Topics in Halakhic Thought – Lecture 6

Table of Contents

• The aggadot of the Sages as a single narrative-historical unit
• Ethics of the Fathers and the structure of “received and transmitted” versus “he would say”
• Shimon HaTzadik, Alexander the Great, and “the beauty of Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem”
• Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, Yavneh, and the transition from Jerusalem to a new center of Torah
• The removal of Rabban Gamliel in Berakhot 28 and the opening of the study hall gates
• The Oven of Akhnai, “It is not in heaven,” and the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer
• “That day,” Tractate Eduyot, and connecting the events into one larger process
• A Torah of tradition versus a Torah of give-and-take: policy, authority, and deciding disputes
• Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai as the background of crisis and the need for a revolution
• Hagigah 3a: “A study hall cannot exist without something new” and making room for a plurality of views
• Rabbi Eliezer in Lod versus the study hall: mockery of innovation and the standing of tradition
• The question of doubt, tradition, and majority rule

Summary

General Overview

The text presents the stories of the removal of Rabban Gamliel, the “on that day” events of Yavneh, and the Oven of Akhnai as one integrated set of events that explains a revolution in the conception of the Oral Torah: a transition from a Torah based on a tradition of receiving and transmitting to a Torah based on give-and-take, reasoning, and decision by majority. It reads Ethics of the Fathers as a literary text that marks this turning point through the breaking of the chain of “received and transmitted” and the highlighting of figures like Shimon HaTzadik and Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. Within this description, Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer represent a “Torah of tradition” and dependence on the credibility of the individual, while Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and Rabbi Akiva represent a “Torah of the study hall” that contains dispute and resolves it by internal rules, even against a heavenly voice.

The aggadot of the Sages as a single narrative-historical unit

The text links together the Oven of Akhnai, the confrontations between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, and the removal of Rabban Gamliel in Berakhot 28, arguing that these passages are connected by “very, very clear” ties and that all of them are especially charged and powerful within the Talmud. It presents the aggadot as reflecting a fundamental point in what is called the Oral Torah and as keys to understanding a deep change that took place in the period of Yavneh after the destruction of the Temple. It notes that there is both a narrative connection and a historical connection here, and announces that it will try to offer an integration that presents “a complete picture.”

Ethics of the Fathers and the structure of “received and transmitted” versus “he would say”

The text opens with “Moses received the Torah from Sinai” and points out that only the Men of the Great Assembly “said three things,” and that Shimon HaTzadik is the first to appear by name as a person to whom Torah teachings are attributed. It explains that this is an innovation in which “words of Torah” are called by the name of a person, and proposes that Shimon HaTzadik marks the beginning of an era in which the Oral Torah is a Torah “created by human beings” and not only the transmission of a law given to Moses at Sinai. It describes how later in Ethics of the Fathers the component of personal saying increases, while at the same time the chain of receiving and transmitting continues, until the break that it identifies at “Rabban Gamliel says,” where the wording “they received from them” disappears and only the dimension of creation remains.

Shimon HaTzadik, Alexander the Great, and “the beauty of Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem”

The text brings the aggadah about Alexander the Great meeting Shimon HaTzadik and getting down from his horse because “the likeness of his image” goes before him and wins his wars, and states that the story “not only did not happen, it could not have happened,” because they were not from the same period. It argues that precisely because this is an aggadah, one has to be exact about its details and ask why the Sages “planted” it specifically on Shimon HaTzadik, and it suggests an idea-based connection: Alexander represents the spread of Greek culture and wisdom, and the Jewish tradition adopted, in the period of the Oral Torah, tools of reasoning, logic, and give-and-take. It cites the Talmud in Megillah about the permission to translate the Torah only into Greek, and interprets “the beauty of Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem” as bringing the tools of Greek wisdom into Torah discourse, to the point of blurring the dichotomy between Torah and wisdom.

Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, Yavneh, and the transition from Jerusalem to a new center of Torah

The text arranges the generational timeline so that Hillel and Shammai are the last pair, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai “received from Hillel and Shammai” in the period of the destruction, and after the request “Give me Yavneh and its sages,” the center of Torah moves from Jerusalem to Yavneh. It emphasizes that in Ethics of the Fathers, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai suddenly appears in chapter 2 after passages in which Rabban Gamliel and his dynasty had already appeared without the language of “received,” and it suggests that this is a literary move meant to highlight that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is “the last one described as someone to whom it was transmitted and who received it.” It points out that from him onward, what appears is “he had five disciples,” and not a description of personal transmission, and interprets this as the broadening of the Torah channel into the study hall and the strengthening of the component of development over the component of tradition, up to a literary presentation of “creation ex nihilo” in Yavneh.

The removal of Rabban Gamliel in Berakhot 28 and the opening of the study hall gates

The text details the incident in which a student asks Rabbi Yehoshua whether the evening prayer is optional or obligatory and is answered, “optional,” then asks Rabban Gamliel and is answered, “obligatory,” and Rabban Gamliel humiliates Rabbi Yehoshua in the study hall until the people intervene. It describes the decision, “Come, let us remove him,” and the choice of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah because he is wise, wealthy, and a tenth-generation descendant of Ezra, along with the story of his becoming “like a man of seventy years” through the miraculous appearance of white hair. It emphasizes that “on that day they removed the guard at the entrance,” and Rabban Gamliel’s rule was abolished: “Any student whose inside is not like his outside may not enter the study hall,” and hundreds of benches were added, until Rabban Gamliel became distressed lest he had withheld Torah from Israel. It describes how on that day Tractate Eduyot was taught, and “there was no Jewish law that had remained in doubt that they did not explain,” and how afterward Rabban Gamliel integrates into the study hall, Rabbi Yehoshua publicly disputes him regarding “an Ammonite convert,” and the Jewish law is ruled against Rabban Gamliel. Later, Rabban Gamliel goes to appease Rabbi Yehoshua, is exposed to the harsh economic reality of Torah scholars, and is reconciled with him, until Rabban Gamliel is restored through a rotation arrangement with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. It identifies the questioning student as Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and connects this tension to a broader background.

The Oven of Akhnai, “It is not in heaven,” and the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer

The text describes the impurity dispute over the Oven of Akhnai, the sequence of miraculous proofs Rabbi Eliezer offers—the carob tree, the stream of water, the walls of the study hall, and a heavenly voice—and the refusal of the sages to accept proofs that are not part of halakhic decision-making. It emphasizes Rabbi Yehoshua’s response, “It is not in heaven,” and interprets it as a determination that the Torah has already been given at Sinai and therefore we do not heed a heavenly voice, because it is written, “Incline after the majority,” along with the story in which Elijah says that the Holy One smiles and says, “My children have defeated Me.” It describes the burning of the pure items that Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure, the decision “they took a vote concerning him and blessed him,” meaning excommunicated him, and Rabbi Akiva’s informing his teacher while dressed in black, leading into the description of the cosmic and personal damage that accompanied Rabbi Eliezer’s pain, including the danger of Rabban Gamliel’s ship sinking and his justification, “so that disputes not proliferate in Israel.” It mentions Imma Shalom, Rabbi Eliezer’s wife and Rabban Gamliel’s sister, and her attempt to prevent the falling on one’s face in supplication, which is associated with exacting judgment.

“That day,” Tractate Eduyot, and connecting the events into one larger process

The text cites the rule that every place in the Talmud where it says “on that day,” it refers to that same complex of events surrounding the removal of Rabban Gamliel, and argues that the phrase “that day” in the story of the Oven of Akhnai also belongs to that same context. It adds as proof that Tractate Eduyot includes testimony about an oven cut into rings, “which is impure, though Rabbi Eliezer declares it pure,” and therefore the oven episode is embedded within the tractate of decisions from “on that day.” It interprets Eduyot as a gathering of Jewish laws that had not been decided in a period when the conception of tradition prevented reasoned ruling, and which were now decided through study-hall deliberation.

A Torah of tradition versus a Torah of give-and-take: policy, authority, and deciding disputes

The text presents Rabbi Eliezer as one who “never said anything he had not heard from his teacher” and as “a cemented cistern that does not lose a drop,” and describes him as a channel of transmission centered on reliability and the holiness of character, not on the power of reasoning. It interprets Rabbi Eliezer’s mystical proofs as proofs “about the person himself” rather than “about the matter itself,” and connects this to Rabban Gamliel’s policy that examined whether “his inside matched his outside” and filtered entry into the study hall on the basis of character traits and not on the basis of argument. In contrast, it presents the position of Rabbi Yehoshua and the younger sages as a conception of decision through intellect, reasoning, and “incline after the majority,” and argues that the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer is not a punishment for a particular dispute but a response to his refusal to accept the new rules of the game, whose purpose is to prevent the Torah from disintegrating into an unresolvable plurality.

Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai as the background of crisis and the need for a revolution

The text presents the increasingly sharp dispute between the disciples of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai as the background in which a Torah of tradition breaks down when traditions split and there is no way to determine “who is right” merely through testimonies. It describes a situation in which “tradition against tradition” leads to violence and fear that the Torah will break apart into “a million Torahs,” and it places the revolution of Yavneh as an attempt to stop that process by changing the method of decision. It raises the question of the authority to make a revolution and answers that the revolution is born out of “having no choice,” and that in a time of crisis rules are created, similar to the idea that “a religious court may administer lashes and punishments not according to the strict law.” It adds a distinction according to which, in places where there is no agreed alternative for decision, decision by heavenly voice appears—as it presents the passage in Eruvin about Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai against the background of the difficulty of defining a “majority.”

