Tractate Sotah – Chapter 5 – Lesson 2 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

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[Speaker E] But the question is, you’re saying that in the first mishnayot that’s what they said and then they skipped onward. Right. But let’s look at the editor of the Mishnah. After all, they didn’t do only one thing their whole lives. Right. He decides what to quote. Okay. The question is why there he quotes one particular thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: because right now I’m studying Rabbi, not Rabban Gamliel. And Rabbi is describing for us here a certain progression when he edited the Mishnah in Avot. What is that progression? That progression basically reflects exactly this point. Wait, right.

[Speaker E] No question that each one of them also said things. That’s what I’m saying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Deliberately, of course he’s filtering. That’s exactly what I’m saying. He’s filtering in order to show us a certain progression; he’s not coming to tell us everything everybody did. He’s showing us what happened here, what the unfolding of the Torah was, how it happened, what was operating there, what happened there. And what happened there was the following. There was a Torah of tradition. And the belief was: Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets. We are only hollow pipes. Each person clings to his rabbi. “Make for yourself a rabbi” was everybody’s approach. Our role is not to invent Torahs of our own; we learn Torah from the rabbi and pass it on to the student. Our goal is to pass the Torah from Sinai onward. That’s the goal. And that’s how they thought. What happened at a certain stage? There is no transmission. Anyone who knows the game of broken telephone knows there’s no such thing as transmission through a hollow pipe. The pipe always has friction. It always affects in some way what passes through it. And then several opinions arise. And certainly those who did not attend sufficiently to their masters—the students of Hillel and Shammai, in the period of the students of Hillel and Shammai, meaning after Hillel and Shammai—that’s when dispute begins to form. Right? With the two Yoseis there was one disagreement of some kind, but an actual dispute, two schools, two outlooks—that was formed among the students of Hillel and Shammai, because their students did not attend sufficiently to them. That’s how the schools were formed. Now the conservative people—what?

[Speaker C] To the point that in tractate…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now what happens is, the conservatism of the Sages, as we also see today, said: fine, how do we deal with this phenomenon? Cling to our rabbi. That way we know what the truth is; we remove ourselves from doubt—“make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt.” Why? Because the policy was a traditionalist policy. When you come to deal with a new phenomenon and you continue and intensify even more the very thing that brought about the problem, because you can’t break free of the conceptions that accompanied you until now, you only make the problem worse. And then the Jerusalem Talmud says that the students of Hillel and Shammai wanted to kill one another, killed one another. Because they understood that the Torah was splitting apart; they couldn’t cope with it, they couldn’t reach a decision, as the Talmud says in Eruvin. What do you do? You use force. What can you do—they have to be killed. Again, I don’t know whether that killing wasn’t metaphorical, it doesn’t matter, but apparently there was an enormous dispute there, as people sadly say today. Okay, there was a severe dispute. Why? Because they had no way at all to deal with disagreement. Because in a world where Torah is a Torah of tradition, where each person clings to his rabbi—“make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt”—you are incapable of listening to other arguments, because after all my rabbi didn’t say this, so what do you want from me? You have very nice innovations, wonderful, but my rabbi told me—this is what I received from Sinai—what do I care what you think? You can’t cope with the phenomenon of dispute from within a traditionalist approach. And therefore they reached a state where Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai killed one another. The moment dispute became institutionalized, they understood the Torah was splitting apart. So now what do you do? The whole thing is falling apart. They come to violence, they come to killing. Okay. And then the Mishnah continues—that ends chapter 1—his son Shimon says, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says—what about “received,” “transmitted”? Nothing, right? You see, notice. Rabban Gamliel says, “Make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt.” His son Shimon says—it doesn’t say “he received from him,” or “he transmitted and Shimon received.” Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says—this is apparently already the second one, after all there was Rabban Gamliel, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabban Gamliel the Second, and so on. He also didn’t receive from anybody, didn’t transmit, nothing. He says, and he says, and he says. What happened to “received” and “transmitted”? The whole chapter: Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua received and transmitted it to the elders, and so on. He received from him, he received from him, the pairs received from the previous pairs. Here it stops. No “received,” no “transmitted,” nothing. Each one says what he says. Okay, look at chapter 2. Rabbi says—the same dynasty of course, right? Rabbi is from the line of Rabban Gamliel—he also says this and that. What, he didn’t receive? He didn’t transmit? Nothing. Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says. They all say. There is no “received,” no “transmitted.” It was cut off. Where was it cut off? Hillel and Shammai. Right? Hillel and Shammai were the last who received; from there onward everyone just says things, there is no “they received.” Right? Except here. Everyone just says.

[Speaker B] Mishnah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Eight: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. Now Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai—notice—we’ve gone back in time. That’s much earlier than Rabbi. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the transition to Yavne. Rabbi is already the redaction of the Mishnah, the end of the Tannaim. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is still before the Tannaim. He’s perhaps considered the first of the Tannaim; the pairs aren’t considered Tannaim in that framework—they appear in the Mishnah, but they aren’t considered Tannaim. The Tannaim are the sages of Yavne.

[Speaker E] And where did he receive from both of them when they disagree?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He received from both of them? Yes—did he receive the dispute? Yes, he probably received both sides. I don’t know exactly how the ruling worked, but he received, and that’s it. Suddenly one flash of receiving. Notice, the receiving continued until Hillel and Shammai in chapter 1. It goes one generation further: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. All the descriptions before were descriptions where there is no receiving, no receiving and transmission. Now we go back to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai—one more step there was receiving. But again, that was a somewhat different kind of receiving, because he received both from Hillel and from Shammai. He didn’t receive in the same sense as the earlier Sages, where each one simply continued. He received also from Hillel—so what does “received” mean?

[Speaker E] Within himself he had to decide.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, he too was already not really part of that approach of “make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt.” He received—but he received from both. What did he do? Apparently he decided. Meaning, he received, but it’s not receiving in the restrictive sense, where he isn’t willing to think beyond what his rabbi said.

[Speaker B] What, he—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Isn’t referring to the text later on?

[Speaker B] What is the text—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Later on?

