Torah and Torah Study, Lesson 4

Table of Contents

• Defining Torah study and Torah as authority
• Ethics of the Fathers and the disappearance of the language of “received” and “transmitted”
• The historical background: the pairs, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and Yavneh
• The Oven of Akhnai: “It is not in heaven” and majority rule
• “On that day,” Tractate Eduyot, and the connection to the removal of Rabban Gamliel
• Traditionalism versus give-and-take: Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua
• The removal of Rabban Gamliel and the increase of benches: changing the rules of participation and decision-making
• Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai: a crisis in the rules of decision-making and the heavenly voice
• Violence, zealotry, and concern for the fate of the Torah
• Hagigah: Rabbi Yehoshua’s enthusiasm versus Rabbi Eliezer’s fury
• Continuation of Hagigah: “Stretch out your hands and receive your eyes” and a law given to Moses at Sinai
• A synthesis in the figure of Rabbi Akiva: tradition with rational critique

Summary

General Overview

The text lays out a foundation for understanding Torah study through the question of the Torah’s authority and the source of the authority of Torah texts, and chooses to focus on the meaning of the transmission of the Torah in the lead-up to Shavuot and on the tension between Torah from heaven and a human process of decision-making. It argues that behind dramatic aggadic passages in the Talmud stands a historical rupture in the generation of Yavneh around the question of how Jewish law is decided: by the force of tradition and personal authority, or by persuasion, reasoning, and majority rule. Out of Ethics of the Fathers, the Oven of Akhnai, the removal of Rabban Gamliel, and the passages in Hagigah, a picture emerges of a transition from a continuous description of “received and transmitted” to a period of dispute and crisis, resolved through a revolution in the rules of decision-making and a later synthesis that combines tradition with rational critique, especially through the figure of Rabbi Akiva.

Defining Torah Study and Torah as Authority

The speaker defines “study” as gathering information found in a text according to various characteristics, and defines “Torah” as an authoritative text whose authority derives from its being the word of God. As a framework for what follows, he distinguishes between types of texts such as thought, the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), Jewish law, Talmud / Talmudic text, and ethics / morality, and seeks to clarify to what extent different texts are “Torah” and what the source of their authority is. He wants first to discuss the transmission of the Torah, the meaning of tradition, and the relationship between Torah from heaven and the Torah of human beings, in order to build a foundation for what comes next.

Ethics of the Fathers and the Disappearance of the Language of “Received” and “Transmitted”

The speaker points to the structure of Ethics of the Fathers, where there is a sequence of “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it” up through the Men of the Great Assembly and the pairs, and afterward “Hillel and Shammai received from them,” and then the language of receiving and transmitting stops. He describes how at a certain point there appears “Rabban Gamliel used to say” without “received,” then afterward “Rabbi used to say,” then a surprising return to Hillel, and finally “Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai,” followed by “he had five disciples” without any description of receiving and transmitting. He explains that this structure hints at a rupture in the generation of Yavneh, when the concept of a uniform chain of transmission ceased and a reality began of students and opinions that no longer converged into one continuous transmission.

The Historical Background: the Pairs, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and Yavneh

The speaker places the Great Assembly at the beginning of the Second Temple period, Shimon the Righteous as one of its last members, and the period of the pairs up to Hillel and Shammai, and then describes the emergence of two broad schools: Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, as a system of disputes spanning many subjects. He links Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai to the time of the destruction and to the transition from Jerusalem to Yavneh through the request, “Give me Yavneh and its sages,” and describes the establishment of the Sanhedrin in Yavneh as the first exile from Jerusalem. He divides the sages of Yavneh into generations: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai as founder, Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer the Great, together with Rabbi Yehoshua of their generation, as the first generation, and Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and Rabbi Yishmael as the second generation.

The Oven of Akhnai: “It Is Not in Heaven” and Majority Rule

The speaker brings the Talmudic passage of the Oven of Akhnai in Bava Metzia 59 as a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, in which Rabbi Eliezer “brought every answer in the world,” and they did not accept it from him, and then he brought mystical signs and a heavenly voice that said the Jewish law followed him. He interprets Rabbi Yehoshua’s response, “It is not in heaven… incline after the majority,” as a principled position about the halakhic way of making decisions, in which even heavenly support does not determine the matter in the face of majority decision rules. He argues that the real discussion is not about the impurity of an oven made of segments, but about the method itself: whether one decides by the force of personal authority and the tradition in one’s possession, or by argument and persuasion, and if there is still no decision, then by a vote.

“On That Day,” Tractate Eduyot, and the Connection to the Removal of Rabban Gamliel

The speaker quotes the Talmudic statement in Berakhot that every place where it says “on that day” refers to the day Rabban Gamliel was removed from the presidency, and identifies the “on that day” in the Oven of Akhnai with that same day. He adds that Mishnah Eduyot 7:7 rules that an oven cut into segments with sand between each segment is “impure,” against Rabbi Eliezer, and notes that the Talmud says the entire tractate Eduyot was taught “on that day.” He presents this identification as an idea of Menachem Fisch in the book To Know Wisdom, and sees it as strengthening the claim that this was the same conceptual crisis and the same institutional revolution.

Traditionalism versus Give-and-Take: Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua

The speaker describes Rabbi Eliezer as a “traditionalist,” “a plastered cistern that does not lose a drop,” and as someone who “never said anything he had not heard from the mouth of his teacher,” and therefore sees himself as transmitting tradition as a “hollow pipe” that does not alter the content. He interprets Rabbi Eliezer’s use of mysticism as an attempt to establish reliability and personal authority so that people would rely on him, whereas Rabbi Yehoshua demands a decision “on the merits of the matter” and not “on the merits of the person.” He argues that Rabbi Eliezer’s excommunication was not because of the dispute itself, but because of his refusal to accept the ruling of the majority and because of a conception that places personal authority at the center of the decision-making mechanism, something seen as threatening the unity of the Torah and of the Jewish people.

The Removal of Rabban Gamliel and the Increase of Benches: Changing the Rules of Participation and Decision-Making

The speaker describes Rabban Gamliel as parallel to Rabbi Eliezer in demanding obedience by force of authority, including the declaration, “Whoever is not inwardly like his outward appearance should not enter the study hall,” and his abuse of Rabbi Yehoshua in disputes such as whether the evening prayer is obligatory or optional. He describes the removal of Rabban Gamliel and the appointment of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and the phrase “benches were increased” as a transition to a method that does not filter people according to their stature but listens to arguments, because the discussion does not depend on the righteousness of the speaker. He says that Rabban Gamliel’s return to the presidency in rotation became possible after he accepted the principle of majority decision-making, as reflected in his acceptance in the passage of the “Ammonite convert.”

Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai: a Crisis in the Rules of Decision-Making and the Heavenly Voice

The speaker brings the Talmud in Eruvin about the three-year dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai until a heavenly voice declared, “These and those are the words of the living God, but the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel,” and asks how one can listen to a heavenly voice if “it is not in heaven.” He explains that the dispute was about the rules of decision-making themselves: Beit Shammai held that one should follow the “majority of wisdom,” and Beit Hillel the “majority of people,” and therefore it was impossible to decide by a vote, because the argument was over what counts as the “majority.” He argues that when the rules themselves are not agreed upon, there is no choice but to resort to a heavenly voice in order to establish a decision rule, unlike the ordinary situation in which rules already exist and then “it is not in heaven” prevents relying on heaven.