Hagigah 3a: “A study hall cannot exist without something new” and making room for a plurality of views

The text brings the passage in Hagigah where the question is asked, “What new thing was there in the study hall today?” and it is emphasized that “a study hall cannot exist without something new,” and connects this to the mechanism of “whose Sabbath was it” from the period of rotation between Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. It interprets the exposition of “Gather the people, the men and the women and the little ones” as a statement of direction for opening the study hall to everyone, and Rabbi Yehoshua’s amazement at this as the very essence of the revolution and not as a technical interpretation. It emphasizes the exposition of “the masters of assemblies” as a description of Torah scholars who sit in many groups, these declaring impure and those declaring pure, and concludes with the call, “Make your ear like a funnel,” to hear both those who declare impure and those who declare pure, as a foundation of unity that contains dispute. It ends with the assessment, “No generation is orphaned when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah is present within it,” as a description of new stability after the danger of disintegration.

Rabbi Eliezer in Lod versus the study hall: mockery of innovation and the standing of tradition

The text brings the continuation of the passage in Hagigah about Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit, who went to greet Rabbi Eliezer in Lod and was asked mockingly, “What new thing was there in the study hall today?” He answered concerning the ruling about Ammon and Moab, and Rabbi Eliezer blinded him and afterward restored his sight. It presents Rabbi Eliezer’s response as the claim that the Jewish law was already settled—“I have a tradition from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai… a law given to Moses at Sinai”—and as pain over the fact that they did not come to ask him because of his excommunication. It places Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in as inspired by the innovation and the revolution, and Rabbi Eliezer in Lod as protesting the replacement of tradition by study-hall innovation, and in that way sharpens the tension between the two conceptions of Torah.