[Speaker B] “If you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself, because for this you were created”—you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That he received, he said; apparently he was. But the fact that he received from Hillel and Shammai—on the one hand there is a flash of receiving here, but it’s not receiving of the earlier kind. It’s something else; I’ll get back to that in a moment. Then: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples. It doesn’t say they received and he transmitted; it says he had five disciples. Learning from teacher to student always was and always will be, that’s fine, but “received and transmitted” does not appear here. Because these disciples are already not disciples in the same sense. Except for one: Rabbi Eliezer. Right? Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples: Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus—this is Rabbi Eliezer the Great, yes? Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah—you see? These are the disputants in the story of the oven of Akhnai, I’m getting to that in a moment. Yes, and so on. Then he would enumerate their praises: Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus is “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop.” What characterizes Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus? That he is “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop.” The Talmud says he never said a thing he did not hear from his rabbi. Rabbi Eliezer continued the traditionalist approach that had stopped with Rabban Yohanan—almost stopped with Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. He was one of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s disciples, but he wanted to continue it. He really did receive from his rabbi. What? This was his praise: that he was “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop.” But that thing has a huge drawback, and that drawback comes to expression in his disputes with Rabbi Yehoshua, when both of them are disciples of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai.

[Speaker E] But it still doesn’t say what he did with the dispute he received.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t say, so apparently he decided, or I don’t know what he did. He received both; it’s not “received” in the narrow sense. But Rabbi Eliezer didn’t notice that there had been a change in what receiving meant. Rabbi Eliezer was a disciple of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. As far as he was concerned, it continued: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received, and he receives from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai; he never says anything he didn’t hear from his rabbi. Right? “If all the seas were ink”—and this is the Talmud in Sanhedrin that says, “I learned much from my teachers and did not diminish from them even as much as a dog lapping from the sea.” Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus is a purely traditionalist approach, exactly as it had been before. It doesn’t matter, but he received from him in the same sense that everyone had received before. He clung to what Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai said, okay? Meaning, he didn’t understand that there had been some kind of change of direction in the middle. Who else there was like this? Rabban Gamliel, his brother-in-law. He too: “make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt,” right? They were brothers-in-law, right? Through Imma Shalom. Meaning, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel were brothers-in-law, the last two dinosaurs who remained with the traditionalist approach, okay? And they tried to carry it onward. In that same generation, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Akiva—who was already their disciple but roughly the same age, the student of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua—decide that something here isn’t working. Something here isn’t working. They remove Rabban Gamliel from the patriarchate. Why? Because they understand that Rabban Gamliel, with his clinging to tradition and authority and his unwillingness to hear other arguments—which is exactly what the argument with Rabbi Yehoshua was about—and Rabbi Yehoshua represents the opposite conception: a Torah of give-and-take as against a Torah of tradition. Rabban Gamliel is a Torah of tradition; Rabbi Eliezer is a Torah of tradition. And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah, who is more or less of their generation, represents the new approach. He is the elder leading the new approach, the revolution of Yavne. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah was young. Rabbi Akiva was young in his learning—yes, he started at age forty—but he also belonged to the next generation in terms of the transmission of Torah. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah was the leader of the new conception, the revolution of Yavne. Okay? And then Rabban Gamliel repented. Rabban Gamliel understood his mistake, returned to the study hall, appeased Rabbi Yehoshua, and played by the new rules after the revolution. They removed him, deposed him from his office—that’s a dramatic step, with no basis in Jewish law. The head of the Sanhedrin and ordination come from above, not from below. You can’t depose someone who has ordination or depose the head of the Sanhedrin. What do you mean? This isn’t a democratic election. But they did it; they made a revolution against the rules. Because the rules don’t work, the rules brought the breakdown, the rules brought a situation where the Torah is shattering. And the Torah shattered because of clinging to the rabbi. It is not right to cling to the rabbi. A new section is needed. And then they appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, right? And when they appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, what happened? Everyone entered the study hall. Why did everyone enter the study hall? Why weren’t they there before? Because Rabban Gamliel said, “Whoever’s inside is not like his outside shall not enter here.” Why? Why is it important that his inside be like his outside? Because Rabban Gamliel was looking for pure transmitters, people whose word I can trust. If your inside is like your outside, you’re righteous; what I bring to you, you’ll pass on as is, onward. Rabban Gamliel was looking for transmitters. He said: those who don’t have refined character traits, who aren’t especially pure-minded, shouldn’t enter here. What happens with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? The revolution threw out the Torah of tradition, threw out Rabban Gamliel. We turned into a Torah of give-and-take. When there is give-and-take, what do I care whether your inside is like your outside or not? We’ll hear your argument and see. If you’re right, you’re right; if you’re not right, you’re not right. Do I care whether your inside is like your outside? You can be a complete villain—bring me arguments and I’ll be convinced or I won’t be convinced. It’s no longer relevant. There is no dependence on morality, no dependence on the person, because we are now talking about give-and-take; we are examining things on their own merits, not by the question whether they have a source or whether my rabbi said them. Therefore the benches in the study hall multiplied, and with Rabban Gamliel—because now everyone enters, there’s no problem, everyone can come in. I’m not looking for transmitters; I’m looking for people who will debate. And the more people there are, the better: more arguments will be raised, and in the end we’ll decide according to what sounds reasonable, votes, and so on, according to the majority. All is fine. That was essentially the revolution of Yavne, and that was “on that day.” Why was the whole tractate of Eduyot taught on that day? Tractate Eduyot is a tractate with no subject. All the tractates have a subject; every tractate has a topic. Tractate Eduyot has no topic. It’s a collection of laws unrelated to each other. What do they all share? They were laws that they had not managed to decide in the previous period. They remained open. There were disputes or doubts about them. Why? Because “make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt.” “Make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt” creates all the doubts. It doesn’t remove doubt; it creates doubts. You can’t decide. You have a tradition that says the oven is forbidden; another tradition says the oven is pure. Okay, so what do you do now? Each person clings to his rabbi; there is no give-and-take. What do you do? Stuck. It’s stuck, and they start killing each other. We have no way to manage the dispute, right? What happens when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah replaces Rabban Gamliel? Bring all the laws that remained open in the era of a Torah of tradition and let’s open them up. We’ll hear testimony, discuss, and reach a conclusion. And on that very day the whole tractate of Eduyot was taught. What all the laws in tractate Eduyot have in common is that they were taught on that day. These are laws that had been unresolved before and were taught on that day, resolved on that day, because before that it was impossible to resolve them. And all these homilies and laws that appear in our Mishnah—they were all taught on that day. Our Mishnah is basically part of tractate Eduyot. Now another part of tractate Eduyot.

[Speaker F] Right, it’s Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh functioning as an ever-strengthening spring, and essentially the antithesis to the plastered cistern.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right. That’s Rabbi Yehoshua’s party. Exactly.

