was the pain on that day, for everywhere Rabbi Eliezer cast his eyes was burned. Wow. His holiness was so fiery that everything he looked at burned. He of course did not retract, unlike Rabban Gamliel. They feared Rabban Gamliel, but in the end he entered the study hall and cooperated with everyone. Rabbi Eliezer did not yield. He cast his eyes, things burned, there was havoc there. And Rabban Gamliel too was traveling in a ship. Interesting—who is this? Rabban Gamliel, his brother-in-law, who had repented, yes? He was traveling in a ship, and a wave arose against him to drown him. Rabbi Eliezer is going to drown his brother-in-law, who had been in his camp and betrayed him. Yes? Then he said: It seems to me that this is only because of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. He stood on his feet and said: Master of the universe, it is revealed and known before You that I did this not for my honor and not for the honor of my father’s house, but for Your honor, so that disputes would not multiply in Israel. He had to apologize for having accepted the opinion of the other sages. Now Rabbi Eliezer, who held to his former position, is trying to drown him. Then, the Talmud says, the sea calmed from its rage. And Imma Shalom, the wife of Rabbi Eliezer, was the sister of Rabban Gamliel—the sister of Rabban Gamliel, wife of Rabbi Eliezer; they were brothers-in-law. From that incident onward she would not let Rabbi Eliezer fall on his face. She wanted to watch his eyes all the time, because she knew that if she missed his eyes for a moment he would destroy the world. From that day onward she wouldn’t let him fall on his face. That day was the New Moon and she got confused between a full month and a defective month, doesn’t matter. In short, the honor of Rabbi Eliezer still remained; heaven protested his honor, but on earth the halakhic ruling remained as it was. Rabban Gamliel accepted the verdict, and Rabbi Eliezer did not accept the verdict. He did not accept the verdict; until the day he died he remained excommunicated in Lod. Now, that excommunication in Lod—look here in Sanhedrin—well, we’ll get to that later, the excommunication in Lod appears in Chagigah 3. “The rabbis taught: An incident involving Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar Chasma, who went to greet Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in. Rabbi Eliezer sits in Lod, Rabbi Yehoshua sits in Peki’in. He said to them: What new thing was there in the study hall today?” Of course they came from Yavneh to Peki’in, and he asked them what new thing had been introduced in the study hall. They said to him: We are your students and from your waters we drink. We are your students; you tell us new ideas, not the other way around—we come to tell you the new ideas. He said to them: Even so, a study hall cannot be without a new idea. What does that mean? The word here is important. In a Torah of tradition there are no new ideas; they pass on what was received. But a study hall cannot be without a new idea. The new study hall—this is exactly its whole point. There is no new study hall without a new idea. If you heard a lecture in the study hall in the new Yavneh, after the age of the revolution, then of course there was a new idea there; there is no study hall without a new idea. Then he said: Whose week was it? Another hint that this is of course about the same tension between Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabban Gamliel. It was Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s week. And what aggadah was there today? What did he expound? They said to him: On the passage of Hakhel: “Assemble the people, the men and the women and the children.” If men come to learn and women come to hear, why do the children come? In order to give reward to those who bring them. That’s the sermon. We’ve heard more brilliant sermons, but that’s the sermon they brought from Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. Look how excited he gets. He said to them: You had a precious jewel in your hand and wanted to keep it from me? You didn’t want to tell me this new teaching? This is the most wonderful new idea in the world. We’ve heard bigger new ideas, haven’t we? Clearly the new idea here is the new idea that everyone enters the study hall. That’s the new thing—the study hall now functions differently. That sermon is only there to describe that story. That’s what excites him, not that interpretation of the verses. And he also expounded: “You have affirmed the Lord today, and the Lord has affirmed you today.