The question of doubt, tradition, and majority rule

The text concludes with a question about the relationship between tradition and the laws of majority when there is no doubt, and answers that if there had been a reliable tradition, “no one would have cast doubt on it,” but when suspicion of distortion arises there is no obligation to accept “testimony” merely because it was stated. It distinguishes between a situation in which the tradition exists and one has access to the bearer of the tradition, and a situation in which, after the excommunication, the sages no longer know the tradition at all and therefore decide on their own. It adds that the continuation of the excommunication protects against the return of “the destructive conception” of a Torah of tradition. It ends by noting that there is a summary and a recording, and that “the summary… appears… in the prologue to the third book… Walks Among the Standing,” and that it can be received by email.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, let’s begin. So, I have some unfinished business that I thought I’d still get to in the previous lecture, and it connects to several of the things we’ve been discussing. I want to look a bit at a few passages in the Talmud that somehow seem connected to one another—not somehow; the connections are very clear, even though they appear as separate passages. They all come in very vivid, stormy colors. We’ll talk about the Oven of Akhnai, about Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, about Rabban Gamliel whom they deposed, and all those stories in Berakhot 28, and in Bava Metzia and in other passages. At the beginning of Chagigah there is, and in Sanhedrin there are passages about the death of Rabbi Eliezer, all of which are, in some sense, connected to one another. It’s pretty clear that there’s both a narrative connection and a historical connection, and they’re very, very powerful. I don’t know whether there are any aggadic passages in the Talmud as powerful as this whole cluster of stories. And it seems to me that they reflect something very important for the things we’re talking about here. So let’s start with Pirkei Avot. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot begins, of course, with a description of the transmission of the Torah. So it says: Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things—the Men of the Great Assembly. Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Torah. So we’ve arrived at the Men of the Great Assembly, which is the beginning of the Second Temple period, okay? Already here the question arises: the Men of the Great Assembly said three things—and what did all the Jews before that say? Moses, Joshua, elders, prophets, until the Men of the Great Assembly, a great many years passed there, a thousand years or even a bit more. What did all the Jews say over those thousand years? They said nothing? They were silent? Only the Men of the Great Assembly said three things. After that comes Shimon the Righteous—you see, it continues chronologically. Shimon the Righteous was among the last of the Men of the Great Assembly. He would say: the world stands on three things—on Torah, on service, and on acts of kindness. So Shimon the Righteous, who was among the last of the Men of the Great Assembly, is the first one—notice this—the first one who appears by name. Which means he is actually the first person whose Torah teachings are called by his name. Until him, most of them said nothing, and the Men of the Great Assembly also, in some anonymous or general way, said three things. Shimon the Righteous, who was from the remnant of the Great Assembly, at the end of the Great Assembly, is actually the first one to whom Torah teachings are attributed. Which is itself a novelty: Torah teachings attributed to a person. We’re usually used to thinking that Torah teachings are supposed to come from the Holy One, blessed be He, and here suddenly Shimon the Righteous is a person introducing Torah teachings. Many have already pointed out that in a certain sense Shimon the Righteous may be considered the beginning of the era of the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah is basically Torah created by human beings. I’m not talking about Oral Torah in the sense of a law given to Moses at Sinai, something transmitted orally from Mount Sinai. I’m talking about the Torah that develops over the generations, which is a significant part of the Oral Torah, and Shimon the Righteous was actually the first person to whom Torah teachings were attributed. This connects to the famous story—which probably also never happened—in the Talmud, that when Alexander the Great comes to the Land of Israel, comes to Jerusalem, the sages of Jerusalem go out to greet him, headed by Shimon the Righteous. And then Alexander gets down from his horse, and they ask him why he got down. So he says that the image of this man’s face would go before me and lead me to victory in all my wars. The image of Shimon the Righteous went before Alexander the Great, as if paving the way for him, and in fact thanks to him he won. Now this story not only didn’t happen—it could not have happened, because they simply didn’t live at the same time. Quite a few people have already pointed that out too: Shimon the Righteous and Alexander did not live in the same period. So someone wanted to claim there were two different Shimon the Righteous figures; I don’t know. It seems to me this is an aggadah and there’s no reason to plant it in historical soil. It’s an aggadah; it really didn’t happen. But precisely because it’s an aggadah, we really should ask ourselves what it is trying to say. You know, usually with aggadot you have to be much more precise than with historical stories. Because when someone tells you a historical story with details, the details are there simply because that’s how it happened. Not every detail has to have a reason. But in an invented story, when the details are invented, you have to ask yourself why they invented specifically this detail and not another one, why they constructed the story this way and not differently. And once the author of the story invents it, there is more room to ask, about every detail in this story, what it is trying to say. In a historical event, not every detail necessarily comes to say something; that’s just how it was, that’s all. So here, precisely because it’s an aggadah that apparently never happened, there is definitely room to ask why. Why did the sages attach specifically this story about Alexander the Great to Shimon the Righteous? Why not pin it on Rabbi Akiva or, I don’t know, Shemaya and Avtalyon, whoever you like. Why specifically Shimon the Righteous? Apparently the sages saw some sort of connection between Alexander and Shimon the Righteous. Alexander, as is known, was a conquering emperor, right? A conqueror—but let’s call him an enlightened conqueror. In the sense that he didn’t just want conquest and power and empire; he also had an interest in spreading Greek culture. That may have been one of the things that so upset the sages of the Talmud or the sages of Israel in this struggle against the Greeks. But from Alexander’s point of view, he had positive intentions: he basically wanted to spread Greek wisdom and philosophy. He himself, after all, studied with Aristotle. You know, at the court of Philip, his father, in Macedon. So his father brought Aristotle to be Alexander the Great’s teacher. And when Alexander went out into the world, his goal was essentially to spread Greek wisdom and philosophy, Greek science. Now you know that as a result of the struggle between Israel and Greece, which was a very traumatic and very fundamental struggle, the sages nevertheless say in the Talmud in Megillah that it is forbidden to translate the Torah into any language other than Greek. And the Talmud explains: “May the beauty of Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem.” Meaning, the beauty of Japheth—which is Greece—shall dwell in the tents of Shem. What does that mean? Why was the encounter between, let’s say, Jewish tradition and Greek wisdom and philosophy so traumatic? It was traumatic because tradition, by its nature—religious tradition—is a tradition that relies on previous generations. You accept things because that’s what you were told, because that’s how it was transmitted to you. Greek tradition, or the Greek approach, is fundamentally an approach that asks questions, that seeks reasons; that’s where logic, philosophy, all sorts of philosophical doctrines and thought and science and research and things of that sort developed. There were earlier stirrings before that, but in Greece it really crystallized. And therefore there was a very deep clash here between two approaches: the religious approach, which is dogmatic, which accepts things because this is how we received them from our ancestors, and the Greek approach, which basically seeks explanations, reasoning, justifications, and so on. Now what happens is that in the era of the Oral Torah—and I’ll talk about this more later—the Jewish tradition actually absorbed many tools from the Greek world. And that is what is meant by “May the beauty of Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem,” because the give-and-take of the Talmud, which is of course part of the Oral Torah, is a rational give-and-take. You bring sources, discuss them, raise objections, offer answers—meaning, you work exactly the way one works in a philosophical world or in another kind of world, a world that we create through our thought and our logic, our intellect. So ostensibly we adopted Greek tools into the tent of Shem. The beauty of Japheth enters the tent of Shem. This happens in the course of a process called the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah is Torah created by human beings. Torah created by human beings is Torah created in the human mind. That means it is essentially created with Greek tools. And then this sharp dichotomy between Torah and wisdom stops. Torah itself also becomes a kind of wisdom. And therefore—I think—that is why the sages specifically paired Shimon the Righteous in the story, specifically Shimon the Righteous, with Alexander. Because Shimon the Righteous, as we see here, was the first of the sages of the Oral Torah, perhaps the symbol of the Oral Torah. And therefore he actually paved the way before Alexander the Great, because Greek wisdom basically spread through the world—in the view of the sages, yes?—so that we could use it for our Torah purposes. And in fact Shimon the Righteous paved the way for Alexander, because Alexander made it possible for Shimon the Righteous to be Shimon the Righteous. Alexander was essentially the one who gave us the tools to develop the Oral Torah. And that is why the sages in the Talmud specifically pair Shimon the Righteous with Alexander the Great. Because he was the first of the sages of the Oral Torah. Okay, I’ll keep reading; that was just an aside in parentheses. Antigonus of Sokho received from Shimon the Righteous, and he would say various things and so on. Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzeredah—now this is the era of the pairs—Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzeredah and Yose ben Yohanan of Jerusalem received from them. Yose ben Yo’ezer says: Let your house be a meeting house for sages, become covered in the dust of their feet, and drink their words thirstily. By the way, if Shimon the Righteous was parallel to Alexander the Great, Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzeredah and Yose ben Yohanan of Jerusalem were in the period of the conquest of Antiochus. Middle of the Second Temple period. Yose ben Yohanan of Jerusalem also used to say various things. Here suddenly people are saying all sorts of things. Yehoshua ben Perachyah and Nittai the Arbelite received from them. And again, each of them said various things. Meaning, Torah passes on—notice what’s happening here. Torah passes from one to another. I receive from my rabbi and say various things. Okay? Receive and say. Those sayings, of course, I pass on to later generations. Nittai the Arbelite says: Distance yourself from a bad neighbor. Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach received from them. Again, the pairs continue. Shemaya and Avtalyon received from them. They say various things. Hillel and Shammai received from them. Rabban Gamliel says—notice: where was Rabban Gamliel mentioned before? Nowhere. Suddenly he appeared out of nowhere. From whom did he receive? He didn’t receive from anyone. Nothing. Rabban Gamliel says. Where is the “received”? All the previous mishnayot until now begin: Shemaya and Avtalyon received from them. Shemaya says such-and-such, Avtalyon says such-and-such. Hillel and Shammai received from them; Hillel says such-and-such, Shammai says such-and-such. Rabban Gamliel says. Where is the “received”? What is Rabban Gamliel, who is Rabban Gamliel, from whom did he receive? Who is he? He isn’t presented here on the historical axis. Shimon his son says. From whom did he receive? I don’t know, presumably from his father, but it isn’t mentioned. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: on three things the world stands. That could already be Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel the second. There were several Rabban Gamliels and Rabban Shimons there, okay. And here, from the stage of Rabban Gamliel, from Mishnah 16—from here on, there is no “received.” Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua. Joshua to the elders, the elders—everything was received and transmitted, received and transmitted, a relay race until Rabban Gamliel. With Rabban Gamliel there is no “received.” Everyone said things without receiving. The Oral Torah passes into another stage. They begin to produce Torah without the dimension of tradition being transmitted from generation to generation, but only the dimension of creativity. Until then there was: received from this one and transmitted to that one, and also said various things. After he said them, he also transmitted everything onward. The next one who received, received, said various things, and continued transmitting onward. There is a dimension of tradition that passes on—receiving-transmitting, receiving-transmitting—and there is a dimension of creation. Everyone who receives also creates something. From Rabban Gamliel onward there is only the creative dimension. It doesn’t say here that he received and transmitted and things like that. I move to chapter 2. The story continues. Rabbi says—and he is of course part of that same dynasty of Rabban Gamliel. Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, that’s already Rabban Gamliel the Third, I don’t know which one. The son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. Again, none of them received anything. Of course we all know very well that they did receive. They received from their forefathers who were heads of the Sanhedrin; there was an entire dynasty of sages. But the Mishnah doesn’t mention it. No “received,” no “transmitted,” nothing. He would say, he would say, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai—boom, a sudden flash. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. In terms of—let’s organize the history for a moment. You know the history. Hillel and Shammai are the last pair. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, a single disciple, no longer pairs—the pairs are over, the fifth pair—Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. From both of them. Okay? In what period was this? Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the period of the destruction, right? He says to Vespasian there, “Give me Yavneh and its sages.” Meaning, he leaves the city during the siege. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the destruction period. And then what happens? Torah moves to Yavneh. Right? Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai asks, “Give me Yavneh and its sages.” And then Torah leaves Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin leaves Jerusalem and moves to Yavneh. And there, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who establishes the court in Yavneh, the Torah center in Yavneh—he received from Hillel and Shammai, and I remind you of chapter 1—this is exactly what’s missing there. We’re done with Hillel and Shammai, see? Hillel and Shammai received from them, Mishnah 12. They said various things. Mishnah 16: Rabban Gamliel says. Something is missing in the middle here. Rabban Gamliel was a disciple of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, Rabban Gamliel the First. He was a disciple of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, and Rabbi Eliezer was of the same generation as Rabban Gamliel. That was the first generation of Yavneh. And after them came Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabbi Yehoshua, who were also more or less of their age. After that Rabbi Akiva and the whole story of the Oven of Akhnai, which we’ll get to later. All those sages are disciples of Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer. So if we arrange the sequence of generations, then Hillel and Shammai are the last pair. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from them. Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer—who, by the way, were also brothers-in-law—received from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, and Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples already. And from there the whole thing spreads out. Now the transmission from Hillel and Shammai to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was still reception, right? But that’s it. From Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai to Rabban Gamliel there is no transmission, no reception. He has five disciples. By the way—not one and not two. Usually a pair receives from a pair, or a disciple receives from his rabbi. Here it says: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples—that’s the next Mishnah, which I didn’t read. It says Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai, and then he would say, etc. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples. And these are they: Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah, Rabbi Yose the priest, Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel, and Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh. Five disciples. It doesn’t say that he transmitted to them or that they received from him. More than that, it’s no longer personal. It’s five disciples. It’s a whole study hall. It’s not one receiving from one or two receiving from two. The whole thing expands. The channel of transmission expands and in fact is not described at all as transmission and reception. And from there onward it’s all kinds of sages saying all kinds of things. The description continues. But I think the change of direction that occurs with Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is very striking. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the last one described as someone to whom Torah was transmitted and who received it. From him onward he has five disciples. Disciple and rabbi continue afterward too, but there is no transmission and reception of the Torah. Not only that—I think that in order to emphasize this point, the Mishnah takes Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who was the last of the receivers, and tears him out of the middle of chapter 1. It jumps directly to Rabban Gamliel, who was the generation after him. And Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is placed in the middle of chapter 2. Suddenly we went back: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai, he had five disciples, and now we continue returning to the historical channel, the historical axis. Why tear him out of there, from the regular chronological description? It seems to me that this is exactly to emphasize that he is the last one who received. Otherwise, if the description were a direct historical one, maybe we wouldn’t notice that a change actually happened here. So what do they do? They pull out Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and place him in the middle of chapter 2 of Pirkei Avot. There alone he is still mentioned as transmitting and receiving, and that’s it. Neither before him nor after him is this mentioned in the mishnayot. Historically, it’s from him onward that there is no transmission and reception. I think this is a literary device to emphasize this change that happened here. That’s why Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is moved to chapter 2. What is the meaning of this? Obviously there were disciples and teachers before and there were disciples and teachers afterward. People received Torah, transmitted Torah—that happened both before and after. Why does the Mishnah choose to describe things in such a dichotomous way? Until Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: reception and transmission. From Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai onward: chaos. There are disciples, but no reception, no transmission, nothing. Suddenly the Torah of human beings starts to be—if with Shimon the Righteous, who was the first of the sages of the Oral Torah, Torah associated with human beings begins to appear, after Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai Torah associated with human beings also begins to appear, and one that was not received from anywhere. It is really presented literarily, of course—it isn’t true—as a creation ex nihilo by those disciples of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. And what is the meaning of that? Why present it this way? I think that if you pay attention again to the historical dating, what happened here was the transition from Jerusalem to Yavneh, right? Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai establishes Yavneh; he still received from Hillel and Shammai who sat in Jerusalem. He moves to Yavneh. In Yavneh there is no longer “received and transmitted.” In Yavneh he has five disciples and they teach and learn, of course, everything is fine—there is no “received and transmitted.” Yavneh is something new. Yavneh is a new Torah that is born, not received from previous generations. Again, it is received from previous generations, but in the literary description that the sages give us, there is no reception and transmission. Yavneh is a new invention. They invent Torah out of nothing. Torah that comes from below. This is perhaps the next step after Shimon the Righteous. From Shimon the Righteous onward, the Oral Torah begins, where the Oral Torah is associated with human beings, but there is still a process of receiving and transmitting the Torah, and alongside it there is also development of the Torah, with people introducing additional teachings. From Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai onward, the developmental element becomes more dominant and the traditional element less dominant. What happened there? Besides the trauma of the move at the destruction from Jerusalem to Yavneh, there was something else there. What exactly happened there? On this issue it seems to me we can move to the aggadot I mentioned earlier, and it seems to me they shed very interesting light on these historical events. I first want to go through the passages themselves a bit, and then I’ll try to integrate things and present a full picture. So let’s begin with the Talmud in Berakhot; I’ll share the… okay. Talmud in Berakhot. “Our rabbis taught: it happened that a certain disciple came before Rabbi Yehoshua and 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 is optional. He said to him: wait until the shield-bearers enter the study hall”—that is, the Torah scholars. “When the shield-bearers entered, the questioner stood and asked: Is the evening prayer optional or obligatory? Rabban Gamliel said to him: obligatory. Rabban Gamliel said to the sages: Is there anyone who disputes this matter?” Notice what fear Rabban Gamliel imposes here. Does anyone dare dispute what I am saying? Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: no. Who answered him? Rabbi Yehoshua. Remember? He’s the very one who said the evening prayer is optional. No, no, no one disputes you, everything is fine. He folded, so to speak. He said to him: but they told me in your name that it is optional. They told me that you yourself held it was optional, so why are you lying here? He said to him: Yehoshua, stand on your feet and let them testify against you. Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: if I were alive and he dead, the living could deny the dead; but now that I am alive and he is alive, how can the living deny the living? In short, Rabbi Yehoshua admitted that he had in fact disputed Rabban Gamliel. Why didn’t he admit it? Of course because he was terrified of him—Rabban Gamliel inspired fear. Okay? Rabban Gamliel sat and expounded while Rabbi Yehoshua remained standing on his feet. Meaning, Rabban Gamliel kept Rabbi Yehoshua standing, like a teacher in class—yes? You disturbed class, stand in the corner and stay standing the whole time we’re learning. He left him standing, really humiliated him, yes? Left him standing until all the people murmured and said to Hutzpit the translator: stop. And he stopped. Meaning, stop this lesson—we are no longer willing to continue like this while Rabbi Yehoshua stands there in disgrace. Rabbi Yehoshua was the elder sage there, from almost the same generation as Rabban Gamliel. They said: How long will he keep afflicting him and go on? Last year at Rosh Hashanah he afflicted him; in Bekhorot in the incident of Rabbi Tzadok he afflicted him; here too he has afflicted him. Come, let us remove him. And let us remove him from his office—Rabban Gamliel was the Nasi of the Sanhedrin. Let’s remove him from office. Whom shall we appoint in his place? Shall we appoint Rabbi Yehoshua? Notice, there’s a revolution here—they are staging a real rebellion, a putsch; they depose the Nasi of the Sanhedrin. There is no story like this; it’s unique. Shall we appoint Rabbi Yehoshua? He is directly involved. It would not be possible to appoint Rabbi Yehoshua in place of Rabban Gamliel, because he is one of the parties to this confrontation, so it would look as though there were some conspiracy here—Rabbi Yehoshua did all this in order to depose Rabban Gamliel and come in his place. So no, they decided not to put Rabbi Yehoshua in his place. Shall we appoint Rabbi Akiva? Rabbi Akiva is already a younger generation. A younger generation not necessarily in age but in Torah; he still studied under Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer. Perhaps he would be punished, for he has no ancestral merit. Rabbi Akiva was the son of converts; he has no ancestral merit, so he wouldn’t be able to withstand the resentment of Rabban Gamliel. So they also couldn’t appoint him. Rather, let us appoint Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, because he is wise and rich and tenth from Ezra—he also has ancestral merit. And wise—if he is challenged, he can answer. And rich, etc., and tenth from Ezra, so he has ancestral merit. They came and said to him: Would the master agree to become head of the academy? He said to them: I will go and consult with the members of my household. He went and consulted with his wife. She said to him: perhaps they’ll remove