[Speaker F] Right, that metaphor was said about her.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Now each of them has an advantage—both the plastered cistern that doesn’t lose a drop and the ever-strengthening spring. This may be Sinai versus one who uproots mountains, or something like that. But in the end, and we’ll soon talk about the proper balance, you need to understand that a Torah of tradition cannot endure. A Torah of tradition is a recipe for complete disintegration, complete destruction. Conservatism is a recipe for destruction. That is basically the lesson learned from here. Even though it looks as if those most devoted to the Torah are the conservatives—they cling to what we received from Moses at Sinai, these are the greatest keepers of Torah. In terms of their motivation, they come to preserve the Torah. But what they are doing is destroying it. Now look at the sugya of the oven of Akhnai through these lenses. Let’s look at that sugya. Bava Metzia 59. “We learned there: if one cut it into segments and put sand between each segment”—this is a certain kind of oven. “Rabbi Eliezer deems it pure and the Sages deem it impure,” whether it contracts impurity or not. “And this is the oven of Akhnai.” What is Akhnai? Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shmuel: because they surrounded it with arguments like this snake, and declared it impure. It was taught: on that day Rabbi Eliezer answered with every answer in the world, and they did not accept from him. He said to them: if the Jewish law follows me, let this carob tree 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 a carob tree. He said again: if the Jewish law follows me, let the stream of water prove it. The stream of water flowed backward. They said to him: one does not bring proof from a stream of water. He said again: if the Jewish law follows me, let the walls of the study hall prove it. The walls of the study hall leaned inward and began to fall. Rabbi Yehoshua rebuked them and said to them: if Torah scholars are contending with one another in Jewish law, what business is it of yours? They did not fall, out of respect for Rabbi Yehoshua, and they did not straighten up, out of respect for Rabbi Eliezer. And they remain leaning still. He said again to them: if the Jewish law follows me, let heaven prove it. What are all these things? What is Rabbi Eliezer proving to them? These aren’t proofs about the matter itself at all. What do I care about a stream of water—magic tricks, signs and wonders, everything under the sun. Bring proofs, bring arguments. We have a halakhic dispute, right? No—he is bringing proofs of what? That he is righteous. Why? Because one whose inside is not like his outside does not enter the study hall. He is saying to them: I am the most trustworthy transmitter here. Look, you see? I have testimony from heaven supporting me. Believe me that what I’m saying is what Moses received from Sinai. That’s what Rabbi Eliezer is saying to them. These are not proofs. They are proofs about the person; they are proofs about the man, not about the object. They are proofs that he is someone worth believing. He is still fighting yesterday’s war. What does Rabbi Yehoshua, his disputant, say there? Or the ever-strengthening spring, Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh, it doesn’t matter. What do they say? “We do not heed a heavenly voice,” we do not heed a stream of water, we do not heed the walls of the study hall. What are you doing? “If Torah scholars are contending with one another in Jewish law, what business is it of yours?” What are you doing here? I raise arguments and you throw a stream of water at me? I couldn’t care less about the stream of water. I have arguments—bring me counterarguments and we’ll talk. I can’t talk with a stream of water; the stream of water has no mouth. Bring arguments! That was the argument here. And then what? Above all, a heavenly voice comes out and says that even the Holy One, blessed be He, agrees with him. And then Rabbi Yehoshua comes and says: so what? Bring arguments. Again, no heavenly voice came out, and this is all aggadic literature. But what is this aggadah trying to say? It is trying to describe what happened on that day. This story too was edited around that same day. It wasn’t one single day, by the way; it was a period, an era over some time. Okay? But “that day” means not a calendar day, not twenty-four hours. In the same setting in which Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah replaced Rabban Gamliel, this too happened around that time. I’ll show you in a moment. Okay? It’s the same story. And therefore Rabbi Eliezer insists on his position, on a Torah of tradition, while Rabbi Yehoshua says to him: a Torah of give-and-take. Bring arguments. And even if the Holy One, blessed be He, agrees with you, I do not accept it. I don’t care! Only substantive arguments. “It is not in heaven.” That’s what he says later. It says: “If the Jewish law follows me, let heaven prove it.” A heavenly voice came out and said: why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer, for the Jewish law accords with him everywhere? Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: “It is not in heaven.” What does “it is not in heaven” mean? Rabbi Yirmiyah said: because the Torah was already given at Mount Sinai, we do not heed a heavenly voice, for You already wrote in the Torah at Sinai: “Incline after the majority.” A Torah of give-and-take. The tradition ended at Sinai. From Sinai onward begins give-and-take. Don’t bring me any tradition from after Mount Sinai. “A prophet is no longer permitted to introduce anything new from now on.” Torah was given once. From then onward it is give-and-take. What the Sages decide, establish, arguments this way, arguments that way. Rabbi Natan encountered Elijah and said to him: what was the Holy One, blessed be He, doing at that moment? He said to him: He was smiling and saying, “My children have defeated Me, My children have defeated Me.” Even the Holy One, blessed be He, repents, just like Rabban Gamliel. And gives up on a Torah of tradition. Again, this didn’t actually happen; they put this line into His mouth in order to convey the message. And the message is that Torah has to be a Torah of give-and-take and not a Torah of tradition. Otherwise the whole story falls apart. And that’s why it says: on that day they brought all the pure items that Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure and burned them in fire. Does that remind you of anything? On that day the whole tractate of Eduyot was taught. Because on that day they opened everything and decided all the disputes. And what is “that day”? Every place where it says “on that day”—that was that same day. It is the same day referred to in the sugya in Berakhot. This too is that same sugya. And how do I know? Because in the Mishnah in Eduyot the law of the segmented oven appears. One of the rulings that appears in Mishnah Eduyot is the law of the segmented oven. Meaning, the law of the segmented oven itself, this very discussion that decided the law of the segmented oven, was also said on that day, together with Mishnah Eduyot. That law is written there. And that’s what is written here: “on that day”—it’s the same day, meaning this is exactly it. And they said: who will go and inform him? Very parallel, you see, really to Rabban Gamliel. In exactly the same style as what we saw before. Why? Because Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer are the representatives of the approach—the elders, the dinosaurs, the conservatives—of a Torah of tradition. Exactly the same thing. They push both of them aside. The two brothers-in-law who held key positions, who were the leaders of the generation—both are pushed aside by the reckless youngsters. The difference is that Rabban Gamliel repented and accepted the judgment, went back to play according to the new rules; Rabbi Eliezer never did, to the end of his life. And therefore he remained excommunicated in his city, Lod, until the end of his days. On the final day it says the vow was released, and so on; the Talmud in Sanhedrin says he remained stubborn in Lod until the end of his life. He did not accept the rules. Then it says: who will go and inform him? Rabbi Akiva said: I will go, lest some unsuitable person go and inform him and thus destroy the whole world. Meaning, the spiritual power of Rabbi Eliezer—and the Holy One, blessed be He, cooperates with him—it’s frightening. Okay? Again, all of this is of course aggadic metaphor, but that is the point. We are making a revolution here, but it is “rejoice with trembling,” meaning you are changing here the whole course of Torah. This isn’t something trivial. We are suddenly beginning to produce a Torah of