Q&A: Idle Talk in the Study Hall
Idle Talk in the Study Hall
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh it is ruled that it is forbidden to engage in idle conversation in a study hall, and I have noticed that the common practice is not like that. How should one generally relate to such a situation (a contradiction between common practice and Jewish law)? Is it correct to use the expression: "Leave Israel alone; if they are not prophets, they are the children of prophets" (meaning that common practice teaches us what the true Jewish law is)? Or perhaps to treat this as a decree that the public cannot uphold and is therefore void? Or perhaps as a decree that never became accepted throughout the Jewish people and is therefore void?
In addition, from a quick search in the Talmud it seems to me that the halakhic decisors derived the prohibition of idle talk from the prohibition against making calculations that appears in tractate Megillah 28b. But it could be that from "calculations" one can derive only prolonged idle conversation, and not brief speech about mundane matters like "How are you," etc. And perhaps one can infer that just as they permitted eating and sleeping in a study hall, so too they permitted a bit of ordinary conversation there?
I also saw that it is written in Perishah, Orach Chayim, section 151, paragraph 1: "The Sefer Mitzvot Gadol and Nimukei Yosef explained that this applies specifically to places designated for public teaching." The question is what falls under the category of "places designated for public teaching"?
Answer
Indeed, the common practice is to talk there. From the language of the Talmud it is not clear exactly what was forbidden: all idle speech, or only joking and frivolity. I will only note that nowadays there are many people who live in the study hall, such as kollel scholars, and when your whole life is there you also speak there about mundane matters (similar to what the Talmud writes there, and Maimonides in Laws of Prayer 11:6, that sages and their students are permitted to eat and drink there). Bottom line, I do not have a clear answer on this matter. Certainly it is proper to be careful about it.
The mechanism of a decree that the public cannot uphold is not simple. If it became accepted and was only later dropped, then it is no longer clear that it is void.
Discussion on Answer
But we can plainly see that it is only for prayer. What else do people do in a synagogue? In a study hall maybe there is room to distinguish, as I wrote.
In a synagogue people hold kiddush receptions. And sometimes celebrations too. Or conferences. Therefore the halakhic decisors discuss the possibility that apparently all synagogues are built on condition that they be intended for other things as well. Of course, for mockery and clowning around, that condition does not help.
Maybe there is no such thing as a synagogue today in the classical sense. The proof is that they put a mezuzah there. If it were only for prayer, it would not be included in the category of "your house."