you too, just as they removed Rabban Gamliel—don’t get into this mess. He said to her: let a person use a precious goblet for one day, and tomorrow let it break. As long as they give it to me, I’ll use the precious cup; at worst they’ll break it on me later. She said to him: you have no white hair. You’re a child; they’ll laugh at you—you’re young. That day he was eighteen years old. A miracle occurred for him and eighteen rows of white hair appeared on him. That is why Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said: Behold I am like a man of seventy years—not seventy years old, but like seventy years old. He said that when they appointed him Nasi of the Sanhedrin; he was eighteen then. It was taught: On that day they removed the guard at the door, and permission was given to the disciples to enter, for Rabban Gamliel used to proclaim and say: Any disciple whose inside is not like his outside shall not enter the study hall. Rabban Gamliel was an elitist. If a person did not have perfect character traits, he could not come in to learn Torah. When they elevated Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, he was not such a strict man, so in this context too he was not strict in that way. They removed him from the Nasi’s office and put Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in his place, who opened the gates of the study hall and allowed everyone to enter. That day many benches were added. Many benches were added in the study hall because more disciples came. Rabbi Yohanan said: Abba Yosef ben Dostai and the rabbis disagreed about this. One said four hundred benches were added, and one said seven hundred benches were added. Rabban Gamliel felt faint-hearted. Rabban Gamliel saw this and felt faint-hearted. He said: perhaps, Heaven forbid, I prevented Torah from Israel. Look how many disciples I did not allow into the study hall. They showed him in a dream white jugs full of ashes. Beautiful white vessels filled with black ash. They wanted to show him that apparently he had acted correctly—or maybe not correctly; there are debates about this—that he had acted correctly. But that wasn’t really so; they only did it to calm his mind, so that Rabban Gamliel would not feel distressed. It was taught: Tractate Eduyot was taught on that day. On the day that they deposed Rabban Gamliel and put Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in his place, the whole tractate Eduyot was taught. And everywhere in the Talmud where we say “on that day,” that was that day. Every place in the Talmud where you find the phrase “on that day,” it means this day when they removed Rabban Gamliel from office and appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. And there was no Jewish law matter hanging unresolved in the study hall that they did not explain. What does that sentence mean? Apparently there were many laws they had not managed to decide in the period of Rabban Gamliel for some reason, and when they removed him from office and put Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in his place, they brought all the unresolved laws from the previous period and decided them through discussion in the study hall. We’ll come back to that. And even Rabban Gamliel did not refrain from entering the study hall for even one hour. Meaning, Rabban Gamliel understood that he had not behaved properly, or in any case he had thoughts of regret already in the previous sections; he repented and accepted upon himself to join the study hall under Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. He accepted the judgment. As we learned: On that day, Yehuda the Ammonite convert came before them in the study hall. He said to them: May I enter the congregation? Rabban Gamliel said to him: You are forbidden to enter the congregation. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: You are permitted to enter the congregation. Notice the difference. Now Rabbi Yehoshua openly disputes Rabban Gamliel. Not only does he not deny having disagreed with him, he disagrees with him right to his face. Why? Because Rabban Gamliel accepted the new rules of the game. He repented, came into the study hall, and cooperated with all the sages there. Now he was just like everyone else and there was a debate between them. Rabban Gamliel said to him: But has it not already been said… okay, then begins a discussion from verses and interpretations and so on. In the end, they immediately permitted him to enter the congregation. Whose view did they rule like? Rabbi Yehoshua’s. Against Rabban Gamliel. And of course this happened with Rabban Gamliel present; he was sitting in the study hall too. Rabban Gamliel said: Since that is so, I will go and appease Rabbi Yehoshua. He understood that he had erred, accepted the new rules of the game, and wanted to appease Rabbi Yehoshua. When he reached his house, he saw that the walls of his house were blackened. They were black because he was a charcoal maker. Rabbi Yehoshua said to Rabban Gamliel: It is evident from the walls of your house that you are a charcoal maker. He said to him—Rabbi Yehoshua says to Rabban Gamliel—woe to the generation whose leader you are, for you do not know the suffering of Torah scholars, how they make a living and how they are sustained. You’re an elitist. You don’t understand that there are Torah scholars who work in hard labor for their livelihood and learn Torah alongside that. You’re not even aware of the condition of the public around you. You live in your palace with your elitists whom you let into the study hall, and you live with them. You don’t know what happens among the Torah scholars in the broader public. He said to him: I have been appeased by your words; forgive me. So Rabban Gamliel says: you’re right, I’ve changed my mind, forgive me. He paid no attention to him. He wasn’t willing. Then he said: do it for my father’s honor. Then he was appeased. They said: Who will go and inform the sages? So Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua were reconciled and wanted to announce back in the study hall that the conflict had been resolved. A certain launderer said to them: I’ll go. So they sent the launderer from Rabbi Yehoshua to the study hall, etc. In short, he informed them that Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel had made peace. Rabbi Akiva was there too. And Rabbi Yehoshua said: Better that I myself go there and explain to them that I have reconciled with Rabban Gamliel. In short, Rabbi Yehoshua asked them to restore Rabban Gamliel to office. Rabbi Akiva said to him: Rabbi Yehoshua, have you been appeased? Did we do all this for anything other than your honor? Everything we did in deposing Rabban Gamliel was for your honor. Tomorrow you and I will go early to his doorway and ask him to return. They said: What shall we do now? Shall we remove him? What, remove Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah from office? We have a tradition: one ascends in matters of holiness and does not descend. He was appointed Nasi of the Sanhedrin—should we now lower him back down? Let one expound one Sabbath and the other one Sabbath; let’s make a rotation, week by week. But that will create jealousy. So instead, Rabban Gamliel will expound three Sabbaths and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah one Sabbath. Some versions say two Sabbaths; it doesn’t matter. And that is what the master said: Whose Sabbath was it? It was Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s. From that time there are places in the Talmud where they ask: Whose Sabbath was it? What does that mean? It means someone came from Yavneh and they asked him who was head of the academy that week, because there was a rotation between Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabban Gamliel. And that disciple—the one who started the whole conflict, who came and asked whether the evening prayer is optional or obligatory—that was Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, who of course was a disciple of Rabbi Akiva. He was a very young disciple then. That’s one story. Another story whose connection to this simply cannot be ignored is the Oven of Akhnai. “We learned there: If one cut it into rings and put sand between each ring, Rabbi Eliezer declares it pure and the sages declare it impure.” This is a dispute about the impurity of an oven. “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 coils around, and they declared it impure. It was taught: On that day Rabbi Eliezer answered with every answer in the world, but they did not accept them from him. I remind you, Rabbi Eliezer was the brother-in-law of Rabban Gamliel, okay? They were basically among the disciples of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, if I place this on the historical axis with which I opened. “On that day Rabbi Eliezer answered with every answer in the world, but they did not accept them from him. He said to them: If the Jewish law is in accordance with me, let this carob tree prove it. The carob tree uprooted itself from its place one hundred cubits—and some say four hundred cubits. They said to him: No proof may be brought from a carob tree. That’s no proof; these kinds of proofs are not acceptable to us. He said to them again: If the Jewish law is in accordance with me, let the stream of water prove it. The stream of water flowed backward. They said to him: No proof may be brought from a stream of water. He said to them again: If the Jewish law is in accordance with me, let the walls of the study hall prove it. The walls of the study hall began to lean and fall. Rabbi Yehoshua rebuked them and said to them: If Torah scholars are contending with each other in Jewish law, what business is it of yours? Why are you getting involved? We have a Torah dispute here. Why are you, walls of the study hall, interfering? 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 are still leaning. He said to them again, Rabbi Eliezer: If the Jewish law is in accordance with me, let Heaven prove it. A heavenly voice came out and said: Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer, seeing that the Jewish law is in accordance with him in every place? Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: It is not in Heaven. What does ‘it is not in Heaven’ mean? Rabbi Yirmeya said: Since the Torah has already been given at Mount Sinai, we do not pay attention to a heavenly voice, for You already wrote at Mount Sinai: ‘Incline after the majority.’ Finished. We no longer pay attention to a heavenly voice. Rabbi Natan encountered Elijah. He said to him: What was the Holy One, blessed be He, doing at that moment? He said to him: He laughed 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 and burned them in fire. They nullified all the rulings of Rabbi Eliezer, who was the greatest sage of the generation. They nullified everything. And they voted concerning him and blessed him.” Of course that means they excommunicated him. “They said: Who will go and inform him? Rabbi Akiva—who was his disciple—said to them: I will go, lest an unworthy person go and inform him and thereby destroy the whole world.” Yes, this is Rabbi Eliezer’s indignation, like the indignation of Rabban Gamliel. What did Rabbi Akiva do? He wore black and wrapped himself in black and sat before him at a distance of four cubits. Rabbi Eliezer said to him: Akiva, what is different about today from other days? He said to him: My master, it appears to me that your colleagues are distancing themselves from you—you are under excommunication. Rabbi Eliezer too tore his clothes and removed his shoes and slipped down and sat on the ground. Tears streamed from his eyes. The world was struck: one-third in olives, one-third in wheat, and one-third in barley. And some say even dough in a woman’s hand spoiled. It was taught: Great was the blow on that day.” Notice the expression: on that day. What is “that day”? We saw in the Talmud in Berakhot that every place where it says “on that day” or “that day,” it means the day they removed Rabban Gamliel from office. “For every place upon which Rabbi Eliezer cast his eyes was burned. And even Rabban Gamliel was traveling in a ship. A wave rose against him to drown him.” This is the brother-in-law of Rabbi Eliezer, who had already repented in the story in Berakhot, okay? Now Rabbi Eliezer’s indignation comes not only at the opposition but also at the one who had been with him in the coalition and joined the opposition—Rabban Gamliel. He wants to drown his ship too, by Rabbi Eliezer’s indignation. 