human beings, not a Torah of the Holy One, blessed be He. What we decide is the Torah, not what the Holy One, blessed be He, says. Okay, so now we see the parallel in Pirkei Avot. Therefore in the period of Hillel and Shammai “transmitted and received” stops, since Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai is the generation after them, and the disciples of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai are the generation after that. Here the whole story begins. So the parallel in Pirkei Avot comes to expression in the “transmitted and received, transmitted and received” that stops here. Then it says: what did Rabbi Akiva do? He put on black clothes and wrapped himself in black, and sat before him at a distance of four cubits. Rabbi Eliezer said to him: Akiva, why is today different from other days? He said to him: my master, it seems to me that your colleagues are keeping away from you. You are under ban. He too tore his garments, removed his shoes, slipped down and sat on the ground, and tears flowed from his eyes. The world was stricken: one-third in olives, one-third in wheat, one-third… yes, he did what they feared, that he would destroy the world. And some say even dough in a woman’s hands spoiled. It was taught: great was that day, for every place upon which Rabbi Eliezer cast his eyes was burned. Notice now something beautiful. “And Rabban Gamliel was traveling on a ship.” That’s not incidental. Rabban Gamliel is his brother-in-law, and they did to him exactly the same thing, pushed him aside—but Rabban Gamliel changed his mind and accepted the new rules; Rabbi Eliezer did not. Right? Rabbi Eliezer is destroying the world. And part of the world that he is trying to destroy includes Rabban Gamliel, his coalition partner. Okay? Because Rabban Gamliel betrayed him, so to speak—he’s playing the new game. So it says: he said, it seems to me this is only because of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Rabban Gamliel understood that his brother-in-law was there creating all this havoc. He stood on his feet and said: Master of the universe, it is revealed and known before You that I did not do this for my honor, nor for the honor of my father’s house, but for Your honor, so that disputes not multiply in Israel. The sea calmed from its rage. Now this can be understood in two ways. One way is that this is punishment for his first approach, and therefore he is drowning. Then he says to the Holy One, blessed be He: look, I wanted to cling to tradition because I thought that was what would reduce disputes; I did it for the sake of Heaven, not out of pursuit of honor. That’s one reading. A second reading: no, I went against Rabbi Eliezer, and now he wants to drown me because I repented—last Mishnah, not first Mishnah. And about that I say: I did it not because I surrendered to them, but because I understood that they are right. Because otherwise disputes in Israel would increase. Precisely the clinging to a Torah of tradition increases disputes in Israel. You can read it this way; you can read it that way. I don’t know. Then it says: the sea calmed from its rage. Imma Shalom, the wife of Rabbi Eliezer, was the sister of Rabban Gamliel. The Talmud does not leave this to our literary imagination. It puts it on the table. Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer were brothers-in-law. It’s not incidental that they fought together in the same direction, cooperated, and had the same thing happen to them. They’re brothers-in-law. They come from the same study hall, the same… they are working together. And from that incident onward she would not allow Rabbi Eliezer to fall on his face in supplication. She didn’t let him destroy the world, yes. Fine, it doesn’t matter. In short, that’s the end of the matter. You see that these developments, all these things, happen on the same day. Not literally twenty-four hours, but in the same period, around the events of replacing Rabban Gamliel with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. Okay? And in all these places it says “on that day.” These are stories in entirely different places in the Talmud, but by the period of the sages we understand that this is the same story. And also because of the literary force. These kinds of stories are very rare in the Talmud—stories with very strong literary power. It’s hard not to notice the connection among all these stories. Now look at the Talmud in Chagigah 3. The Rabbis taught: it happened that Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar ben Chasma went to greet Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in. Rabbi Yehoshua lived in Peki’in. He said to them: what new thing was there in the study hall today? They said to him—yes? What novelty? What was renewed in the study hall? They said to him: we are your disciples and we drink from your waters. He said to them: nevertheless, it is impossible for a study hall to be without novelty. This introduction isn’t random. According to Rabbi Eliezer there are no novelties in the study hall. The study hall is supposed to pass on what… what do you mean novelty? There is no novelty. Rabbi Yehoshua says to them, when they come to him—they came to him from Yavne, we’ll see in a moment—what new thing was there in the study hall? Because after Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah entered, all the novelties began. Before that there were no novelties. So he asks them what was new in the study hall. And the Talmud again doesn’t leave us in doubt; it itself says: whose Sabbath was it? What kind of question is that? To teach us that we are speaking of the study hall in Yavne, after the revolution of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabban Gamliel. And they still alternated, week by week by week, and then he asked them who gave the discourse in the study hall—because he wanted it to have been Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, because there there were certainly novelties. This time even Rabban Gamliel would produce novelty, because he too had accepted the rules of the game. But he asked “whose Sabbath was it?” in order to indicate that we are talking here about the study hall in Yavne. And when he asks what novelty there was in the study hall, it is the continuation of that same story: the study hall is now producing novelties. Ah, tell me what happened; I wasn’t there. So they said to him: it was Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s Sabbath. And he said: what aggadah was there today? They said to him: the section of Hakhel. What did he expound from it? “Assemble the people—the men, the women, and the children.” If men come to learn, women come to hear, why do children come? In order to give reward to those who bring them. Well, I’ve heard more exciting sermons than that, right? Look how enthusiastic he is. He said to them: you had a precious jewel in your hands and sought to deprive me of it? Why is he so excited? I can produce ten such sermons for a penny. Obviously it’s not the sermon itself. He says to them: they are bringing everyone into the study hall. He understood that they had won the revolution, that the gates of the study hall had been opened—even women and children enter, everyone enters. Democratization of Torah. The Torah of give-and-take has defeated the Torah of tradition. That is the precious jewel that we had lost—not this brilliant little interpretation of verses. Okay? It is all around those events; I’ll show you in a moment. And he further 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 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 in the land?” What does this mean? They immediately explain what it means, and I’ll say it first. What is “you made Me a single unit”? After all, what was the concern of Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer? That the Torah would break apart, right? If there are many opinions and each has legitimacy, and you don’t cling to what I tell you, then it will dismantle the Torah. No—it is “a single unit in the world.” Meaning, this whole variety together is the unit that represents the Holy One, blessed be He; not some one truth that must be sifted out from the chaff, no. There is no chaff here; all of it is grain. And all these things together are the one unit that represents the Holy One, blessed be He. How do I know that? Because the Talmud itself explains it. The Talmud says: he too opened and said. Rabbi Yehoshua continues, in great excitement: “The words of the wise are like goads, and like firmly planted nails; masters of collections, given from one shepherd.” Why are words of Torah compared to a goad? To tell you: just as a goad directs the cow to its furrow to bring life to the world, so too the words of Torah direct their learners from paths