Violence, Zealotry, and Concern for the Fate of the Torah

The speaker cites the Jerusalem Talmud that the students of Hillel and Shammai would kill one another, and emphasizes that even if this is not a precise factual description, it reflects the intensity of a struggle born from fear of the disintegration of the Torah and the people. He argues that sharp quarrels are not only a matter of intolerance, but also an expression of concern and of the sense that “the fate of the Jewish people and of the Torah is hanging in the balance,” and he brings anecdotes about how places without quarrels sometimes reflect a lack of interest. He adds the Chazon Ish’s letter about zealotry as arguing that zealotry can be “an excellent trait,” because compromise can sometimes stem from the fact that a person simply does not care about the issue.

Hagigah: Rabbi Yehoshua’s Enthusiasm versus Rabbi Eliezer’s Fury

The speaker brings the passage in Hagigah in which Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar Hasma go to greet Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in, and he asks, “What new thing was taught today in the study hall,” emphasizing his response, “A study hall is never without something new.” He describes Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s exposition of “The words of the sages are like goads and like well-planted nails, masters of assemblies, given from one shepherd,” and Rabbi Yehoshua’s continuation on “masters of assemblies” as Torah scholars who sit in many different groups: “these declare impure and those declare pure… these forbid and those permit,” along with the instruction, “Make your ear like a funnel,” to hear all sides. He interprets Rabbi Yehoshua’s joy as a response to the fact that the new approach of multiple opinions within a framework of agreed decision-making saves the Torah from the crisis, and therefore he says, “The generation is not orphaned when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah dwells within it.”

Continuation of Hagigah: “Stretch Out Your Hands and Receive Your Eyes” and a Law Given to Moses at Sinai

The speaker brings the continuation of the passage in Hagigah in which Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit goes to greet Rabbi Eliezer in Lod, and Rabbi Eliezer asks him, “What new thing was taught today in the study hall.” He describes how Rabbi Yosei reports, “They took a vote and concluded that Ammon and Moab tithe the poor man’s tithe in the Sabbatical year,” and Rabbi Eliezer responds in fury, “Stretch out your hands and receive your eyes,” blinding him, then weeping and saying, “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and His covenant to make it known to them,” and then instructing him to tell them, “Do not be concerned about your counting,” because “this is what we have received… a law given to Moses at Sinai.” He presents this as the antithesis of Yavneh’s position: Rabbi Eliezer sees reasoned decision-making as “reinventing the wheel” and places tradition as the source of the ruling, to the point of claiming that they could have asked him and received the answer without pilpul and without a vote.

A Synthesis in the Figure of Rabbi Akiva: Tradition with Rational Critique

The speaker argues that both extreme positions are problematic: pure traditionalism may entrench errors, while on the other hand you cannot simply “invent Torah” without giving weight to tradition. He brings the example of the principle that “it is preferable to press the language than to press the reasoning,” and the idea that tradition itself is subject to the judgment of logic, so that if something “doesn’t make sense,” it is possible that the tradition became corrupted. He describes Rabbi Akiva as one who connected Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua: he received tradition from Rabbi Eliezer and examined and understood through Rabbi Yehoshua, and from that there emerged a tradition of “Torah of tradition and give-and-take together” that “is supposed to accompany us to this day.” He concludes that the struggle between traditionalists and a Torah of reasoning and give-and-take recurs throughout history and in the present as well, and the argument continues over the proper balance between the two sides, as a basis for further clarifying the different domains of texts and their authority.