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 not increase in Israel. That is why I changed my mind and joined the study hall. I left Rabbi Eliezer alone. After all, that is what he is apologizing for here. He had belonged to the camp of Rabbi Eliezer his brother-in-law; they fought against the younger disciples. The younger disciples deposed Rabban Gamliel. He returned to his place after accepting the new rules of the game. Rabbi Eliezer refused to change his mind. And therefore, unlike Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated, and he sat in Lod until the end of his days, until his death. He sat excommunicated in Lod. And Rabban Gamliel said: Know, Holy One, blessed be He—he says to the Holy One—I changed my mind in order that disputes not increase in Israel; I did not do it for my own honor. Imma Shalom, the wife of Rabbi Eliezer, was the sister of Rabban Gamliel. Yes? She was Rabbi Eliezer’s wife and Rabban Gamliel’s sister—they were brothers-in-law. From that incident onward she would not let Rabbi Eliezer fall on his face in supplication. One day it was the new moon, and she got confused between a full and incomplete month—it doesn’t matter. In short, there was some story there showing that he was deeply pained and indignant and so on. Those are essentially the two stories from which I want to begin deciphering what happened in Pirkei Avot. We need to understand what the debate here was, and how it is reflected in Pirkei Avot, and then we’ll also see a few more Talmudic passages. We’ll now take a break of three or four—say four—minutes, until ten to seven. Wash your face, drink coffee, and we’ll come back. Okay, let’s begin. Why are you fussing with the cameras and all the… okay, so turn on cameras if you don’t have some special constraint, alright? Okay, so I return. Now I want to begin talking a bit about what was actually going on there. In the dispute—I’ll start specifically with the Oven of Akhnai. In the dispute about the oven, Rabbi Eliezer the Great was basically involved in a halakhic dispute with his colleagues there regarding the purity of an oven. Why was it so dramatic, with proofs from here and proofs from there? Why did they excommunicate him? What, is it forbidden to disagree? Why do they excommunicate a person who holds a different position? Where have we ever heard of such a thing, that if someone doesn’t agree with his colleagues’ opinion, they excommunicate him? What is the meaning of that? What are all these mystical proofs Rabbi Eliezer brings there—the stream of water and the trees and the walls of the study hall and the heavenly voice and all that sort of thing? It seems to me that these two stories together—and I mentioned that it says “on that day,” and in the story in Bava Metzia it says “on that day,” and the Talmud in Berakhot says every “on that day” refers to the day they deposed Rabban Gamliel from office—now obviously this does not mean a literal calendar day of twenty-four hours; it means the same chain of events, which surely took several days, weeks, or I don’t know what, something like that. But it was within a very clearly defined period—this particular “day.” All these events really happened within the same set of events. What is the meaning of that? Maybe before that I’ll bring proof of this. Berakhot says. Now in the Mishnah in Eduyot, chapter 7 mishnah 7, it says there as follows: “They testified concerning an oven cut into rings, with sand placed between each ring, that it is impure, though Rabbi Eliezer declares it pure.” Meaning, the law of the oven was also stated in tractate Eduyot, which was taught on that day. That is another link or another hint that these two stories are basically taking place in the same context—it’s the same story. And we already saw that Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer are one camp; that’s the old leadership, the old guard. And opposite them stand the younger men under the leadership of Rabbi Yehoshua, who is their contemporary, but the others are younger—Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Akiva—these are a younger generation, rebelling against the two elders, Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer, who are also brothers-in-law, as the story itself says. Okay, what was actually happening there in this story? Look, Rabbi Eliezer the Great—Eliezer ben Hyrcanus is Rabbi Eliezer the Great. In several places we see that Rabbi Eliezer held that Torah should be transmitted through tradition; we are supposed to be hollow pipes. Rabbi Eliezer was the one who never said anything he had not heard from his teacher, “a plastered cistern that loses not a drop,” as the Mishnah in Avot says. Meaning, Rabbi Eliezer was the one who accumulated all the information his teachers transmitted to him and passed it onward. From his point of view, Torah is something he received from his teachers; he introduces nothing on his own. He sees himself as a hollow channel. And therefore Rabbi Eliezer says to the others there: listen, this oven is a pure oven, I’m telling you—I received this from my teachers. Now they brought him all sorts of proofs. Forget your proofs—I’m telling you what I received from my teachers. What I received from my teachers is Torah. What do I care about your reasoning and your proofs? And then what he does is he starts bringing all sorts of mystical proofs. Why? Because there are other sources too that say the same thing about Rabban Gamliel—about Rabbi Eliezer. In Avot de-Rabbi Natan it says that if all the seas were ink and all the reeds pens and all human beings scribes, they could not write down all that I have read and repeated. Meaning, Rabbi Eliezer is a plastered cistern who stores up everything from his teachers and says nothing he did not hear from them. Okay, now in this oven dispute he brings proofs from the carob tree, the stream of water, the heavenly voice, the walls of the study hall. Why? As Rabbi Yehoshua says to them: Torah scholars are contending here in Jewish law, and what business is it of yours? What does that mean? What was the story here? Rabbi Eliezer claimed he had mystical proofs that he was right. What do mystical proofs mean? These mystical proofs do not say that the oven is pure. These mystical proofs say that Rabbi Eliezer is righteous and that the Holy One agrees with whatever… they are proofs concerning the person, not concerning the matter. And that reminds us of Rabban Gamliel’s approach, that he would not let anyone into the study hall whose inside was not like his outside. Because Rabban Gamliel too examines people on the basis of the person, not on the basis of the issue. If you are not a worthy disciple, you may not enter the study hall—even though what’s the problem? At worst you’ll say nonsense, so we’ll examine you and show you that you’re wrong. No: if a disciple is unworthy, he doesn’t enter the study hall, because they judge according to the person. Why is that? I claim—well, not I, really; the original idea comes from a book called Da’at Chokhmah by Menachem Fisch of Tel Aviv University. The basic point is already there. And the claim is essentially this: there is a dispute here between a Torah of tradition and a Torah of give-and-take. Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer argue that Torah is a matter of tradition. It passes from father to son. What we received is Torah. All your inventions—you’re brilliant, you’re very logical—I don’t care in the slightest. I received otherwise from my teachers, and that’s that. Now, in a Torah of tradition, we do not need to examine whether a person is talented or not; he doesn’t need to be talented. We need to check whether he is reliable, whether he is righteous, whether his inside is like his outside. Why? Because if Torah passes by tradition and we are not testing the tradition with our logic, we only want to know that this really is what was transmitted to Moses at Sinai, then you need someone whose inside is like his outside, someone who won’t lie to us. Because if he lies to us, he’ll transmit false Torah to us. So yes, you have to check the people—not their reasoning but their character. We have to examine the people, not the Torah. Things are judged according to the person and not according to the issue. That was the policy of Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer. Therefore the proofs that Rabbi Eliezer brings are also proofs concerning the person. See that I am the most reliable transmitter there is, because the walls of the study hall will prove it, the stream of water. What does that have to do with the purity of the oven? As Rabbi Yehoshua says to him, we are arguing over Jewish law—what does it matter to me now whether you can topple the walls of the study hall? Which just means that whatever you decree, the Holy One upholds. What does that matter? Is anyone disputing that you are righteous? I am disputing with you about the purity of the oven. What do these proofs have to do with it? Because Rabbi Eliezer held that we do not need at all to debate the matter itself. That is irrelevant. I am telling you the halakhic facts, what I received from my teachers, what comes from Moses our teacher—that’s all. What do I care about all your reasoning? Torah passes through tradition, period. And the sages who stood opposite him said that this cannot be. We have a line of reasoning, and this tradition doesn’t seem logical to us, and therefore we claim that Jewish law should be decided against the tradition Rabbi Eliezer is transmitting to us, against what he heard from his teachers, because it doesn’t seem logical to us. That was the root of the dispute. And therefore Rabban Gamliel was very strict and would not agree that anyone should cast doubt on what he said. He put Rabbi Yehoshua under ban there, dragged him around because he dared disagree with him. Why? Is it forbidden to disagree? The answer is yes, it is forbidden to disagree, because Rabban Gamliel is telling you something he received from his teachers, and the fact that you have some different reasoning—what do I care? Torah is the Torah of the Holy One, not the Torah of Rabbi Yehoshua. You see how this already connects to the Torah of human beings we spoke about at the beginning? Torah is the Torah of the Holy One. And therefore Rabban Gamliel is not willing to accept rebellion and rationalizing and intellectual autonomy. What I’m telling you is Torah, period. And whoever doesn’t accept it, I will hound him to death. And therefore Rabbi Yehoshua is afraid to tell him that he disagrees with him, because that was Rabban Gamliel’s policy. And the same with Rabbi Eliezer—the same. This was the party of the elders. Now what was the background? I remind you that Hillel and Shammai were the teachers of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who established Yavneh. Rabban Gamliel was almost from the same generation as Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, slightly after him. The dispute between the disciples of the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai—in the Jerusalem Talmud it appears that it went so far that they killed one another. Why did it reach that point? Because once disagreement arises, a Torah of tradition breaks down. Because the moment Torah is based on tradition—what we received from our teachers is Torah, I don’t care about your reasoning—then suddenly people come with two different traditions. What do you do? Use reason to see who is right? There is no reason. We ask what Moses our teacher said; I don’t care about your reasoning. What do you do in such a situation? When there is no way to cope, no way to clarify and analyze, when there is no standing for intellect and reason, all we can do is kill one another. And the fear was so great that the Torah was falling apart that they actually reached real warfare. Again, I don’t know whether this is an authentic historical description, but at least it points to the intensity of the struggle. There was a great fear there that Torah was headed for disaster. Because a Torah of tradition—once tradition becomes corrupted, the disciples of Hillel and Shammai did not sufficiently serve their teachers, and so the dispute was created. Right? That’s what the Talmud says, and Maimonides also brings this. And then the dispute arises—what do you do? Now you need to determine who is right. What’s the problem? I tell you that my teacher said this, and he says his teacher said that. There is no way to determine who is right. Tradition against tradition. What do we do? Conduct archaeological digs and see what earlier generations said? What can we do? There is no way to decide. When there is no way to decide, people start fighting. Once there is a fear that the Torah is disintegrating—and this is already happening two generations after Hillel and Shammai, in the generation of Yavneh, where the House of Hillel and House of Shammai have reached the peak of their dispute—Rabbi Eliezer is “Shammite”; some interpret this to mean from the House of Shammai, others interpret it to mean under excommunication. But in any case, the dispute between the House of Hillel and House of Shammai is at its height. The sages understand that if policy does not change, the Torah is heading for ruin. Every study hall, every person who finds some method of his own becomes an independent school. There is no way to converse, no way to decide, no way to analyze and discuss. The Torah splits into a million Torahs—there is no Torah anymore, it’s over. And therefore the dispute over the Oven of Akhnai, like the dispute between Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel in Berakhot, is not really a dispute about the purity of an oven, nor is it that they insist that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong and should be silent, that there is no room for his opinion. The younger sages are saying to them: gentlemen—or rather, our teachers—not gentlemen. Our teachers, if you continue in this way, the Torah will disintegrate. Already now we have the House of Hillel against the House of Shammai, and you have no proposal for how to decide it. So what do we do? There is no choice but to change policy, and Torah ceases to be a Torah of tradition because we have lost the tradition, the traditions have split, we no longer know what the authentic tradition is. There is no choice but to resort to our own intellect. And therefore Rabbi Yehoshua stands and says: It is not in Heaven. I don’t care what tradition told you that Moses our teacher received from the Holy One; I ask what my own intellect tells me. And Torah turns from a Torah of tradition into a Torah of give-and-take. And the excommunication with which they excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer was because he did not fully accept the judgment. He insisted that Torah must remain a Torah of tradition. It was not because he disagreed with them about the oven. You don’t excommunicate