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: You have made Me a single unit in the world, and I will make you a single unit in the world. You have made Me a single unit in the world, as it is written: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” And I will make you a single unit in the world, as it is said: “And who is like Your people Israel, one nation on earth.” What does “You have made Me a single unit in the world” mean? Obviously after the revolution of Yavneh all the opinions can once again enter one study hall. It is no longer two separate study halls. So it becomes a single unit. Within a unit there are many brigades, but it is one unit. And that is what is written here. Therefore he expounds that sermon; it is all around the same issue. Now look, immediately afterward you see it explicitly in the Talmud. He too opened and expounded: “The words of the sages are like goads, and like well-planted nails, masters of collections, 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 furrow to bring life into the world, so too words of Torah direct their learners from paths of death to paths of life. If so, just as a goad is movable, so too words of Torah are movable? Scripture says: nails. Just as a nail diminishes and does not increase, so too words of Torah diminish and do not increase? Scripture says: planted. Just as a planting is fruitful and multiplies, so too words of Torah are fruitful and multiply. What does that mean? It is not a hollow pipe. There are people’s own new teachings. There are people’s own opinions; Torah changes. Torah is fruitful and multiplies. It’s not just “received and transmitted, received and transmitted.” “Masters of collections”—these are Torah scholars who sit in separate groups and engage in Torah. Before they became one unit, they were “groups and groups,” each one saying something different. Once they become one unit, then these become brigades within the same unit. And that is what is written here: these declare impure and those declare pure; these forbid and those permit; these disqualify and those validate. Lest a person say: How can I now study Torah? What is this sermon? He says: In a Torah of tradition, these declare impure and those declare pure—how can I now study Torah? The whole thing falls apart. There is nothing to do. Lest he say: All of them were given by one shepherd. One God gave them. One leader said them from the mouth of the Master of all actions, blessed be He, as it is written: “And God spoke all these words.” So you too, make your ear like a funnel and acquire for yourself an understanding heart to hear the words of those who declare pure and the words of those who declare impure, 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. Hear them all, hear the arguments, and in the end reach a conclusion. That is how you turn the brigades into one unit. And that is exactly the opposite of the Torah of tradition that was brought down in the revolution. It is all around the same issue. It’s obvious. In a moment you’ll also see the continuation. He said to them—Rabbi Yehoshua, carried away with enthusiasm, continues: A generation is not orphaned when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah dwells within it. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who made this revolution, who changed the policy of Rabban Gamliel, saved the generation. He is the father of that generation. “And let him say it explicitly because of the incident that occurred, as it was taught: An incident involving Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit, who went to greet Rabbi Elazar in Lod”—this should of course be Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Elazar in Lod. You see? Meaning, they went to greet Rabbi Yehoshua, head of the opposition who became head of the coalition, in Peki’in. In contrast, Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit visits Rabbi Eliezer, the excommunicated one in Lod, because this is after the revolution, so Rabbi Eliezer is already excommunicated in Lod. It says Elazar, but I think that’s an error; it should be Rabbi Eliezer. After Rabbi Eliezer in Lod, after Rabbi Eliezer in Lod. No, no, “let him say it explicitly” belongs to the context, the previous context. Doesn’t matter right now. They bring another story. He said to him: What new thing was there in the study hall today? Same thing. Yes, what new thing was there in the study hall today? Come, let’s hear what happened there in Yavneh. But look at the contrast to the first part of the passage. He said to him: They counted and concluded that Ammon and Moab tithe the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year. The question is whether that is part of the Land of Israel, whether it is obligated in the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year, because if it is the Land of Israel then in the Sabbatical year there are no tithes. In the Sabbatical year one does not separate tithes and offerings. If it is not the Land of Israel, then even in the Sabbatical year they tithe, because it is obligated in tithes but it is not the Land of