Okay, so I want to—last time we talked about defining Torah study through defining the two concepts, study and Torah. And in defining study, I tried to characterize it through several features: gathering information that’s in the text, all sorts of things I discussed there. And Torah I defined basically as an authoritative text. As a text, of course there may be other authoritative texts too, but here I’m talking about a text whose authority derives from its being the word of God. And in that context I said that I’d already started dealing with different kinds of texts—thought, the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), Jewish law, Talmudic text, yes, ethics / morality, things of that sort—so I started a bit, we talked a little about this text-generating mechanism, with those written texts, what I called that. But to sharpen this further, I want to make some kind of introduction that is also connected to Shavuot, so it’s a good opportunity to do it, but it’s also really a kind of foundation on which we can build more of what I began last time. So I want to talk a bit about the meaning of the transmission of the Torah—what tradition actually is, to what extent the Torah is from heaven or a Torah of human beings—and that will later on, probably not today, but later, bring us back to what I spoke about last time, because through this I’ll try to distinguish between the different areas and try to see more clearly to what extent these really are authoritative texts and where their authority comes from, and through that to examine whether this is Torah or not Torah. Okay, there are—I might start with a point of departure—there are several passages throughout the Talmud, throughout the whole Talmud, yes, several passages that somehow create the impression that there’s a connection between them, even though on the face of it it’s hard to see it. All of them have very strong narrative power, very dramatic events, yes—the deposition of Rabban Gamliel with Rabbi Eliezer in Tractate Berakhot there on page 28 and following, the Oven of Akhnai, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, and a few other passages like these where there’s a feeling—it’s also the same figures, meaning Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabban Gamliel—it’s more or less the second generation of Yavneh, maybe second or third generation of Yavneh, something like that. And I think that behind these events there really stands one point that is directly connected to the subject I was talking about: what Torah is. I’ll start maybe with Pirkei Avot. In Pirkei Avot—there’s a siddur here, right? Thanks. Nice here, Pirkei Avot, where the Sephardic ethics section is, it’s here. In Pirkei Avot it goes like this: Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Torah. Shimon the Righteous was among the remnants of the Great Assembly; he would say: on three things, and so on. Antigonus of Sokho received from Shimon the Righteous; he would say: do not be like servants who serve the master. Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzereidah and Yose ben Yohanan of Jerusalem received from them, and then each says what he says. Yehoshua ben Perachyah and Nittai the Arbelite received from them—that’s the period of the pairs, of course—and each says what he says. Judah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach received from them, say what they say. Shemaiah and Avtalyon received from them. Hillel and Shammai received from them, each says what he says. And then it ends. That’s it. Meaning, Rabban Gamliel would say. It doesn’t say “received from them,” it doesn’t say “transmitted to this one.” That terminology no longer appears. Rabban Gamliel would say. His son Shimon says, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says. It calls him there Rabban Gamliel, Rabban Shimon, Rabban Gamliel the second, Rabban Shimon, and there’s this alternating dynasty. Then Rabbi says—and that’s already the beginning of chapter 2—Rabbi says. He would say such-and-such. Hillel says—suddenly they go back to Hillel. One more thing I need. Is that Hillel the First or Hillel the Second? No, Hillel the Second is much later. No, this is Hillel. They go back to Hillel. Yes, yes, I think it’s that same Hillel. Hillel the Second was the one who fixed the calendar, which is even after the Talmudic period. And then suddenly in Mishnah 9 of chapter 2: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. Again, suddenly “received.” He would say, if you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself, and so on. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples. It doesn’t say “received” and “transmitted” and this and that—Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples, and that’s it, and it ends. From then on there are no disciples, no “received,” no nothing. And this is a really strange description, this whole thing. This one received from that one, transmitted to that one, received from that one, transmitted to that one, received from that one, transmitted to that one—it stops at Rabban Gamliel. Then suddenly they return to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, two generations after Yavneh—after all, he was at the destruction of the Temple. And he had five disciples; it doesn’t say they received from him—he had five disciples and they said various things, and that’s it, it just dissipates there. What is the meaning of this description? It seems to me that here, actually—maybe I’ll describe the historical background for a moment. Historically, let’s say the Great Assembly is the beginning of the Second Temple period; Shimon the Righteous was among the remnants of the Great Assembly. A little after that begins the period of the pairs. There are five pairs; Hillel and Shammai end it, that’s the last pair. And then two houses are formed, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Somehow suddenly two schools emerge, a phenomenon that hadn’t existed. Suddenly two schools, two study halls—not just a dispute about some particular issue, but something that runs through dozens of disputes, maybe even more. That’s what has remained in our hands somehow: these two schools. There were major fights there—we’ll come back to that. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was essentially a disciple of Hillel and Shammai, right? Because when they go back to “received,” it simply says: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. Now Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, if we place him on the historical timeline, then Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the one who asked for Yavneh and its sages during the destruction. Meaning, he was the person who moved from Jerusalem to Yavneh, the first exile of the Sanhedrin from Jerusalem to Yavneh, then later to Usha and Tzippori and so on. The first exile of the Sanhedrin was basically Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who asked Vespasian: give me Yavneh and its sages. Meaning—and with all the controversy around that matter—he got Yavneh, and then the Sanhedrin of Yavneh was established. After Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai came two figures, Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer the Great, who were brothers-in-law. And they were essentially the first generation—this is called the first generation of tannaim. Tannaim isn’t everyone who appears in the Mishnah; in the conventional terminology there were the pairs, and tannaim begins in Yavneh. That’s the first generation of tannaim in the conventional terminology. Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer are the first generation, and after them there are five disciples—basically, let’s say they had colleagues; Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua were disputants, so Rabbi Yehoshua also really belongs to that generation. And the younger generation is Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, all the rebels—we’ll get to that in a moment. And that is basically the second generation of Yavneh. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is the founder; Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua are the first generation of Yavneh, meaning those who really were already in Yavneh, active in Yavneh. And the second generation is Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabbi Yishmael. Rabbi Yishmael is a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva, his peer; it’s the same generation. Now this description is really a description, I think, that hides behind it—that terminology I pointed to earlier hides behind it some kind of break that happened in the first generation of Yavneh. Because until the first generation of Yavneh, or until Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai let’s say, there was this: Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, a relay race, Joshua to the elders, elders to the prophets, prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly, to the pairs, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. But they are defined as his disciples—they studied with him, people are always studying with him—but it’s not “received and transmitted.” And this is also the period when Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai begin. Right, at that same time Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is a disciple of Hillel and Shammai. Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, according to one scholar, was a process that lasted maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty years. Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai—but from Hillel and Shammai onward, let’s say a hundred, a hundred and fifty years, it was Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Some kind of split developed there. What exactly was happening there? So I’ll maybe begin with the Oven of Akhnai. The Talmud in Bava Metzia 59 has Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer the Great, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, disputing the law of an oven made of segments. There is an oven made of segments with sand between the different segments, and the question is whether it can contract impurity, not contract impurity, what exactly the law of such an oven is. Okay, so there was some disagreement there. A tanna taught: on that day Rabbi Eliezer brought every argument in the world and they did not accept it from him. Meaning here he gave all the arguments, and they did not accept them from him. He said to them: if the Jewish law is like me, let this carob tree prove it; let the stream prove it; let the walls of the study hall prove it. A heavenly voice came forth and said: why are you arguing with my son Eliezer, for the Jewish law accords with him everywhere? Here all the metaphysics worked in his favor. Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said—what? Is that what it says, that he gave them arguments? No, no, he brought every argument in the world and they did not accept them from him; after that came all the mystical stuff. Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: “It is not in heaven.” We pay no attention to a heavenly voice, for You already wrote at Mount Sinai in the Torah, “Follow the majority.” What does it mean, “You already wrote”? Who is he talking to? The Holy One, blessed be He. He’s talking to the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, the Holy One, blessed be He, came out in support of Rabbi Eliezer, and Rabbi Yehoshua says to Him: stop right there, You wrote in the Torah, “Follow the majority.” And that’s also not the plain meaning of what’s written in the Torah, right? What? The plain meaning there is not “Do not follow the majority to incline.” No, “Do not follow the majority for evil”—“follow the majority to incline.” “Follow the majority to incline,” yes. Now this Talmudic passage, this section in the Talmud begins: A tanna taught, on that day Rabbi Eliezer brought arguments. What does “on that day” mean? Apparently it was more than one day, but okay, in any case, what is this expression? The Talmud in Tractate Berakhot says—where exactly, I don’t remember now, I think I spoke about this once—in Tractate Berakhot it says that everywhere it says “on that day,” that means the day Rabban Gamliel was removed from the patriarchate. That’s what it says in the Talmud in Berakhot: every place where it says “on that day,” that’s that day. Now remember that “on that day” here is Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua—that’s the same period. Rabbi Eliezer is the brother-in-law of Rabban Gamliel, and Rabbi Yehoshua is the head of the rebels, yes, so it’s exactly that same period. So it says “on that day”; apparently this was the day Rabban Gamliel was deposed from the patriarchate. What is this story? Why? How is it connected to this matter? By the way, the basic idea I read in a book by Menachem Fisch, a professor at Tel Aviv University. A professor of philosophy. Right, the son of Harel Fisch from Bar-Ilan, of blessed memory. And his brother Harel. Professor David Harel, recipient of the Israel Prize in computer science. So in his book called To Know Wisdom, published by Hakibbutz Hameuchad, where he tries to create an analogy between Ecclesiastes and philosophy of science—and there he basically, the idea is taken from there. Afterward I expanded it a bit, but the idea comes from there. What? To Know Wisdom. So he basically made this identification between the Oven of Akhnai, where it says “on that day,” and that “on that day” mentioned in Tractate Berakhot. What really lies behind this matter? After all, Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated because of this episode. Why excommunicate him? A person argues with you there, he disagrees with you—you hold a vote and everything’s fine. Why excommunicate him? Second, why suddenly resort to a heavenly voice? He’s bringing all kinds of mysticism here. They didn’t accept your arguments. They didn’t accept the arguments, fine—hold a vote and the majority decides. Didn’t he know “follow the majority”? What exactly was the debate there? It seems quite clear to me, at least, that the debate there was not about a segmented oven. That wasn’t the point. The debate there was about the question: how do we reach halakhic decisions? And Rabbi Eliezer at first brought every argument in the world and they did not accept them from him. He couldn’t convince them. He says: I couldn’t convince you? Then I’ll bring you mystical proofs—the walls of the study hall and so on, and a heavenly voice and everything. Then Rabbi Yehoshua gets up and says: we pay no attention to a heavenly voice; we go by “follow the majority.” Meaning the rule is that you hold a vote. What lies behind this? Rabbi Eliezer appears in a few places as what Fisch calls a traditionalist, “a plastered cistern that loses not a drop.” That’s what they say about the disciples of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: Rabbi Eliezer is “a plastered cistern that loses not a drop.” He never said anything he had not heard; he never in his life said something he had not heard from the mouth of his teacher. Meaning he is basically a person who sees his role as taking the Torah of his teachers and passing it onward, a kind of relay race. You once called it a hollow pipe. Yes, exactly, we spoke about that once. He understood his role as transmitter as the role of a hollow pipe. His role is to pass the water along, that’s all—not to try to add his own influence to the tradition he is transmitting. His role is to pass things onward. And therefore, in the end, when Rabbi Eliezer tries to prove that the Jewish law is like him, after he raises the arguments and they don’t accept them, then he starts using mysticism. What does the mysticism prove? The mysticism proves that he is a great person. Heaven supports him, and he is righteous, and he can move the walls of the study hall and the stream. Meaning, he is a great person—you can rely on me. So Rabbi Yehoshua says to him: this isn’t at all a question of whether to rely on you or not; of course you are a great person, but that’s not how halakhic decisions are made. Halakhic decisions are not made on the basis of the person, but on the basis of the matter itself. Even if you’re a great person, if you don’t convince us, we won’t accept it. In the end we’ll hold a vote. Either you convince us and there’ll be a vote, but if the disagreement remains as it is, then we won’t accept what you say. We have to hold a vote. Even if he’s the leading sage of the generation. That very same debate, actually—maybe I’ll say one more sentence—the dispute over the oven appears in Tractate Eduyot chapter 7, mishnah 7. It says there: they testified concerning an oven cut into segments, with sand placed between each segment, that it is impure, while Rabbi Eliezer declares it pure. Rabbi Eliezer held that the oven was pure. Rabbi Yehoshua held that the oven becomes impure. In Tractate Eduyot there appears testimony that the oven is impure. The Jewish law was decided against Rabbi Eliezer. What is Tractate Eduyot? In that same passage in Tractate Berakhot it says that the whole Tractate Eduyot was taught on that day. On that very day they removed Rabban Gamliel from the patriarchate. Meaning that on that day they settled the law of the Oven of Akhnai, they decided the law of the Oven of Akhnai. That’s serious support for Fisch’s thesis, that in fact he says that “on that day” means “on the day they removed Rabban Gamliel from the patriarchate.” What happened there? There too it was the same story. Now I remember that once we actually studied the passages inside. Rabban Gamliel said: anyone whose inside is not like his outside should not enter the study hall. Right? The brother-in-law of Rabbi Eliezer the Great, of course, and he cooperates; both belong to the same school. What does that mean? When you want to evaluate a person, you evaluate him on the basis of the person, not on the basis of the matter. I want to know that this is a worthy individual; anyone who isn’t should not enter the study hall. When they deposed Rabban Gamliel, why did they depose him? Because he abused Rabbi Yehoshua, who did not accept his ruling. Right? Now, okay, regarding sanctifying the new month, there was also the matter of the afternoon and evening prayers. There were two such stories there. Regarding sanctifying the month, fine, because the head of the Sanhedrin has authority, built-in authority. Even if he makes a mistake, there really was room for dispute there. But in the matter of the afternoon and evening prayers, what does that have to do with anything? Convince, convince; if not, then not—we’ll hold a vote. Why are you abusing Rabbi Yehoshua and humiliating him? Is the evening prayer obligatory or optional? Yes. So because of that the sages decided to depose Rabban Gamliel from the patriarchate. And then what happened on that day? More benches were added—three hundred benches in the study hall. Why? Because Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who was appointed in his place, did not hold the approach that examines the person who enters—“anyone whose inside is not like his outside should not enter.” Whoever wants to come in should come in. Why? Because when I examine what you are saying, I don’t care if you are righteous or wicked. Why should I care? Let’s hear your arguments. If you have good arguments, excellent. If you have bad arguments, also fine—we won’t accept them. I’m not interested in how righteous you are, how authoritative you are, how great you are, how much you know, how much you received from your teachers, or the opposite. Yes, none of that matters. We discuss the matter itself. Meaning, actually, it’s not only temporal synchronicity—not just