over a dispute—not those very people who praise dispute. Everything they want to say is: allow disputes. So you yourselves excommunicate someone who disagrees with you? The answer is yes, because we are not excommunicating him for disagreeing with us about the law of the oven. We are excommunicating him because he is unwilling to accept the phenomenon of dispute. Because from his point of view Torah is Torah of tradition and not of give-and-take. And whoever does not accept the judgment will be excommunicated until the end of his days, because if we allow him to continue functioning here, the Torah will disintegrate. This is not a problem about the purity of an oven. It is a problem that the Torah is disintegrating. And Rabban Gamliel repented, and this is what he says there after all: Master of the universe, I did it not for the honor of my father’s house but in order to prevent disputes in Israel. Suddenly he understood how right his younger disciples were. He understood that if they continued with the policy of his and Rabbi Eliezer’s—a Torah of tradition—the Torah was heading for disaster. In order to prevent these disputes, to prevent the fragmentation—not the dispute itself but the fragmentation that follows from it—Rabban Gamliel returns to the study hall and debates Rabbi Yehoshua as an equal over the Ammonite convert. Why? Because he understands that Torah must be a Torah of give-and-take and not a Torah of tradition. Once he understands that, they restore him to serve as Nasi of the Sanhedrin because he has accepted the new rules of the game. So Rabban Gamliel left Rabbi Eliezer’s party and joined the party of the rebels, and over that Rabbi Eliezer wants to sink his ship with the storm at sea. And Rabban Gamliel says: Master of the universe, I didn’t do this for myself; I did it in order to prevent disputes in Israel. Rabbi Eliezer is angry with me, and I understand why he is angry with me; I too thought as he did. But I understand that our disciples were right. Therefore You, Master of the universe, need to save me from Rabbi Eliezer’s indignation. That is what Rabban Gamliel says there. And what happened in Yavneh at that time was the revolution in which Torah passed from being a Torah of tradition to being a Torah of give-and-take. And therefore Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, when he replaces Rabban Gamliel, allows all the disciples into the study hall. Why? Because he stops judging according to the person and starts judging according to the issue. If your inside is not like your outside, say what you think; we’ll use our heads and test whether you’re right or not. I am not accepting your words just because you say you heard them from your teacher. That was in the previous phase. Now you have to withstand the test of our reasoning. Now if I evaluate your words by the test of reason, what do I care about your character traits? What do I care whether your inside is like your outside or not? Say what you have to say, give me the arguments, and we’ll see whether it makes sense to us or not. Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer would not let someone whose inside was not like his outside enter the study hall because they wanted transmitters who were hollow pipes, ideal transmitters, transmitters who would bring the Torah as-is, exactly as they had received it. Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua. He transmitted—the Torah he received, he transmitted. The very Torah he received, he transmitted. Okay? We want those kinds of transmitters, hollow pipes. Once Rabban Gamliel was deposed, the revolution was complete. Rabban Gamliel joined back up with the rebels. Rabbi Eliezer did not accept the judgment and remained excommunicated in Lod until the end of his days. Because he did not accept this principle of Torah as give-and-take, and in his eyes it remained a Torah of tradition. And therefore he remained excommunicated until the end of his days. The greatest Torah scholar of the generation, in whom all the traditions converged. People didn’t even come to ask him when they had halakhic doubts. We’ll soon see Talmudic passages about this. They did not come to ask him—not even the greatest repository of information. Big, notice—Torah transmitted orally. It’s not written in books; everything is passed orally. And you have someone who holds the entire Torah, and you don’t come ask him when you have a question? No, because he is excommunicated. We will invent a new Torah and not receive Torah from him, in order to anchor the conclusion of this sacred rebellion, which says that Torah ceases to be a Torah of tradition and begins to be a Torah of give-and-take. And I think this is the meaning of the change in style in Pirkei Avot. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was the last generation that received Torah and transmitted it onward. That’s it. The disciples of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai are Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer. Rabban Gamliel still belonged to those receiving the Torah from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai together with Rabbi Eliezer, but he himself later changed his mind and no longer viewed Torah as a Torah of tradition but as a Torah of give-and-take. That comes from his own head, not from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. And therefore you can no longer say that Rabban Gamliel received Torah from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, because he no longer belongs to the stage of Torah that is transmitted and received, received and transmitted. He already belongs to the new stage of “he would say.” The stage of “he would say” is Torah created by human beings, not received by tradition. And therefore they say “Rabban Gamliel” in chapter 1 of Pirkei Avot—remember, they skipped Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai—“Rabban Gamliel would say.” He did not receive from anyone and nothing, why? Because Rabban Gamliel was a penitent who opened this process of Torah as give-and-take when he repented and joined the rebels. Therefore he is brought there after Hillel and Shammai. And Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who still received from Hillel and Shammai, appears only in chapter 2, in order to show us that here a completely opposite change of direction took place. Torah of tradition turned into Torah of give-and-take. Therefore “on that day” they brought all of Tractate Eduyot—it was taught on that day. What characterizes Tractate Eduyot? Nothing in particular. Unlike all the other tractates in the Talmud, Tractate Eduyot is not a tractate dealing with a specific topic. As its name indicates: testimonies. What are testimonies? Just as the Talmud—we read the Talmud. The Talmud says that on that day they brought all the unresolved laws from the era of Rabban Gamliel, discussed them in the study hall—including, by the way, the Oven of Akhnai, which also appears in Tractate Eduyot—and decided them. Why? Why was it necessary to do that? How does this connect to the move here? Very simple. In the period of Rabban Gamliel, of Torah as tradition, when a dispute arose over something, there was no way to decide it. No way to decide. One says his teacher said this and one says his teacher said that. And look at what this is called: Eduyot—testimonies. What are testimonies? I testify that my teacher said this, and he testifies that his teacher said that. Excellent, you are both valid witnesses, but what do I do with you now? Two contradictory testimonies—what am I supposed to do? You have to use your head and decide, right? But for Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer there is no such thing. There are only testimonies—that’s Torah of tradition. These laws remained hanging unresolved because they could not decide them. When the sages saw that Torah was beginning to fall apart, that there was no way to decide disputes, no way to reach conclusions, they made a revolution, deposed Rabban Gamliel, and excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer. And they put Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in their place. Then on that day they brought all the open testimonies they had not managed to decide, and decided them by give-and-take. And this is what the Mishnah in Eduyot says: “Even the segmented oven—they decided that it is impure,” that very oven that Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure. That’s the language of the Mishnah. Rabbi Eliezer testified that the oven is pure, that he had received from his teachers, who had received from their teachers, all the way back to Moses our teacher. And we rule that the oven is impure. And that is what Rabbi Yehoshua means when he says “It is not in Heaven.” “It is not in Heaven” is not only “we don’t heed a heavenly voice”; it is something much deeper. “It is not in Heaven” means not only not a heavenly voice, but not at Sinai either. We do not accept Torah simply because you received a tradition from Sinai. For us it has to pass through our own heads. Our reasoning determines what the Jewish law is, and not tradition. “Not in Heaven” is not only the heavenly voice that comes out now. “Not in Heaven” is also the heaven revealed to Moses at Sinai. What do I mean? We all study the Torah that Moses received at Sinai and try to determine what he received there. Once we have two traditions or different views on the matter, it won’t help if you tell me, swear to me with signs and wonders, that you received from your teachers that this is what Moses was told at Sinai—because “it is not in Heaven.” Because we determine what the Holy One said to Moses at Sinai with our own reasoning. And the Torah says “incline after the majority.” If there is a disagreement, we’ll try to persuade each other. Didn’t succeed in persuading? Vote. There are mechanisms of decision. That is the alternative to “it is not in Heaven.” But there are laws given to Moses at Sinai that we do not challenge, and there is a tradition we received where everyone agrees that this is the law but they still justify it afterward. There is—I’ll get to this later. Obviously they did not completely abandon tradition. Where there was an accepted tradition that everyone agreed was from Moses at Sinai, of course they continued with that. But where doubts arose, they were not willing to decide them on the basis of testimonies. They had to decide them on the basis of give-and-take. I’ll get to that in a moment. “Incline after the majority” is a verse, right? What? “Do not follow the many to do evil… incline after the majority,” yes. So if it is already a verse in the Torah, then wow—a verse in the Torah, which of course they interpreted in the way they chose to interpret it. How do you interpret it if not to mean that when there is a dispute, you decide according to the majority? The verse in the Torah works in the opposite direction: “Do not follow the many to do evil, nor incline after the majority…”—do not. The sages discuss this; the question is how to interpret it, whether it’s midrash or plain meaning, and what exactly it says there. And there it is not speaking about a court at all. What does “incline after the majority” mean? Who said it is even talking about a court? It simply says don’t get dragged along after lots of people who are doing bad things. Anyway, they interpreted it this way. Yes, I wonder how this held up for so long until this stage, because there were so many… until this stage? It held up because when the disciples of Hillel and Shammai did not adequately serve them—the disciples of Hillel and Shammai are exactly these generations. Hillel and Shammai are the last pair, the teachers of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. The disciples of Hillel and Shammai did not adequately serve their teachers, and this was the first time in the history of Jewish law that two houses emerged, each with its own orderly doctrine, and they had no way to talk to one another except to kill each other. There were disputes before that too, but they managed to decide them in an agreed-upon way. There were disputes earlier too. The first dispute mentioned is in Chagigah, of the two Yoses—the second or third pair, I no longer remember. The two Yoses—that is the first documented dispute in the Oral Torah about laying hands on a festival. Hillel and Shammai, two or three generations later, and among their disciples two Torahs are already beginning to form. Completely two Torahs—this is no longer a disagreement over one issue. There is no way to talk. And the next stage would have split into a hundred Torahs, a thousand Torahs, or each person’s private Torah. Therefore the sages in the first generation of Yavneh decided to stop this process and make a revolution. That is exactly what they did there. Now look. But where did they get the authority to make this revolution? Were they the Sanhedrin? They weren’t the Sanhedrin. No, they were probably members of the Sanhedrin, but that has nothing to do with it. You don’t need authority to make a revolution. You make a revolution when it’s necessary. Authority and the ordinary system work when things are functioning normally. When there is a crisis, then revolutions are needed. I’ll give you an example. In the Oven of Akhnai, a heavenly voice comes out from Heaven, right? And they say, “It is not in Heaven.” So why in the disputes of Hillel and Shammai in the Talmud in Eruvin do they decide according to the heavenly voice? A heavenly voice came out and said that the law follows the House of Hillel. You don’t have to interpret it that way. What? You don’t have to interpret it that way. You can say the Talmud says that the law follows the House of Hillel