Israel, so there is no Sabbatical year. He said to him, Yosei: Stretch out your hands and receive your eyes. He stretched out his hands and received his eyes. He blinded him. Rabbi Eliezer blinded Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit after he told him what had happened there in Yavneh. Rabbi Eliezer wept and said: “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and His covenant to make them know it.” He said to him: Go tell them not to worry about your count. This is what I received from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, whose teacher heard from his teacher and his teacher from his teacher—this is of course Rabbi Eliezer, who never said anything he did not hear from his teacher, all Torah of tradition—this is a law given to Moses at Sinai: Ammon and Moab tithe the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year. You were right, by chance, but you were right. And you did it on the basis of give-and-take, of arguments. And I tell you this on the basis of tradition. I received it from my teacher, and my teacher from his teacher, and his teacher from his teacher: a law given to Moses at Sinai, Ammon and Moab tithe in the Sabbatical year. In short, you are wasting your time there in Yavneh. Because you threw me out to Lod under excommunication, you are now pilpul-ing there over things that I’m telling you are a law given to Moses at Sinai. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Therefore, in his anger, he blinds Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit over the fact that they are carrying on there in Yavneh for nothing. They threw him aside and the children are amusing themselves with things that every child knows—this is a law given to Moses at Sinai. What is the reason? Because many towns were conquered by those who came up from Egypt but not conquered by those who came up from Babylon, and so on. He gave him the reasons. It was taught that after his mind was settled, he said: May it be the will of heaven that Yosei’s eyes return to their place, and they returned. Now you see the contrast: how Rabbi Yehoshua reacted and how Rabbi Eliezer reacted, because these are exactly the two camps and the two camps reacting to what happened in Yavneh. One rejoices and is happy about the dispute, about the differing opinions, about the fact that everyone enters the study hall—that is Rabbi Yehoshua. And Rabbi Eliezer blinds Rabbi Yosei because they are engaging in pilpul with all kinds of arguments when I am telling them this is a law given to Moses at Sinai. That’s a fact. This is a Torah received by tradition. No need for your inventions. Meaning, this story is really the product of the revolution that took place in Yavneh. Two attitudes. And Rabbi Eliezer remained like this until the day he died. Right? According to what I understood, he asked Rabbi Yosei what the reason was, so he doesn’t need the reason. Not that he doesn’t like the reason; he doesn’t need the reason. It’s a law given to Moses at Sinai—why are you bringing me reasons? But he was interested in it. I don’t know what “interested” means. He asked “what is the reason?” Or maybe that too is part of the law. Yes, it’s part of the law given to Moses at Sinai. What is written here—“what is the reason?”—I assume that continues Rabbi Eliezer’s own words. Is there significance to the fact that in the first story he had to extract the information from them and they didn’t want to bring it on their own? I don’t know. No, the fact that he had to extract it from them is again just a literary device to say that there is no study hall without a new idea. It had to say to them: Listen, there is no study hall without a new idea; don’t think that a study hall can be renewed. They immediately said to him—he didn’t really need to. Obviously, because Rabbi Yehoshua created here a study hall with new ideas. Rabbi Eliezer says there is no study hall with a new idea. Even when you had a new idea, that new idea is a law given to Moses at Sinai that I could have told you beforehand. These are exactly the two perspectives. Rabbi Yehoshua says there is no study hall without a new idea. Rabbi Eliezer says there is no study hall with a new idea. Even when it seems to you that you have a new idea, it’s not a new idea; you are just wasting time. And in fact in the Talmud in Sanhedrin there appear, in two places, stories about the day Rabbi Eliezer died. Rabbi Eliezer fell ill, and he was under excommunication. Nobody came to visit him, nobody came to ask him halakhic questions, nothing. A Jew who held the entire Torah. Meaning, everything his teachers said, all of it, all of it sat with him, arranged in a box. All the information with him, and no one asked him anything. They made it all up on their own, like with Ammon and Moab tithing in the Sabbatical year—with full