of death to paths of life. If a goad moves around, then perhaps words of Torah move around? Scripture says: “nails.” So they don’t sway in every direction; they are fixed. If a nail diminishes and does not add, then perhaps words of Torah diminish and do not add? Scripture says: “planted.” Just as a planting is fruitful and multiplies, so too words of Torah are fruitful and multiply. “Masters of collections”—now they expound the verses. “Masters of collections, all given from one shepherd”—these are Torah scholars who sit in many groups and engage in Torah. These declare impure and those declare pure; these forbid and those permit; these disqualify and those validate. Lest a person say: how can I learn Torah from now on? The Torah has fallen apart; there is no Torah. Now it’s all human inventions. Torah is what the Holy One, blessed be He, gave. So they tell him: no—“you made Me a single unit in the world.” No, the single unit in the world is this. It is not the Torah of tradition; it is the Torah of give-and-take. That is what Rabbi Yehoshua comes to say. He began with “you made Me a single unit,” and then he explains what a single unit means. In a unit there are many companies and battalions, and each of those companies and battalions together is what creates the unit. You need engineering, you need reconnaissance, you need armor. Today there are combat teams; it’s no longer an organic armored brigade or an organic infantry brigade, right? Every combat team has some of this and some of that. In order to advance, you need all these different facets. And that is what he says: “How can I learn Torah from now on?” Scripture says: “all were given from one shepherd.” One God gave them; one leader uttered them from the mouth of the Master of all deeds, blessed be He. You too: make your ear like a funnel and acquire for yourself an understanding heart to hear the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure, the words of those who forbid and those who permit, the words of those who disqualify and those who validate. What is this? This is what he says to them. He says to them: don’t worry, it isn’t falling apart; these are just different facets of the same Torah. And therefore you didn’t understand what it means that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. He received—but from Hillel and from Shammai together. Meaning, he inclined his ear to hear the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure, both Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. So this isn’t “received” in the sense of “Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua.” It’s a different kind of receiving. And that’s the… that is what he received. He received that one must hear both Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. That is what he received. Then he says: they said to him, no generation is orphaned in which Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah resides. How is all this connected to Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? What do you want with that? Your sermons. What does it have to do with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? Because my sermons come to explain what Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah expounded. What did he expound? That they bring the men and the children and everyone. Right? That is the sermon they reported in his name. So he explains to them the significance of it. “No generation is orphaned in which Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah resides.” The generation was saved. It was saved because we appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in place of Rabban Gamliel. It was saved from disintegration. Uniformity of opinion is destruction. Not because there is no single truth. There is one truth. And still, to accept only one opinion and throw out all the others, or deny the legitimacy of all the others—that is total destruction. Now look at what follows. “And let them tell him explicitly because of the incident that occurred.” As it was taught: it happened that Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit went to greet Rabbi Eliezer in Lod. Before this they had gone to greet Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in. Now his disputant. Rabbi Eliezer—yes, obviously this is Rabbi Eliezer—in Lod. Rabbi Eliezer the Great is sitting there excommunicated in Lod. Now look. A complete parallel to what happened before. He said to him: what new thing was there in the study hall today? Now Rabbi Eliezer does not accept novelties. He’s mocking him. He said to him: what did you innovate there in the study hall? Either it isn’t true, or I could have told you that without the study hall because I know everything. Look. The Talmud says it, not me. He said to him: they voted and concluded that Ammon and Moab give the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year. There was a discussion about the poor tithe in the 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. “Stretch out your hands and receive your eyes.” Why? What happened? Rabbi Eliezer cried and said: “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and His covenant to make it known to them.” He said to him: go tell them: do not concern yourselves with your vote. For this is what I received from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who heard from his rabbi, and his rabbi from his rabbi—this is a law given to Moses at Sinai: Ammon and Moab give the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year. You’re all debating there, give-and-take, reaching a conclusion—don’t concern yourselves with your vote. Your vote isn’t needed. Everything is fine. But why is it fine? Not because you reached that conclusion, but because I would have told you: this is what I received, a law given to Moses at Sinai, tradition. All your pilpul is unnecessary. You could have come and asked me and I would have told you. So obviously he is constantly mocking the novelties in the study hall. They are not novelties. What did you innovate? What I already knew beforehand. You innovated a law given to Moses at Sinai? Is that what you innovated? You’re giving up on tradition, replacing it with give-and-take, and reaching a conclusion. In this case you happened to reach the right conclusion. You could also have reached the wrong conclusion. “Make for yourself a rabbi and remove yourself from doubt.” That is what he is saying to him. And that is why he blinds him over it. Why are you blinding him? He’s telling you a law that was accepted in the study hall. What do you want from him? Because I’m telling you: I already knew that law. What are you all arguing there for? You leave me here under ban, nobody comes to me, and meanwhile you’re debating there and reinventing the wheel. The wheel is with me. I’m already riding on it. Ask me and I’ll tell you the ruling. What’s the problem? It’s all law given to Moses at Sinai. Tradition. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and his rabbi from his rabbi and his rabbi from his rabbi back to Moses our teacher. Why did they excommunicate Rabbi Eliezer? He had a dispute about the oven of Akhnai, about the segmented oven, whether it was impure or not impure. Why excommunicate a person over a dispute? They excommunicated him because he did not accept the rules of the game. Not because of his view about the oven. On the contrary, his view about the oven was fine—bring proofs. But no. He is so absolute that he brings the stream of water. He is unwilling to hear arguments and also unwilling to present arguments. Nothing. He says: this is what I received from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. So they excommunicated him. They did not excommunicate him because he disagreed with Rabbi Yehoshua. They excommunicated him because he did not accept the rules of the game—that we have to deliberate. This is not a problem of a halakhic disagreement. They have no problem with halakhic disagreement. Their problem is with someone who is unwilling to discuss halakhic disagreements. That’s why they excommunicated him. And he sits there bitter, destroying the world in Lod, until someone comes to him with a new innovation. So Rabbi Yehoshua rejoices and is happy over the novelties that were in Yavne, because that precisely symbolizes the Torah of give-and-take. And Rabbi Eliezer says: very nice, your give-and-take—you happened in this case to reach the right conclusion, which I already know even without your pilpul. In other cases you won’t reach the right conclusion; you’ll make a mistake. Come ask me, stop debating. That’s what he says to him. Then it says: because his mind was eased and settled, he said: may it be God’s will that Yosei’s eyes return to their place—and they returned. Fine, he restored him.