and the heavenly voice only said that both these and those are the words of the living God. No, in the Talmud it is presented differently. No, that depends on punctuation. It’s a matter of punctuation. No, but this is the Talmud—it’s a generation of decision. They weren’t discussing the substance of the law but the procedure of how to decide. Right. What happened? Tosafot also says there: why didn’t they follow the majority? “Incline after the majority.” Because there was a dispute: the House of Shammai were sharper, and the House of Hillel were more numerous. By nature there are few very sharp people and many less sharp people, right? So therefore the House of Shammai were wiser and the House of Hillel were more numerous. Now there was a dispute over what counts as the determining majority: majority of wisdom or majority of people? Do you count feet or heads, in short? Which majority counts? So the House of Hillel had the majority of feet and the House of Shammai had the majority of heads. So now they also don’t know how to decide according to the majority. The House of Shammai say: we are the majority because we are the majority of wisdom, and the House of Hillel say: we are the majority because we are the majority of people. There is a dispute over how to apply the very rule of “incline after the majority.” In such a situation there is no way to decide. What should they do? There is no way. A heavenly voice comes out and says: the law follows the House of Hillel. But don’t we say we do not heed a heavenly voice? Right—we do not heed a heavenly voice when we have another option, when we can decide according to the majority, for example, as in the oven passage, where they say there is “incline after the majority,” so we don’t need the heavenly voice. But where the dispute is about the very rule of “incline after the majority” itself, what does it mean to say we do not heed a heavenly voice? What can you do? There is no way. So there they rule according to the heavenly voice. And I’m bringing this as an answer to Avishai’s question—someone asked this earlier, I don’t remember who—who said: by what authority did they act? They acted with the authority of no alternative. When the system collapses, the sages stop and say: okay, now there are no rules, there is nothing—we set the rules. What is it when a court lashes and punishes not according to the law? When the times require it, we punish against the law. We violate the prohibition of injury, we violate the prohibition of murder, we execute someone who does not deserve death—prohibition of murder. By what authority? By the way, there is no verse that I know of that gives the basis for a court to lash and punish not according to the law. There is no verse for that. Necessity is the verse. There is no choice—you have to handle the situation. So when they make the revolution, it is because there is no alternative. They would not have done it otherwise. And when there is no alternative, I am not looking for rules—I create the rules. And that is what they did there. Look at this beautiful Talmud passage against this background. Just look how gorgeous this is. In Chagigah, I’ll share it—Talmud in Chagigah 3a. “Our rabbis taught: It happened that Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar ben Chasma went to greet Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in.” Notice the names. Rabbi Yehoshua is sitting in Peki’in. Remember? Rabbi Yehoshua, the one who disputed Rabbi Eliezer. “He said to them: What new thing was there in the study hall today?” If I weren’t afraid I would say this too means that same day. “What new thing was there in the study hall today?” They said to him: We are your disciples and we drink from your waters. He wants innovations. They said to him: we didn’t come to teach you novelties; we came to hear from you. He said to them: Even so, it is impossible for the study hall to be without some new insight. There is no such thing as a study hall without innovation. A study hall is meant for innovations. Remember, this is Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Yehoshua who said Torah comes from the intellect, not from tradition. The study hall is meant for innovations, for Torah to be created by human beings. “Whose Sabbath was it?” There is no stronger literary link than this between this Talmud passage and the passages we saw before. “Whose Sabbath was it?” This is exactly after the revolution. He asks them who sat that week at the head of the study hall. Rabban Gamliel or Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? “It was Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s Sabbath. And what was the aggadic topic today? What did he expound on?” Not Jewish law but aggadah. “They said to him: the section of Hakhel. And what did he expound? ‘Assemble the people—the men, women, and children.’ If men come to learn, women come to hear—why do children come? In order to give reward to those who bring them.” A tremendous sermon, right? At a wedding celebration I’d be embarrassed to say such a sermon. What is he so excited about? Look at what he says to them now. “He said to them: You had a precious pearl and tried to hide it from me?” What a jewel, wonderful. What is wonderful? Clearly what is happening here is a reflection of the dispute. He says to them: now everyone enters the study hall—not only those whose inside is like their outside. Men, women, and children—everyone needs to enter the study hall. And this was perhaps the first sermon Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah gave after he was appointed, when it was his Sabbath. Because he wanted to say what this revolution means. And that is what excites Rabbi Yehoshua—not the brilliant interpretation of the verse, but the fact that the view for which they fought has taken over. We succeeded. You wanted to deprive me of this wonderful pearl—that we succeeded, the whole revolution succeeded. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah sits at the head of the study hall where Rabban Gamliel sat and tormented me. I, Rabbi Yehoshua—he tormented me because I dared to disagree with him. Today in the study hall men, women, and children enter, every sort of person is inside, and each one states his opinion, because this is Torah of give-and-take. That is what excites Rabbi Yehoshua; it’s obvious. He is not excited by the sermon. He is excited by the content of what is now happening in Yavneh. Now look at the continuation—it’s simply a marvelous aggadah once you understand the background. “And he further expounded: ‘You have affirmed the Lord this day, and the Lord has affirmed you this day.’ 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.’ I will make all of you a single unit—but this is not a unit in the sense of Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua. This is a unit in our sense, not Rabbi Eliezer’s. It means all the views together are considered part of one unit, not that there has to be one opinion. And in order to explain that, look at the next exposition Rabbi Yehoshua says here: ‘The words of the wise are like goads, and like well-planted nails, masters of assemblies, given by one shepherd.’ Why are words of Torah compared to a goad? To tell you that just as a goad directs the cow to its furrows to bring life to the world, so too the words of Torah direct those who study them from paths of death to paths of life. If a goad is movable, then perhaps words of Torah are movable. Therefore the verse says: nails. If a nail diminishes and does not increase, then perhaps words of Torah diminish and do not increase. Therefore the verse says: planted. Just as planting grows and multiplies, so too words of Torah grow and multiply. Again: Torah of inventions, of the intellect. ‘Masters of assemblies’—they continue expounding the same verse—these are Torah scholars who sit in many groups and occupy themselves with Torah: these declare impure and these declare pure, these forbid and these permit, these disqualify and these validate. You understand what is going on here, what is in the background? They told him what’s happening in Yavneh, and he comes to explain to them the meaning of what happened there in Yavneh. They brought him Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s sermon and didn’t understand the subtext. So he explains it to them: Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s sermon is saying exactly this—that this is what we fought for, that these declare impure and these declare pure, these forbid and these permit. Make your ear like a funnel and listen to them all. Don’t suppress someone who thinks differently than you, like Rabban Gamliel did. “Lest a person say: How can I now learn Torah? The verse says: all of them were given by one shepherd. One God gave them, one leader spoke them, from the mouth of the Master of all deeds, blessed be He, as it is written: ‘And God spoke all these words.’” What is this? “You made Me one unit in the world, so I too will make you one unit in the world.” It all comes from one shepherd, which turns us all into one unit—not in order for us to have one opinion. On the contrary, when all opinions are heard, that is what makes us one unit. And that is what he says: “You too, make your ear like a funnel and acquire an understanding heart to hear the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure, the words of those who forbid and the words of those who permit, the words of those who disqualify and the words of those who validate.” In this language he said to them—Rabbi Yehoshua concluded, after he finished expounding with such enthusiasm—he said to those two disciples of his who had come to him in Peki’in: “A generation is not orphaned when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah dwells in it.” He was thrilled by this: Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah is here—we have stopped being orphans. And why? Because when there were Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer, Torah stood on the verge of tearing Israel apart completely—a totally orphaned generation. A Torah without one household, because there are a million Torahs. And when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah comes and teaches that turning Israel into one unit means including all opinions within the study hall and not painting it all one color, then a generation is not orphaned when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah takes over in place of Rabban Gamliel. “And why didn’t they tell him directly?” Why did they hide from him Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s sermon? “Because of an incident that happened.” Now look at the incident. “For it was taught: It happened that Rabbi Yose ben Dormaskit went to greet Rabbi Eliezer in Lod.” The nemesis, yes? Rabbi Yehoshua is in Peki’in; Rabbi Eliezer is sitting in Lod. Two disciples come after the revolution, when Rabbi Elazar is already preaching in Yavneh. One disciple came to Rabbi Eliezer—notice, Rabbi Eliezer is sitting excommunicated in Lod; no one comes to him. “He said to him: What new thing was there in the study hall today?” Of course he asks mockingly. You’ve made yourselves a study hall of novelties there, right? Well then, tell me about your novelties. This is not just a nice interpretation from me. You’ll see in the continuation of the Talmud—it is mocking, you’ll see. “He said to him: They voted and decided that Ammon and Moab must separate the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year.” They discussed the law of the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year in Ammon and Moab. He said to him: Yose, stretch out your hands and receive your eyes. He stretched out his hands and lost his eyesight. He blinded him on the spot from sheer rage. Rabbi Elazar—it says Rabbi Elazar but of course it’s Rabbi Eliezer—Rabbi Eliezer in Lod. He blinded him on the spot. Rabbi Eliezer wept and said: “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and His covenant, to make it known to them.” What does that mean? The Holy One reveals the Jewish law to those who fear Him. I have a Torah of tradition—I know what the law is. Why are you all debating there in the study hall? You should have come and asked me. He said to him: Go tell them: Do not be concerned about your vote. So have I received from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who heard from his teacher and his teacher from his teacher—a law given to Moses at Sinai: Ammon and Moab separate the poor tithe in the Sabbatical year. You should have come and asked me. Instead of spending days debating this law, as if you have any idea what you are talking about, come ask me and I’ll tell you—not from logic—I’ll tell you what I heard from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who heard from his teacher and his teacher from his teacher all the way back to Moses our teacher, because I am a man of Torah as tradition. You are all debating there over a law that I know, so why do you need to reinvent the wheel? That is why he asked him, “What new thing was there in the study hall today?” He asks mockingly. You have discovered a novelty—that Ammon and Moab must tithe in the Sabbatical year? Wonderful novelty! Moses our teacher already heard this from the Holy One, and it was transmitted from teacher to disciple until Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, until me. So you are telling me that novelties were discovered for you in Yavneh? These are your novelties? In this case you need not be concerned about your vote—you were also right, by chance. But you could have asked me. You would have gone with certainty. But no one comes. I sit excommunicated in Lod. If one is excommunicated, one cannot learn