arguments, they engaged in pilpul and reached a conclusion, while all the information was sitting in Lod. Just go ask. No, they don’t go ask. In that case they happened to hit the truth, but it could also have gone otherwise. Rabbi Akiva says in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua: Two people gather cucumbers; one is exempt and one is liable. One who performs an act is liable, and one who merely creates an illusion is exempt. We’re talking there about the laws of sorcery, performing sorcery on cucumbers in a field. So if you merely create an illusion, you are exempt, and if you actually perform an act, then you are liable. Don’t do sorcery—do not practice divination, do not practice sorcery. Rabbi Akiva said, etc. But didn’t Rabbi Akiva learn this from Rabbi Yehoshua? The Mishnah there says Rabbi Akiva said it in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua. But here the Talmud says: what do you mean, in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua? He learned it from Rabbi Eliezer. As it was taught: When Rabbi Eliezer fell ill, Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues entered to visit him. He sat in his canopied bed, and they sat in his drawing room. That day was Sabbath eve, and his son Hyrcanus entered to remove his phylacteries. He rebuked him and he left in anger. He said to his colleagues: It seems to me that my father’s mind has become confused. He is about to die. Rabbi Eliezer said to them: His mind and his mother’s mind have become confused. How is it that they leave a prohibition punishable by stoning and occupy themselves with a rabbinic prohibition? Since the sages saw that his mind was settled upon him—it doesn’t matter right now, it’s a Sabbath and phylacteries issue, a rabbinic prohibition—they entered and sat before him at a distance of four cubits because he was excommunicated, so they sat four cubits away. He said to them: Why have you come? Of course, it was the day of his death, so they came. They came to part from him. Why have you come? They said to him: We came to learn Torah. It’s awkward to say, “We came to part from you, you are about to die.” We came to learn Torah. He said to them: And until now, why didn’t you come? He was under excommunication; no one had come. Right, remember Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit who tells him about the new ideas in Yavneh? Instead of engaging in pilpul there in Yavneh, you could have come to ask me, you could have come to learn whatever you wanted. Without pilpul and without reasons. Why didn’t you come? They said to him: We did not have time. It was awkward to say, you were excommunicated. He knew he was excommunicated, I assume. He said to them: I would be surprised if they die their natural deaths. Let them die strange deaths because they did not come to visit me. This continues the same anger described in that sugya of the Oven of Akhnai. Yes, of course, until the day he died he remained with that anger. Rabbi Akiva said to him: What about me? Rabbi Akiva did come to ask him. He said to him: Yours will be harsher than theirs. You will die more harshly than they, and we know how Rabbi Akiva died. You will die worse than they because you are my student. Yes, he was even angrier with him. He took his two arms and placed them on his heart and said: Woe to you, my two arms, which are like two Torah scrolls being rolled up. I learned much Torah and taught much Torah. I learned much Torah and I did not diminish from my teachers even as a dog laps from the sea. And I taught much Torah, and my students diminished me only like a paintbrush from a tube. In short, I hold the whole Torah. Yes, a plastered cistern that loses not a drop, and so on. And furthermore, I used to teach three hundred laws regarding a bright white patch, and no one ever asked me about them. Nobody came to ask. I have three hundred laws given to Moses at Sinai just about the laws of an intense white patch in leprosy. You probably engaged in pilpul over them there for years. I have three hundred laws given to Moses at Sinai and none of you came to ask. And furthermore, I used to teach three hundred laws—and some say three thousand laws—about planting cucumbers, that sorcery, yes. And no one ever asked me about them except Akiva ben Yosef. Rabbi Akiva kind of bypassed the excommunication and went to ask him questions about planting cucumbers. He said to me: Master, you taught me how to plant them; teach me how to uproot them. I said one thing and they all gathered in one place. He performed sorcery and all the cucumbers came to one place. In short, he taught Rabbi Akiva sorcery. Why? In order to discuss the laws of sorcery. You have to know sorcery in order to judge sorcerers, so this is Torah study. They said to him: The ball, the mold, the amulet, a bag of pearls, and a small weight—these are in the laws of impurity and purity—he said to them: They are susceptible to impurity and their purification is by immersion as they are. From where do we know regarding the mold what it is? He said to them: It is pure. And his soul departed in purity. Meaning, he said “it is pure” and died. Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: The vow is dissolved, the vow is dissolved. The excommunication, meaning the excommunication was dissolved at the moment of his death. On Saturday night Rabbi Akiva encountered him on the road from Caesarea to Lod; he was striking his flesh until his blood flowed to the ground. He opened for him with a line and said: My father, my father, chariot of Israel and its horsemen; I have much money and no moneychanger to present it to. I have no one before whom to ask. Thus, from Rabbi Eliezer he had the tradition. “Tradition,” yes? So what do you see? That in fact he learned these laws of sorcery from Rabbi Eliezer. So why does the Mishnah say he learned it from Rabbi Yehoshua? The whole story was brought in order to show that Rabbi Akiva learned these laws from Rabbi Eliezer, not from Rabbi Yehoshua. So why does the Mishnah say from Rabbi Yehoshua? The Talmud says: The tradition was from Rabbi Eliezer, but not the reasoning. What does that mean? Rabbi Eliezer told him the law, but did not explain it to him, so he didn’t understand. Then he again learned from Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Yehoshua explained it to him. He went to Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Yehoshua explained to him what Rabbi Eliezer had transmitted to him as a law given to Moses at Sinai. You see again the same pattern. Rabbi Eliezer transmits things as tradition and doesn’t explain, and you go to Rabbi Yehoshua—Rabbi Akiva studied with both of them—and then you go to Rabbi Yehoshua and he explains the laws given to Moses at Sinai from Rabbi Eliezer. How could Rabbi Eliezer do this, seeing that we learned that one who performs an act is liable? How could Rabbi Eliezer do actual sorcery, when it is forbidden? Learning for the sake of understanding is different, as the master said: “You shall not learn to do”—to do you may not learn, but you may learn in order to understand and to instruct. Yes, when you study it as Torah learning, then it is permitted to do these things. Yes, there is another story in Sanhedrin 101, in another place, also about the day Rabbi Eliezer died: When Rabbi Eliezer fell ill, his students entered to visit him. He said to them: There is fierce wrath in the world. They began crying, while Rabbi Akiva laughed. In short, his death was in the background; yes, everyone understood it was approaching. They said to him: Why are you laughing? He said to them: Why are you crying? Rabbi Akiva, as usual. Is it possible that a Torah scroll lies in suffering and we should not cry? He said to them: That is exactly why I laugh. As long as I saw my teacher with wine that did not sour and flax that was not smitten and oil that did not spoil and honey that did not ferment, I said to myself: perhaps, heaven forbid, my teacher has already received his world. And now that I see my teacher in suffering, I rejoice. He said to him: Akiva, have I omitted anything from the whole Torah? Is there anything in the whole Torah that I do not know? He said to him: Our teacher has taught us: “For there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin.” What does that have to do with it? He asks whether I have omitted anything from the Torah, and you say you are not completely righteous. What does that mean? Obviously the meaning is: it is true that I know the whole Torah, but you conducted yourself improperly with that knowledge. That is what Rabbi Akiva tells him. Because you thought that we were supposed to accept it from you because you know. “There is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin.” He does not answer him about the knowledge. He has ultimate knowledge, he knows everything, but you sinned in how you related to that knowledge. Then, yes, when Rabbi Eliezer fell ill, four elders entered to visit him—Rabbi Tarfon, in short—and they parted from him and the vow was dissolved. Yes, that is the story. So all of these things really say, in the end, that the revolution that happened in Yavneh basically shifted Torah from the phase of a Torah of tradition to the phase of a Torah of give-and-take. And Rabban Gamliel, who accepted the verdict, returned to the game and even served as head of the Sanhedrin three weeks out of four. And Rabbi Eliezer remained under excommunication until the day he died. The excommunication was not because he declared the oven pure. There are plenty of ordinary halakhic disputes; people are not excommunicated for that. A person is excommunicated because he did not accept the majority