that this happened at the same time. There was some dispute going on here between two schools: the school of the elders—Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer—was a traditionalist school. We are basically supposed to transmit the Torah from Sinai, and we are judged by the question whether we are great and trustworthy people, such that what we say can be accepted; we do not lie. It isn’t judged by our arguments; it’s judged by who we are. The rebels, the next generation, the younger rebels, their disciples, and Rabbi Yehoshua who stood at their head—he was really of the same generation, but his colleagues were the younger ones. Regarding what you said about the rebels against the Romans—what? First the second generation? No, no, I meant the rebels against Rabban Gamliel. Not Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kokhba, right, that’s not what I meant. I meant the rebels here against the elders, against Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Eliezer. So in both cases the question was: is Jewish law decided by authority, by precedents, by information transmitted in tradition, or by reasoning, by what seems right to us? That was the debate. And Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated not because he argued about the oven—arguing is allowed, there were millions of arguments; we never heard that someone is excommunicated for arguing—he was excommunicated because he did not accept the rule of the majority. That’s why he was excommunicated. Sorry, is he considered a rebellious elder? I don’t know if that’s a rebellious elder, because I don’t know whether this was a Sanhedrin in the Chamber of Hewn Stone. There’s room to discuss that, but in principle this was a Sanhedrin and seemingly yes. I really don’t know, but it doesn’t seem so, because a rebellious elder isn’t excommunicated—a rebellious elder is executed, though by the Yavneh period there were no capital cases anymore, but I don’t know. Maybe it really was a rebellious elder whom they didn’t execute because this was Yavneh, I don’t know. Maybe because he had not issued an actual halakhic ruling; he was in the middle of a dispute. He didn’t accept their view. Not accepting their view means he also ruled Jewish law that way. Rabbi Eliezer declared it pure. So they excommunicated him because he did not accept this conception that one follows the majority. He says: “I learned much from my teachers and I took from them no more than a dog lapping from the sea.” That’s what Rabbi Eliezer says on the day of his death when the sages came to visit him. So he says: I have diminished my teachers very little; I learned much from my teachers and took from them no more than a dog lapping from the sea. I preserve the whole Torah that I learned from my teachers. And these compromisers say, you have reasoning this way and reasoning that way, this seems right to us and that doesn’t seem right to us. I’m telling you what was said to Moses at Mount Sinai. So you’re telling me, about the Holy One, blessed be He—whether what He says seems right to you or not? That was basically his claim, and for that he was excommunicated, because they were not willing to accept his conception—not the ruling that the oven is pure; that was not the point. And Rabban Gamliel too, the same thing. What they excommunicated him for was not because he insulted Rabbi Yehoshua; they excommunicated him because he was the brother-in-law and political ally of Rabbi Eliezer the Great, and he too was a traditionalist. He demanded authority; he demanded that people accept his positions because he was the authorized person. I don’t need to justify anything to you. You will have to accept what I say because I said it, not because there are arguments. The wording “the Jewish law accords with him everywhere”? What? The wording “the Jewish law accords with him everywhere”? About Rabbi Eliezer, yes. Rabban Gamliel said the same thing; Rabban Gamliel—what?—he demanded obedience by force of authority, not because he was right and had arguments. And that they were not willing to accept from him. The insult to Rabbi Yehoshua was a pretext; that was there, but it expressed something deeper. There was something here that the sages were not prepared to accept. What was the background? After all, in the Jerusalem Talmud it appears that the disciples of Hillel and Shammai would kill one another. Now again, I’m not entirely sure to what extent that description is a factual historical description—that there really were life-and-death battles there—but clearly there was a struggle there with tremendous intensity, yes? A brutal struggle. Whether they killed or not, one can discuss whether it’s metaphorical or not. What was the struggle about? What was the story there? The Talmud in Tractate Eruvin says that for three years Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai disputed and could not reach a decision. These said: the Jewish law follows us, and those said: the Jewish law follows us. They could not reach a decision, until a heavenly voice came forth and said: these and those are the words of the living God, but the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel. Why was the dispute there stuck? Why did they need a heavenly voice, if we say “it is not in heaven” and we do not listen to a heavenly voice? So why there did they listen to a heavenly voice? Why did the heavenly voice come out? Like Tosafot—he gives three answers, I don’t think they’re needed. What, what, what was the discussion there? Tosafot elsewhere, a few pages earlier in Eruvin, says—he cites a passage—the Talmud says that Beit Shammai were sharper, more intellectually acute. What was the dispute? Everyone knew “follow the majority,” but Beit Shammai said: you follow the majority of wisdom, not the majority of people. They were wiser. What difference does it make to me if there are fools as numerous as those who left Egypt, as Sefer HaChinuch says? What difference does it make to me? One wise person outweighs six hundred thousand fools. What does counting feet help me? As I’ve already mentioned once. I don’t think it’s my phrase; I don’t remember where I first heard it—the question is whether you count feet or count heads. So Beit Shammai say: you have to count heads, not feet. Right, “follow the majority,” the majority determines—but which majority? The qualitative majority, the majority of wisdom, that is what determines, not the majority of feet. And Beit Hillel—they were the majority, they were a larger number of people—and they say: no, “follow the majority,” you follow the majority. What happens—what happens in such a case? In such a case you have a debate that cannot be resolved. Why? Because the debate is about the methods of resolution; it isn’t a halakhic dispute. What do we do now? Hold a vote on the question whether we follow the qualitative majority or the quantitative majority? Which majority do we use in the vote? Yes, and in that vote itself we get stuck with the same issue. I once mentioned this in the context of paradox and anti-paradox. I said that if Beit Shammai, for example, held that you follow the majority of feet, even though they were sharper, and Beit Hillel said that you follow the majority of heads, even though they were less sharp, then that would be a kind of loop, yes, a paradox. If the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel then it follows Beit Shammai, and if it follows Beit Shammai then it follows Beit Hillel—and basically there would be a loop. But here each side remains consistent with itself. Beit Shammai say you follow the majority of wisdom, and according to their view the Jewish law really follows them. And Beit Hillel say you follow the majority of people, and according to their view the Jewish law follows them. So it’s an anti-paradox. Meaning, it can’t be resolved because both sides are right, or because neither side is right. In any case, that was the problem. Now what happens? “It is not in heaven” doesn’t apply here. The rule “it is not in heaven” says that where we have a way of deciding the Jewish law, then we pay no attention to a heavenly voice and do not go by heaven, but by the halakhic decision rules. For example, we follow the majority, we follow “the burden of proof is on the claimant,” whatever—there are decision rules, say following the majority. But where the dispute is about the decision rules themselves, then we don’t have the option of using halakhic decision rules, because after all our dispute is about them. So what do we do there? There is no choice but to go with the heavenly voice. And therefore a heavenly voice comes forth and says that the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel. And there they do follow the heavenly voice, because when do we not follow a heavenly voice? When we have the option of deciding by halakhic procedures. Then we say, why are you listening to a heavenly voice? I gave you Torah; work with what I gave you. But when we are stuck with the rules we received of “follow the majority,” what do we do? Then we resort back to the heavenly voice to decide and say that the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel. Now before the heavenly voice came forth, there were three and a half years of fights, and again that too is not necessarily a historical description—a certain extended period, probably even longer, of two houses that could not reach a decision. And these houses continue and expand, and in fact all the sages of Israel are divided into two study houses, two schools. And the moment the decision procedures are not agreed upon, because these maintain that they are the sages and those maintain that they are more numerous, and therefore each claims the Jewish law follows it even if you go by the majority. Okay? How did it not come from Sinai? Huh? How did it not come from Sinai? There was a lacuna, so to speak. Yes, there