[Speaker F] The wording “they said to him, we are your disciples and we drink from your waters” more simply would actually fit better if they were saying it to Rabbi Eliezer, because basically to say—because they didn’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They didn’t understand the revolution within which they were living. They continued looking for Torah from the mouth of their rabbi. And Rabbi Yehoshua—that’s exactly what he answers them. “A study hall cannot be without novelty.” Don’t look for it from me; you need to bring the novelties to me. And then he dances and rejoices over the great novelties they brought him. That’s exactly the point—the lesson is—

[Speaker F] To take the conception from heaven, exactly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, the lesson is exactly this point: get out of the previous conception; it no longer exists. And it’s good that it no longer exists. And Rabbi Eliezer—what suddenly?—he digs himself into the previous conception, he gets angry at anyone who thinks differently, he’s bitter, he blinds whoever it is, he makes waves in the sea that drown people, the wheat is stricken—nothing. He is not willing to give in. There is a contrast here between what Rabban Gamliel said, what Rabban Gamliel did, and what Rabbi Eliezer the Great did. Okay? Now, look at the Talmudic passage in Sanhedrin. Rabbi Akiva says in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua: two people gather cucumbers; one who gathers is exempt and one who gathers is liable. It’s talking about sorcery. One who performs an act is liable; one who merely deceives the eyes is exempt. Yes, you do sorcery with cucumbers. All right? You gather cucumbers by means of magic. So if you are just creating an illusion, then you are exempt; if you actually perform an act, then you are liable. According to Maimonides, by the way, this Mishnah is difficult, because there is no difference between deceiving the eyes and performing an act, because Maimonides doesn’t believe that it’s possible—right? In his view both are just deceiving the eyes. Maimonides doesn’t believe there is such a thing; Maimonides will probably explain this as depending on how you present it. Do you present it as an act that you really did, or do you tell people, “Look, I’m a magician, I came to entertain you, but I didn’t really do it”? For Maimonides, the distinction depends on how you present the matter. According to those who disagree with him, the distinction is in what you actually do, because they claim that it really is possible to do things through sorcery. Rabbi Akiva said—well, did Rabbi Akiva really learn this from Rabbi Yehoshua? Did Rabbi Akiva really learn it from Rabbi Yehoshua? Yes, the point there is—Rabbi Akiva says this law in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua, you see that in the Mishnah? And what does it mean, in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua? The Gemara asks: didn’t he learn it not from Rabbi Yehoshua, but from Rabbi Eliezer? As it was taught—and it was taught—when Rabbi Eliezer fell ill, Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues went in to visit him. And he was sitting in his canopy, and they were sitting in his reception hall, the excommunicated one, so they were sitting a bit far from him. And that day was the eve of the Sabbath, and his son Hyrcanus came in to remove his tefillin. He rebuked him, and he went out reprimanded. He said to his colleagues, “It seems to me that my father has lost his mind.” Hyrcanus says about his father, “My father has lost his mind.” He said to them—this was the day of his death, so he already had the confusion of mind that comes with dying, right? He said to them, “His mind and his mother’s mind have lost it—how can they leave a prohibition punishable by stoning and deal with a mere rabbinic prohibition?” Never mind. Once the sages saw that his mind was settled, they entered and sat before him at a distance of four cubits. He said to them, “Why have you come?” They said to him, “We have come to learn Torah.” He said to them, “And until now why didn’t you come? I’ve been sitting here for years already, and I haven’t seen any of you. Why didn’t you come?” Because he was excommunicated, of course. So why did they come now? Good question. Apparently they understood that this was the day of his death, something like that, so they came. They said to him, “We didn’t have time.” Awkward. You alter the truth for the sake of peace. He said to them, “I would be surprised if they die a natural death.” He wasn’t born yesterday either. He understands that it’s not because they didn’t have time; rather, they won’t die a natural death. He just keeps on destroying the world, yes—the abyss born of the bitterness that accompanies him. Rabbi Akiva said to him, “And what about mine?” In the background you have to remember: Rabbi Akiva did come from time to time; the only one who did come was Rabbi Akiva, that’s stated later. “And what about mine?” He said to him, “Yours will be harsher than theirs.” He saw Rabbi Akiva’s end, that he would be burned there in sanctification of God’s name—“yours will be harsher than theirs.” He took his two arms and placed them on his heart and said, “Woe to you, my two arms, for you are like two Torah scrolls that are being rolled up.” This is Rabbi Eliezer. “I learned much Torah and taught much Torah. I learned much Torah and did not diminish from my teachers even as much as a dog lapping from the sea. And I taught much Torah, and my students diminished me only as much as a paintbrush dipped into a tube. And not only that, but I can teach three hundred laws concerning a fierce white leprous spot, and no person ever asked me about them.” I have three hundred laws about a fierce white spot, and none of you ever bothered to come learn them from me. You probably had all kinds of pilpulim there in Yavneh, where you innovated laws about a fierce white spot, like “in Ammon and Moab they tithe in the Sabbatical year.” Come ask—I have three hundred laws. “Except for Akiva ben Yosef”—he did come from time to time. I don’t know how that worked with the laws of excommunication and ban, but he did come. “Once he and I were walking on the road, and he said to me, ‘Rabbi, teach me about planting cucumbers.’ I said one thing, and the whole field filled with cucumbers.” He performed sorcery and filled the whole field with cucumbers. “And he said to me, ‘Rabbi, you taught me how to plant them; teach me how to uproot them.’ I said one thing, and they all gathered into one place.” They said to him: “The ball, the mold, the amulet, the bundle of pearls, and the small weight…” Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet—of course Rabbi Yehoshua was one of the visitors; he was the head of the opposing camp, the head of the revolutionaries—and said, “The vow is dissolved, the vow is dissolved.” Until now he had been ostracized, excommunicated. Now the vow was dissolved. At the conclusion of the Sabbath, Rabbi Akiva met him on the road from Caesarea to Lod; he was striking his flesh until his blood flowed to the ground because his teacher had died. His teacher was Rabbi Eliezer, though Rabbi Yehoshua had been his teacher as well. He began a lamentation over him and said: “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen. I have much money, but no money-changer to set it out for me,” because Rabbi Akiva did come to ask Rabbi Eliezer questions; all the others did not come. Now Rabbi Eliezer had died. For the others it changed nothing, but for Rabbi Akiva it was a real loss. Now—the Gemara returns to its original question. Up to this point, that was the story. Now the Gemara asks: apparently he learned it from Rabbi Eliezer. So what do we see? There was a story that they were walking on the road and he taught him there, with the cucumbers, the sorcery involving cucumbers. So we see that he learned this law from Rabbi Eliezer. So why does it say there in the Mishnah that Rabbi Akiva says it in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua? That is the Gemara’s question. The Gemara says: he learned the tradition from Rabbi Eliezer, but not the reasoning; then he returned and learned it from Rabbi Yehoshua, and he explained the reasoning to him. He heard this law from Rabbi Eliezer, but he didn’t understand the logic, and then he went to Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Yehoshua explained the reasoning to him. Fine, that is already a different issue—the question there is how Rabbi Eliezer could do it, since it is forbidden. So for the sake of teaching, one is allowed to perform sorcery. But what do we see here beyond the answer to where Rabbi Akiva learned it from? It’s clear that Rabbi Akiva—or let’s even go before Rabbi Akiva. The Torah of—I presented the thesis and the antithesis until now in a very dichotomous way. There is a Torah of tradition and a Torah of give-and-take, but obviously Torah is some kind of combination of tradition and give-and-take. You do not invent Torah out of pure reasoning, right? You have data, you received something from Sinai, and now you use reasoning to interpret, apply, and so on, right? Clearly there is some sort of combination here. There is an extreme view like Maimonides; there is an extreme thesis and antithesis, and in order to resolve that you have to return to the middle, to the middle path, right? So there needs to be some proper mixture of a Torah of tradition and a Torah of give-and-take. That is Rabbi Akiva’s role. Rabbi Akiva learned from Rabbi Eliezer the laws that are laws given to Moses at Sinai, but he did not understand them. So Rabbi Eliezer says to him: why do you care if you don’t understand? This is the law. Do what you do—why do you need to understand? This is the law. Pass it on if you want; you can quote me by name. That’s it. But Rabbi Akiva insisted; he went to Rabbi Yehoshua in search of an explanation, and Rabbi Yehoshua explained the reasoning behind the law that we had learned from Rabbi Eliezer. And Rabbi Akiva, from our perspective, is considered the synthesis. Rabbi Eliezer is the thesis, Rabbi Yehoshua is the antithesis—Torah of tradition, Torah of give-and-take—and Rabbi Akiva is the combination of the two. I take the tradition, and with give-and-take, with interpretation, I try to understand the tradition and thereby also refine it, expand it, and so on. And that is Rabbi Akiva. Therefore, indeed, the Torah in our hands today—yes, everything is in accordance with Rabbi Akiva, right?