opinion. The problem was not his view regarding purity and impurity; the problem was his methodology of dispute, his halakhic conception, which was an authoritarian conception. And why excommunicate—why is it so severe? Precisely because of what I described earlier: the sages understood that Torah was going to fall apart if they did not make a revolution right then. If they did not uproot the Torah of tradition from its foundations, this whole thing would not survive. Therefore they acted very extremely: they deposed Rabban Gamliel, excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer. Afterward, if he had accepted the new rules of the game, they would have brought him back, but he did not accept; he remained entrenched in his position. What does it mean, to uproot Torah from its foundations? I mean, you also see how seriously they treated it. Obviously they did not want to uproot Torah out of contempt for Torah—quite the opposite. Sometimes the best intentions are what lead you to hell. Meaning, your desire to hold onto the truth, and you know, this is a law given to Moses at Sinai, after all; you learned everything from your teachers and omitted nothing from them, and suddenly these others begin engaging in pilpul. In the end that destroys Torah. Therefore Rabbi Eliezer remained excommunicated in Lod until the day he died, even though he held the entire Torah. Meaning—and they didn’t come ask him. That is completely crazy. Remember: the Torah was not written, nothing. The Oral Torah. There wasn’t even a Mishnah yet; this is before Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. So there is a person holding all the information, and no one comes to ask him. Except Rabbi Akiva, who asked him a few questions here and there. In order that there not be more people like that in the future—think about the future. So ask him, get out of him whatever you can, try to preserve as much as possible. No. It was much more important to them to replace the Torah of tradition with a Torah of give-and-take than to preserve the information itself, even if we make mistakes. Why? There’s also the principle “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah,” that they wrote things down. Writing it down—that’s Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi—but that too seems like a novelty of “It is a time to act for the Lord.” Sure, that’s Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, but that’s several generations later. So they couldn’t do that at the time at all? In the meantime, no. Torah was oral, and all the information was sitting with a Jew whom you don’t even go ask. That’s crazy. And “to incline after the majority”—that too is probably a novelty. What do you mean a novelty? The fact that they take the verse “to incline after the majority” and say, okay, listen to us because we are the majority. Yes, but Rabbi Eliezer says, you know, it’s like the famous joke they tell about Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, because all the good stories are about Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz. So the priest comes to him and says: Why don’t you follow us? After all, we are the majority, the Christians. So he says to him: When I am in doubt, I follow the majority. If I am not in doubt, I do not follow the majority. Now that thing is not a joke; it is a correct principle. If you find a piece of meat in the market, and there are nine non-kosher butcher shops and one kosher one, and that piece has a top-level kosher seal on it—what do you say? Do we follow the majority of stores, and because most of the stores are non-kosher we declare the piece non-kosher? Of course not. If I have a piece and I don’t know what it is, I follow the majority. If I know it is kosher, I don’t follow the majority. I have no doubt. Rabbi Eliezer says: you follow the majority when both sides don’t know and are offering reasoning. You offer reasoning one way, he offers reasoning the other way. You are offering reasoning, but I know! There is no against that. It’s like another foundational story about the Kotzker. It is written in the midrash, “And truth was cast to the ground.” The Holy One consulted truth and peace and justice about whether to create man. Truth and peace opposed it, I think, and justice and the Holy One were in favor, something like that. So it says, “And truth was cast to the ground.” The Holy One, democratically, threw truth to the ground. Two remained against one, and He created man. So the Kotzker asks: Why did He throw out truth and not peace? There were two that opposed it; why did He throw out truth specifically? And he answers: because if He had thrown out peace, then it would be two against one where the one was truth. Against truth there is no majority! And that is basically what Rabbi Eliezer is saying. If I know that this