was a lacuna. What happens in such a situation is that a fear arises that the Torah is falling apart, that the Jewish people are falling apart. We can no longer speak to one another. Meaning, this is Beit Shammai with their modes of thought, with their halakhic tradition, with everything. Beit Hillel has its tradition and its decision procedures. They can no longer talk to each other, there’s no way to decide, no way to persuade, no one accepts what the other says. A positivist dispute, let’s say, yes, and later that developed into the dispute with the Karaites and okay—but I’m saying that these are disputes within the halakhic study hall between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. And therefore the sense of crisis was this: there is no way to decide. What happens when there is no way to decide? People don’t start hitting each other. Because the feeling was that the fate of the Jewish people and of the Torah was hanging in the balance; this was going to fall apart. Meaning, in a short time if this business doesn’t come to some decision, if we don’t resolve this crisis, first of all we split into two, and after that of course each of those will continue splitting, and in the end nothing will remain. Everything will disintegrate. Therefore they get to the point of killing one another—again, killing or at least struggling in a very intense way. Because what was at stake here was not this or that halakhic disagreement, and it also wasn’t lack of tolerance. That wasn’t the point. I think I once told about a certain baal teshuvah whom I accompanied, and he was very troubled by the amount of fighting there is among rabbis. He said, specifically rabbis, who are supposed to be more elevated than the people, yes, greater—they fight the most. In other places you don’t find so many fights; ordinary people don’t fight that much. I told him there is indeed some problem here to a certain extent, but I think there’s another side to the coin. That is, the rabbis, at least from their point of view, have more things worth fighting over. There are many things that, from their perspective, are considered important. Now, it may be that they do it in an ugly way and not always according to the proper rules and so on, but the motivation to fight is often not merely power-driven motivation—there is that too—but not only that. There is something here: they really are fighting over the path. Each one believes in his path, and first of all these kinds of fights—afterward it can also slide into power struggles and ugly actions, all true. But first there is some fight here that contains an element that is for the sake of heaven. Now in places where you don’t find fights, it’s not because everyone is always so righteous, but because they simply don’t care. Why should I care—do what you want, I’ll do what I want, that’s it, why should I care? That’s a kind of sign that they don’t care about one another. Meaning, the fights show that they care. There’s another side here. It sounds like something Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev would say, but it’s true. Yes, there’s also—I said, even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day. Meaning, even Hasidim can sometimes be right. This dispute—A stopped clock is the only one that shows the correct time. Yes. No, unless it’s slow with a growing lag, then it also shows it occasionally, but not twice a day. Yes. In any case, so the—what? Because you said a stopped clock. Yes. No, I’m saying: a stopped clock shows the time twice a day. That’s the best. A stopped clock is the best clock there is. The second-best clock is one that runs slow, but with a lag that keeps growing, because then from time to time it will still meet the correct time. The worst is a clock that goes at exactly the right speed, because it never shows the correct time. After all, it’s never possible to align perfectly—it’s never exact. If once it wasn’t exact, then it will never be exact, because it will always be in a constant lag or lead. Okay, anyway, to our point: the claim, I’m saying, is that when you fight over something, often it’s simply because that something matters to you. Now because it matters to you, it may be that you reach inappropriate fights and take problematic steps, but first of all it begins with the fact that there’s something that matters to you. In a place where there is nothing worth dying for, as the song says, it isn’t worth living. Meaning, in a place where no one fights over anything and nothing matters to me, it isn’t worth living—you can already commit suicide without anyone killing you; I’ll kill myself already. Did I ever tell you about—there was some sponsor of mine at the Weizmann Institute during my postdoc, Itamar Procaccia. Some academic politician, an academic politician. Is he the justice’s brother? He’s the former husband’s brother-in-law. Brother of her husband, formerly. So he once told us—told me—that he came to, I think, Denmark, somewhere in Scandinavia, I think Denmark, and he said to me: ah, now what do I care? As far as I’m concerned they can all burn here, I don’t care about them, so I—what do I care what happens, now it’s quiet. He says, after ten minutes I was lying on the bed like this with my legs up and I started itching. Meaning after twenty minutes my temperature had already risen. Meaning after half an hour I already realized I couldn’t stay here one more minute. I ran back to Israel. I can’t live without these nerves. And why is that? Because he cares. There he didn’t care about anything, so why should he care if they all burn there? It’s not only because here it’s more stormy. That’s also true, I assume, but that’s not all. Rather because here you care about what’s happening and everything gets on your nerves, and there you don’t care. So many times when someone fights against you, it’s because they care about you, and it isn’t just plain belligerence or a pursuit of wars. There’s that too, and it gets mixed in, and of course it’s always mixed in, but there’s also something here that is a real issue. Here too, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai reached the point of killing one another, and surely you’ll hear moral sermons—heaven forbid, this is terrible and dreadful and we must be very careful about such things. That’s true on one side. On the other side there’s the Chazon Ish’s letter on zealotry, the famous letter, which I think I also once discussed. He says zealotry is an excellent trait. Meaning, moderation, compromise—that means basically that you don’t really care about things. And therefore you are compromising. Very often, at least, that’s how it is. And so they really cared about the fate of the Torah, and therefore in the end they even got to the point of killing one another. Fine, they shouldn’t have done that, but there was some reason that caused them to do it. And it came from the fact that they suddenly felt that this whole enterprise was splitting and about to fall apart. Now Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai—remember—this is exactly the same period. Rabbi Eliezer, for example, is called “he is of Shammai.” Among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) there is a dispute what “of Shammai” means. Some medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain that “of Shammai” means from Beit Shammai. It’s not entirely clear that Rabbi Eliezer was from Beit Shammai, but that’s the claim. And some medieval authorities (Rishonim) say “of Shammai” means that he was excommunicated, because of the Oven of Akhnai. Shamta, shamta means excommunication. So he says this is connected to the disputes of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, what’s happening here, because the feeling was a feeling of disintegration. Now there were two methods of stopping the disintegration. Rabbi Eliezer’s method—and maybe this is somewhat connected to Beit Shammai, I don’t know, there’s room to discuss it—was a method of traditionalism. Let us all cling to the information. Let’s clarify, like the academic scholars of today. Academic scholars today aren’t interested in the reasoning you come up with. What interests them is: let’s examine the manuscripts, see how corruptions entered, and determine what the truth was. Why do you need to engage in all these pilpulim and resolve difficulties, when all these difficulties fall away because of a textual error? Let’s check what was in the original. What did the amoraim themselves say? Then everything is fine and we don’t need all your reasoning. A bit exaggerated, but many discussions could be rendered unnecessary that way. Okay? In this sense, Rabbi Eliezer and perhaps also Beit Shammai are saying: hear the information from me. Hear the information from me, and that will make all your disputes unnecessary. Everything is fine, I hold the whole Torah. “I learned much from my teachers”—I hold the whole Torah. “A plastered cistern that loses not a drop.” You have a question? Ask, what’s the problem? I’ll explain to you exactly what the truth is. Now the recalcitrant crowd opposite him—including his own disciples, or disputants and disciples—were not willing to accept that. Convince us. We do not accept dictated information on the basis of authority. Give arguments. So he tried to give them arguments. He gave every argument in the world, but they didn’t accept them. What do you mean you don’t accept them? I tried to explain to you—you asked for an explanation, I tried to explain. But you need to accept it regardless of the explanation, because I am right. I received this from my teachers, and my teachers from their teachers, back to Moses our teacher. I am informing you what the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses at Sinai. Here, I’ll bring Him—the Holy One, blessed be He. He’ll tell you. Then a heavenly voice comes out, and the stream, and all the walls of the study hall, and