[Speaker F] Within tradition that is the “what,” and within the interpreters that is the “why”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The “why,” and afterward also additional “whats”—meaning, you draw implications, you derive consequences from it that you did not receive through tradition.

[Speaker F] With Rabbi Akiva it sounds as though tradition has no “why,” and that’s the problem here. Right? Tradition too has a “why” that is transmitted as part of the tradition, also reasoning.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the “why” comes from us. We interpret what we received by tradition, but the products of that interpretation are added to Torah. He would say in Pirkei Avot that Torah created by human beings joins Torah. Why? Torah is the Torah of the Holy One, blessed be He; when we interpret what the Holy One, blessed be He, said, we expand this corpus called Torah.

[Speaker F] And what is Rabbi Eliezer’s position—that the “why” doesn’t interest him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Eliezer—again, of course Rabbi Eliezer also used reasoning, it’s not that he literally didn’t. This is an extreme description, but the description is meant to convey the idea. Rabbi Eliezer is the figure representing the archetype, yes, representing a Torah of pure tradition—period, I’m interested in nothing else. And Rabbi Yehoshua is give-and-take—I’m not interested in tradition. What do you mean? Both are important. Rabbi Akiva creates a synthesis between them, and therefore an anonymous Mishnah, an anonymous Gemara, an anonymous baraita—all of it is in accordance with Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva is the father of the Oral Torah. He unites these two streams that existed until his time, creates the great synthesis, and from there onward emerges all the Oral Torah we possess: a tradition of laws that we received together with give-and-take, Mishnah together with Gemara. Mishnah is more or less the things we received—there are disputes even about that—but without reasons, without give-and-take. The Gemara is interpretation, give-and-take, contradictions, difficulties, applications, expansions—that is Rabbi Yehoshua’s contribution, and that is Rabbi Eliezer’s contribution, and Rabbi Akiva is in the middle. Akiva connected the Mishnah to the Gemara; he basically created the Talmud. Of course he did not literally create the Talmud, but he created this concept of Talmud. That is what Rabbi Akiva created. There is a very interesting remark by Rav Kook in the eulogy he wrote for the Sochatchover. He sent a letter to the Sochatchover’s grandchildren—or great-grandchildren—and he wrote there that there is a contradiction in the Gemara: in one place it says that Rabbi Eliezer never said anything he had not heard from his teacher; in another place it says that he said things no ear had ever heard before. So if he never said anything he had not heard from his teacher, then how could he say things no ear had ever heard before? Rav Kook says there that Rabbi Eliezer had such an ear that he heard from his teacher things that others did not hear there. He understood within his teacher’s words things that others did not understand, but really they were there in his teacher. I often like to add to that: not only did others not understand—it was something his teacher himself did not understand. Meaning, Rabbi Eliezer heard in his teacher things that even if you had asked the teacher himself, he would not have understood. Now, that’s not just a sermon. I’m telling you this from personal experience. Anyone who has studied knows this. I studied with some Jew from Bnei Brak. What I do today is completely different from what he did. And all the foundations on which I build—I received from him. He would not agree with a single thing I say. I know, because we spoke. But that doesn’t matter; I heard it from him. A lot of it from him. And I think I’m right, not him. I interpret him better than he interprets himself. Because I think I understood between his lines things that he does not speak in this language, in this conceptual framework, so he does not think in those terms. But it’s like that interesting exchange of letters between Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner, who created the Talmudic Encyclopedia, and the Seridei Esh. The Seridei Esh writes that Rabbi Chaim is wonderful, but it is not Maimonides. Rabbi Chaim’s explanations of Maimonides are Rabbi Chaim, and he too is an important Jew, but it is not Maimonides. Meaning, Maimonides did not mean that. And Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner answers him with exactly what I’m telling you now, and I think he is right. It is Maimonides. Rabbi Chaim understands within Maimonides’ words things that even if Maimonides himself had heard them, he would have said: I disagree. And still, they are there within Maimonides’ words. Again, not always—Rabbi Chaim can also be mistaken—but on the principled level, this analytical approach was foreign to Maimonides; Maimonides did not think that way. That doesn’t matter. With that set of tools, when we analyze Maimonides’ words, we find things that are there, even if Maimonides himself was not aware of them. Intuitively, behind his conscious awareness, it is there. He carried these things without being aware of them himself. Therefore Rabbi Eliezer certainly originated many innovations, no doubt—after all, he said things no ear had ever heard before. But if you were to ask him, he would say: what do you mean? I heard it from my teacher; I never said anything I did not hear from my teacher. Because he understood that this is what his teacher meant. In other words, I did not innovate anything of my own. And I think this exists in all learning. I think anyone who studied under someone can see this. It exists in all learning: I hear from him and understand from him things I didn’t understand before, and he himself would not agree with what I understood—and still I think I am right.