is the truth, why should I care that you are the majority? So what if you are the majority? Like in—we’ll see this later too—when there is a dispute in practical matters and one great Torah scholar stands against many lesser Torah scholars. Do we follow the majority? There is a debate. Interestingly, there is a debate in that very dispute whether you follow the majority. But there is a dispute among the halakhic decisors. And Sefer HaChinukh, for example, writes that even if there are ignoramuses as numerous as those who left Egypt, six hundred thousand ignoramuses, they are not equal to one Torah scholar. You follow the majority, but if he knows the truth and they are the majority, then obviously the law follows him. The wisdom of the masses is apparently not the strong point of the halakhic outlook, and rightly so. So the claim is that Rabbi Eliezer did not accept the rules of the game because he held the truth, and from his perspective he was right. What these sages said was a kind of “It is a time to act for the Lord.” They were willing to go against the truth, by majority, against the truth. Because they didn’t say Rabbi Eliezer was a liar. He tells them, “Listen, this is a law given to Moses at Sinai. I received it from my teacher, and my teacher from his teacher.” And you don’t argue with him about that. So why should I care that you have all sorts of this reasoning and that reasoning—what interest is that to me? But for them it was so important—one second—it was so important to uproot this whole idea of a Torah of tradition, because otherwise the whole thing would simply have fallen apart. They were willing to pay for this—and we’ll discuss this later too—in the coin of truth. They were willing to do the incorrect thing just in order to eradicate this conception of a Torah of tradition. But that’s not the truth. But it is not the truth in the sense of what the Holy One intended from the outset. It is, in their view, the right thing to do, because it was important to eradicate the Torah of tradition. But in the laws of purity and impurity Rabbi Eliezer was right. After all, the Holy One said so: a heavenly voice came out and said he was right. What is there even to argue about? Obviously he was right. “It is not in heaven.” What does “It is not in heaven” mean? It means that we are supposed to conduct ourselves not according to truth, but… There are many sermons on these things, but that’s what it means. Fine. So now I just want to finish because I’m ending our hour. In the end, the ending of this story is very interesting. Because Rabbi Akiva was a student of both Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, from both sides. Right? Rabbi Akiva received from Rabbi Eliezer the data, and from Rabbi Yehoshua the explanations. And not for nothing does the Talmud say in Sanhedrin 86: An unattributed Mishnah follows Rabbi Meir, an unattributed Tosefta follows Rabbi Nehemiah, an unattributed Sifra follows Rabbi Yehudah, and an unattributed Sifrei follows Rabbi Shimon, and all of them are according to Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva is basically considered the father of the Oral Torah. Right. In the end, obviously truth is important. There it was “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah”—they were willing to suspend truth in order to save the Torah. Yes, to save the Torah. I don’t know whether truth, but to save the Torah. Okay? So they were willing to give up truth, but that is not really a policy that should continue. It was like what the Rambam says about the middle path. When there is a tilt to one side, you tilt to the other side in order to arrive in the middle. In the end there is a very delicate dance between truth and give-and-take. And this combination—taking the tradition of Rabbi Eliezer together with the explanations given by Rabbi Yehoshua, and from that drawing conclusions—this combination is represented by Rabbi Akiva. And therefore, in the end, Torah from that point on, after the revolution, returned to the middle. It returned to the middle that combines Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua together through Rabbi Akiva. Therefore, all of them are according to Rabbi Akiva. He is basically the basis for the Oral Torah as we know it today, which is some kind of combination: there is tradition, there are assumptions that we accept through tradition, but within that there are discussions and arguments and disputes and decisions. That’s all fine; it’s inside the story. Now from here on, this is the historical description. I’ll also upload to the site the article that deals with this, and you can see it there. From here on we’ll begin dealing with dispute and truth and meaning and the relationship between tradition and considerations in give-and-take and so on. Okay? That’s the continuation. Up to here.