all these things—and they do not accept these actions. Why? Because they had a different conception of how to solve the problem. And the conception is that we try to persuade one another, and if not, then we vote, and that determines it. Even if you tell me you have a tradition from Sinai, if the vote goes against you—“it is not in heaven.” That is Rabbi Yehoshua’s innovation. And that innovation was accepted. And whoever did not accept that put the Torah and the Jewish people in the same danger as Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Therefore Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated, and therefore Rabban Gamliel was deposed. Not because of the oven and because of what he said or did, but because their conception would destroy the whole Torah, would dismantle the Torah in that generation. That is how the sages felt, and therefore a very bold step was taken: to go against the head of the Sanhedrin and throw him out. There isn’t, by the way—I don’t know if such a thing is anchored in Jewish law, such authority. He was appointed from above, not from below. He was appointed by the previous generation and made head of the Sanhedrin. I don’t know if there is any source for this, I don’t know such a source, that the Sanhedrin has the authority to depose the head of the Sanhedrin. But they did it. They did it because they created that authority there by virtue of that very consideration. And then all the narrative intensity around these aggadic passages appears because of this struggle. The question is: what is Torah? A Torah of tradition—that is Rabbi Eliezer—or a Torah of give-and-take, that is Rabbi Yehoshua and his colleagues. Okay, and that was the fight. Now look at another Talmudic passage. The Talmud in Tractate Chagigah. The Talmud in Tractate Chagigah says this: It happened that Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar Chasma—well, maybe a short introduction. After they appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah to be head of the Sanhedrin in place of Rabban Gamliel who was deposed—“behold I am like a man of seventy years,” and all the stories—Rabban Gamliel understood the mistake he had made, repented, and returned to the office of head of the Sanhedrin on a rotation. A week, two weeks. There was a rotation there between him and Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah. They did not depose Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, because “in matters of holiness one elevates and does not lower,” but Rabban Gamliel returned to his authority and accepted the ruling. How do we know he accepted the ruling? Regarding an Ammonite convert, there was a dispute there whether an Ammonite convert—Rabban Gamliel accepted their arguments and yielded, ruled in accordance with them, and then they restored him to the patriarchate. Because he understood that we follow the majority and not his own authority. Rabbi Eliezer remained excommunicated until the day of his death in Lod. He insisted, he did not accept it. His brother-in-law repented and returned; Rabbi Eliezer remained excommunicated in Lod until the day of his death. He didn’t accept the ruling. He claimed: what are you babbling about with your arguments? The tradition is with me. I’ll tell you what the Holy One, blessed be He, told Moses from Sinai. Okay? Now then there was week by week in Yavneh, a week, two weeks in Yavneh. And the next story—and this is now the third passage, besides Berakhot and Bava Metzia, now we’re in Chagigah. It happened that Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka and Rabbi Elazar Chasma went to greet Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in. Rabbi Yehoshua was sitting in Peki’in; Rabbi Eliezer was sitting in Lod. He said to them: what new thing was taught in the study hall today? They said to him: we are your disciples and from your waters we drink. You tell us novelties—you want us to tell you novelties? He said to them: nevertheless, there is no study hall without something new. There are always new things. Whose Sabbath was it? “Sabbath” meaning, who served that week as head of the Sanhedrin—Rabban Gamliel or Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah? It was Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s week. That’s what they answered him. They had come from Yavneh, they had come from Yavneh to visit him in Peki’in. And what was the aggadic lecture about today? He asked them what he had taught in the aggadic sermon. And he too began and expounded—Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah—they tell him the homily. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah expounded: “The words of the sages are like goads, and like nails firmly planted; masters of assemblies, they were given from one shepherd.” Just as a plant is fruitful and multiplies, so too words of Torah—sorry, no, I skipped something here, I’m not bringing the whole passage. There was a passage there that just as Israel makes the Holy One, blessed be He, one unit in the world, so He makes them one unit in the world. And why do the children come to the assembly? To give reward to those who bring them. There were all sorts of interpretations there, and Rabbi Yehoshua was overjoyed. And this pearl was in your hands and you wanted to withhold it from me? How could that be? What is he so excited about? We’ve heard more impressive homilies than this. I wouldn’t be so excited by those homilies, though I’m a known Litvak, so that’s no proof. But still I don’t understand the excitement. Clearly the great excitement was not because of the quality of the homily, of what it said. All those homilies dealt with the fact that Rabban Gamliel was wrong. The new mentality practiced in Yavneh—that’s what Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah was preaching. After all, he opened up the benches, increased the benches in the study hall. He said: just as a plant is fruitful and multiplies, so too words of Torah are fruitful and multiply. Meaning, all this multiplication of benches in the study hall, this sort of democracy, opening up and hearing everyone—that is what excited him. They even bring the children to learn; you don’t need to screen people at the entrance to the study hall. And to that Rabbi Yehoshua responds—this isn’t Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah’s homily—Rabbi Yehoshua, in his great excitement, continues: “The words of the sages are like goads, and like nails firmly planted; masters of assemblies, they were given from one shepherd.” Just as a plant is fruitful and multiplies, so too words of Torah are fruitful and multiply. “Masters of assemblies”—now he expounds this verse. “Masters of assemblies” refers to sages who sit in many groups and engage in Torah—these declare impure and those declare pure. You already understand the background here, with the Oven of Akhnai of course. These forbid and those permit; these disqualify and those validate. Lest a person say: how then am I to learn Torah from now on? That’s the crisis I spoke about—after all, these say this and those say that, no one listens. What am I supposed to do? The whole thing is falling apart. Therefore Scripture says: all of them were given from one shepherd. One God gave them; one leader uttered them, from the mouth of the Lord of all deeds, blessed be He, as it is written: “And God spoke all these words.” You too, make your ear like a funnel and acquire for yourself an understanding heart to hear the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure, the words of those who forbid and those who permit, the words of those who disqualify and those who validate. Listen to all of them. In the end either you’ll be convinced or we’ll vote. This is exactly what Rabbi Yehoshua said there in the Oven of Akhnai, and it’s what he says here too. And this is a response to what they tell him in the name of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, what he taught in Yavneh. Because Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah taught homilies that also moved in that ideological direction. So he understood that in fact we had been saved. The enterprise had been saved. And then he concludes in this language, he said to them, after he finished his homily: the generation is not orphaned when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah dwells within it. In short, in the end the enterprise was saved; Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah took hold, our approach prevailed, and the enterprise was saved, and the Torah remained. One can discuss it—now there are many opinions, it’s impossible to remain with the unified tradition that existed until the first generation of Yavneh, until Rabbi Eliezer, where it was “received, transmitted, received, transmitted.” I’m returning to Pirkei Avot. That whole description up to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. Because up to that point it really was a Torah of tradition. This one transmitted, that one received; that one transmitted, that one received. Rabbi Eliezer the Great gathered everything; everything remained with him. Now separation begins. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples. This one says this, that one says that; Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai begin, arguments begin—what do we do? Rabbi Eliezer continues with the Torah of tradition: you will accept what I say because it is the truth. And then they don’t accept it, because it doesn’t seem logical to them, and then fights begin, and quarrels, and excommunications, and killings of one another, and they didn’t know what to do until the Revolution of Yavneh—and that solved the problem. The Revolution of Yavneh was basically the process that saved the Oral Torah. Okay, and therefore Rabbi Yehoshua here was so happy to hear this. Now look how the Talmud continues. The same passage in Chagigah. It happened that Rabbi Yose ben Durmaskit, immediately after that, this is the continuation of the same passage, went to greet Rabbi Eliezer in Lod. Here it says Elazar, but clearly the correct version is Rabbi Eliezer. Rabbi Eliezer in Lod. Which of course is the antithesis to Rabbi Yehoshua in Peki’in. After all, he is sitting excommunicated in Lod, while Rabbi Yehoshua is the head of the victorious camp, yes? In Peki’in. He said to him: what new thing was taught in the study hall today? The same question Rabbi Yehoshua had asked them about Yavneh—he comes from—he too comes from Yavneh. Rabbi Yose ben Durmaskit also comes from Yavneh. Now he comes to visit Rabbi Eliezer, who was pushed out of Yavneh; the approach opposed to him took over. He asks him the same question that Rabbi Yehoshua asked. You probably think he repented, right? He understands there are new insights and that one can now accept things from others? It was a sarcastic question. What novelty was there in Yavneh today? He said to him, what—what could you possibly have innovated already? Now look at the continuation—it’s explicit in the Talmud, look. He said to him: they counted and concluded that Ammon and Moab tithe the poor man’s tithe in the Sabbatical year. They discussed there what the law is in the land of Ammon and Moab, whether there is poor man’s tithe there in the Sabbatical year. He said to him: Yose—about his disciple Rabbi Yose ben Durmaskit—stretch out your hands and receive your eyes. He stretched out his hands and received his eyes. He blinded him. Again, I’m not sure this is a literal description, but it does—Rabbi Eliezer cried and said: “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and His covenant to make it known to them.” He said to him: go and tell them, do not worry about your count. This is what we received from Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who heard from his teacher, and his teacher from his teacher, a law to Moses from Sinai: Ammon and Moab tithe the poor man’s tithe in the Sabbatical year. You reinvented the wheel. You reached the conclusion that Ammon and Moab tithe in the Sabbatical year? If you had asked me, I would have told you. It’s a law to Moses from Sinai. From his teacher and his teacher’s teacher back to Moses at Sinai, through Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: Ammon and Moab tithe in the Sabbatical year. They’re busy hair-splitting there, bringing in arguments this way—if you had come ask me, I would have told you this law. “Do not worry about your count”—don’t worry, your count happened to hit the mark, but not because of your brilliance. If you’d asked me, I would have told you the law, and you wouldn’t have needed all this. And that is the antithesis to the excitement of Rabbi Yehoshua described at the beginning of the passage. Meaning Rabbi Eliezer remained where he was. He blinded him—and afterward he prayed for him and Rabbi Yose’s eyesight returned—but he blinded him from sheer anger at the “novelty” that had been in Yavneh that day, novelty in quotation marks. The novelty was a law to Moses from Sinai. You reinvented the wheel. And basically he’s saying to them: look what comes out of the nonsense you’re doing. And it doesn’t help—they don’t accept it. He remained excommunicated there, and they didn’t speak with him, and when they came on the day of his death, there’s a heart-rending description there—that on the day of his death he says, where were you all this time? I could have taught you three hundred laws about a bright spot and about cucumber-gathering. In short, the whole Torah is with me, and you’re engaged in pilpul in Yavneh and reinventing the wheel instead of coming and asking; I would have told you the Jewish law in every matter—what’s the problem? You hear? You need all your pilpulim. A mishnah they brought to him—did they believe they had received it from Sinai? Yes—they think, if it’s not logical, then we don’t believe that this is tradition. Even tradition is subject to the judgment of reason. That’s what I said: it is preferable to force the wording than to force the reasoning. It says so in the Talmud—it’s not logical. If it’s not logical, then apparently I’ll emend the version in the Talmud, I’ll interpret it with difficulty, but I won’t accept that that is what the Talmud says. Because it isn’t logical. But doesn’t the Talmud teach us? Yes, exactly. The Talmud itself strains the Mishnah when something isn’t logical—even if it’s difficult, when it isn’t logical it presses the reading. Meaning, the traditionalist point is problematic because sometimes it ossifies errors too—that’s something to understand. Now of course after they excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer, then by that point they no longer even went to ask him. That really isn’t logical. Ask him and then discuss whether yes or no—but not to ask? You have such a database and you don’t ask? He was under excommunication. The moment the decision was made that things would be done by majority vote and by reasoning, then now they didn’t even ask him. He was under excommunication and he remained on the side. And they took that to an extreme in order to solve the problem, because they didn’t want to in principle, but they did it because they had to solve the problem. By the way, in that same passage that tells about the tannaim who came to visit Rabbi Eliezer on the day of his death, the Talmud begins there—begins there really—with the fact that Rabbi Eliezer would expound three hundred laws about cucumber-gathering, involving sorcery, how sorcerers move cucumbers around and I don’t know, perform various acts of magic there. And he would study sorcery in order to adjudicate the laws of sorcery. So he was an expert in sorcery in order to judge the laws of sorcery. And it is told there that Rabbi Akiva—who was also the one who went to inform Rabban Gamliel that he had been deposed—he was basically the leader of the next generation, the second generation. And he too eventually came to visit Rabbi Eliezer. By the way, he visited Rabbi Eliezer during the period up to his death as well. That’s what it says: aside from Rabbi Akiva, none of you came to me. Rabbi Akiva did come. He sat far from him. Right, that was when he came to tell him that he was excommunicated. That was when he came… but I’m saying also after the excommunication he came to visit him, and the question is how that was permitted according to Jewish law, I don’t know. But he came; others did not. Okay? He says there, Rabbi Eliezer says that aside from Rabbi Akiva, none of you came. Now what’s interesting is that this whole Talmudic passage is brought in the context of that cucumber-gathering matter, and because of that it is told—after all, the Talmud says there how he learned it, and regarding Rabbi Eliezer it says that he received this from Rabbi Yehoshua, this teaching about Rabbi Akiva. Then the Talmud says: he received it from Rabbi Eliezer and did not understand it, went to Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Yehoshua explained it to him. That’s what the Talmud says. And that basically means that in the end, after they excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer and educated Rabban Gamliel, in the end it was clear that both the thesis and the antithesis are extreme. When you have a tradition, you can’t ignore it. We do not invent Torah. On the other hand, tradition is not something absolute. It too is subject to rational scrutiny, logical scrutiny. And therefore in the end it is all according to Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva was the father of the Oral Torah, yes? Anonymous Mishnah, anonymous this and that—and it is all according to Rabbi Akiva. Why? Because Rabbi Akiva connected Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. He received the tradition from Rabbi Eliezer, and he tested its logic through Rabbi Yehoshua. And in the end he joined those two things and created the tradition that is supposed to accompany us to this day—which is a Torah of tradition and give-and-take together. But in order to produce that synthesis, there had to be this dialectical process of thesis and antithesis fighting each other until in the end they somehow converged into what we know today—and of course I’m saying these things as applying even today. Meaning that in the end one has to know there is a limit to tradition. Even if something is written somewhere, written here and written there, and I don’t know, handed down to us from Maimonides and Rashba and the Shulchan Arukh or something like that—it has weight, and obviously it isn’t right to dismiss it, but that’s not the bottom line. If something does not seem logical to you, no way—then no. Then no. Don’t accept it. I think that’s true today as well. Even though people are a bit put off by that approach today. Notice, they don’t present it that way. Even later authorities (Acharonim) of our own time… yes, I’m saying, they do it but they don’t present it that way; there’s a kind of reluctance. So I’m saying that this lesson is a lesson that is true even today, and this process is a process that continues throughout history—it wasn’t only then. That “on that day,” of course… that “on that day” was of course not one single day, but a period in which this collision between the two schools and Rabbi Akiva’s synthesis took shape. But it keeps recurring all the time. Even today there is a struggle between traditionalists and a Torah of give-and-take, of reasoning, of this. And of course the synthesis has to be in one proportion or another, and there is an argument over where the synthesis lies, and again there is a fight and again—it is a process that continues all the time. But it has two sides that somehow have to be combined. And that is ultimately the lesson. And I’m saying, I’ll use this foundation later on to return to the passages. How much time do we have now?