[Speaker E] And another thing: it could be that they did not intend it when they said it, and the result is—no?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only the result. I mean the meaning of the thing itself, the explanation of the thing itself. The results are a consequence of the explanation. Once I understand that this is the explanation, I can also draw conclusions. But why is that the explanation? How did that suddenly become the explanation? The speaker himself will tell me that it is not correct. He does not understand. What does Frank understand in Maimonides, as the joke goes? Right.

[Speaker E] A principled question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What?

[Speaker E] What prevents—after all, one of the principles is “follow the majority”?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What?

[Speaker E] What prevents X number of these rabbis from going in a direction that we think in advance is not correct, and they will be the majority, and then Judaism—nothing prevents it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then we will follow the incorrect direction.

[Speaker E] So what will happen to Judaism?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nothing. Nothing will happen; everything is fine. It will have undergone a change as a result of incorrect interpretation. And I’ll tell you something new: in my view a large part of what we have today is exactly that—mistakes piled on top of mistakes, full of them, things the Holy One, blessed be He, never dreamed of and never intended. Perfectly fine. The Torah was given on that understanding. We make interpretations; sometimes we are wrong, sometimes we are right. We are all human beings. The majority can be wrong; there is no guarantee that the majority is always right.

[Speaker E] Fine, but that’s the situation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In Jewish law, we follow the majority. You found a piece of meat in the marketplace—are you sure it is kosher? You may eat it if there are two kosher shops. It could be non-kosher, but Jewish law says we follow the majority, not because that is the correct truth, but because that is what Jewish law says. The same is true with majority in disputes.

[Speaker E] Judaism today compared to five hundred years ago?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously—how could it not be? Obviously it is completely different. What do you mean “could be”? Of course it is different. You’re talking as though this is hypothetical. There is hardly any connection.

[Speaker F] You could take that same sharp critique against the Beit Yosef, that he relied on the Rif and Maimonides and said they are preaching to you to incline in Jewish law and rely on yourselves.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maharal. Maharal, Yam Shel Shlomo, and the Maharal’s brother. Fine. You know, since I do not follow previous opinions but rather what I think, it also does not bother me that I disagree with them on this. Meaning, I am not going to decide whether to follow what people think or do not think based on the question of what people think.

[Speaker E] Does the majority determine?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have novel ideas about majority too. You also do not always need to follow the majority. You need to follow your own halakhic ruling. Sometimes the ruling is determined by the majority, but not always, and in some cases not at all. And I have my own position; I do not need to obey any majority. In the Sanhedrin there is a rule that the majority determines. But if there is a majority of halakhic decisors—so what if there is a majority of halakhic decisors? I think differently. So the claim, in the end, is that “on that day” is really a period, a certain time—I don’t know, a year, a month, two months, I don’t know how long it was—in which some dramatic change of direction occurred in the development of Torah. From a Torah of tradition we moved to a Torah of give-and-take. On that day the entire tractate Eduyot was taught; all the matters that had remained unresolved were settled, or at least they gathered the different opinions, and if they could not decide, then they left the opinions side by side, as we see in the Mishnah. There is a dispute; there is not always a halakhic ruling, and that’s it, and everything is fine. And we learned to live with disputes. We are not frightened by disputes. We learned to live with disputes; that is perfectly fine. There is a Gemara in Gittin 6. The Gemara brings there—the expression “both these and those are the words of the living God” appears in two places in the Talmud. One place is in Eruvin regarding the dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai—those are usually halakhic disputes. And in Gittin it is about an aggadic dispute regarding the concubine in Gibeah: whether he found a fly on her or found a hair. That is the dispute between Rabbi Evyatar and Rabbi Yonatan. Did he find a fly or did he find a hair—what was it that made him snap there? So Rabbi Evyatar meets Elijah and says to him, “What is the Holy One, blessed be He, saying?” The Holy One, blessed be He, says: “My son Evyatar says this, and My son Yonatan says that.” He said to him, “Heaven forbid! Is there uncertainty before Heaven? Does the Holy One, blessed be He, not know what happened there—whether it was a fly or a hair? After all, this is a factual question.” So he said to him: “He found a fly and was not particular; he found a hair and was particular.” What does that mean? There was both a fly and a hair there, and the excessive anger that arose there was the result of the accumulation of the fly and the hair. So what does that mean in terms of who was right in the dispute? Both were partially right. Each one grasped a certain facet of reality, while reality—the complete whole that represents what the Holy One, blessed be He, thinks—is the combination of all those facets. That is the meaning of “both these and those are the words of the living God.” The meaning is not that both are right and that there is no halakhic truth and all that—quite the opposite. There is halakhic truth, and that halakhic truth is the combination of the viewpoints of various sages. For practical Jewish law, you need to decide which viewpoint prevails. Sometimes there is a problem in reaching a halakhic ruling, fine. But as far as truth is concerned—the question of what truth is—the truth is the collection of viewpoints. And in any case we return to our Mishnah—I really have to finish—we return to our Mishnah. All these interpretations that appear in our Mishnah were expounded on that day. Why were they on that day? Because Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai said there is no such thing as “he received it”—right?—the ending point of tradition. And then Rabbi Akiva comes and expounds: there is such a thing. He introduces a new innovation. We did not receive it in tradition; he derives it. Boom—he changed the law. And after him, who was the second one? Rabbi Yehoshua, I think—I don’t remember who the second one was at the end of the Mishnah. Therefore it was taught on that day. It was taught on that day because only on that day did they receive legitimacy to derive innovative interpretations. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai said there is no such thing as “he received from his teachers”; there is no such thing as a third-degree vessel for impurity—permitted. And Rabbi Akiva comes and expounds: no, forbidden. I have a verse, I have a reason, I can derive it from a verse. Therefore it was taught on that day. The entire context of the Mishnah, the whole connection among the different interpretations that appear in the Mishnah, begins with the fact that they are all innovative interpretations that go against what had been accepted. They were all taught on that day. All right, that’s it up to here.