Q&A: The Homiletic Method Around the Passage of the Wayward and Rebellious Son
The Homiletic Method Around the Passage of the Wayward and Rebellious Son
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask about the homiletic method surrounding the passage of the wayward and rebellious son. You already said that there are two types of exposition: creative exposition and supportive exposition. But it seems that the method of exposition in the passage of the wayward and rebellious son is of a completely different kind. A sort of exposition driven by the goal of narrowing the scope of the passage. If you look at the Mishnah layer, the level of implausibility in the exposition there is relatively low, but it still exists, for example: “He does not listen to our voice”—and not if they are deaf. But when you get to the Talmudic layer, things already get completely out of proportion there, for example: “Rav Huna said: He is not liable unless he takes cheap meat and eats it, cheap wine and drinks it, as it is written: a glutton and a drunkard.”
Maimonides explains the matter this way: “This eating for which he is liable—many details apply to it, and all of them are a law handed down by tradition.”
That is, according to Maimonides, the exposition here is supportive exposition. The Sages received a tradition that the meat has to be cheap meat, and they attached it to the verse ‘a glutton and a drunkard.’ But according to that approach, why not simply state the law that was transmitted by tradition without hanging it on verses in such a bizarre way?
I remember that in the past you called this abusive exposition (or that the Sages abused these verses). If it is abusive exposition, then apparently your intention is that this is not a tradition, but rather that the Sages themselves created this abuse. But how can it be that the Sages use the tool of exposition in order to abuse the verse? After all, exposition is an interpretive tool meant to strive for the true and correct interpretation, not to arrive at the desired interpretation. And furthermore, if the Sages wanted to limit the application of this verse, why not simply state the reason for that, without playing strange games with expositions like this.
Answer
These are indeed very difficult expositions. If this is a tradition, then fine. The question why supportive exposition is needed can be asked about all supportive expositions, since one can always state the law without finding an exposition for it. (It may perhaps be explained that once we have found a supportive exposition, the verse is taken and cannot be used for other expositions, and therefore there is some point to it.)
But if this is not a tradition, then it is very hard to accept that this kind of abuse is a sufficient condition for taking a verse away from its plain meaning. That basically means you can do whatever you want. I have no good answer for that side.
It seems to me that this is the infrastructure lying at the basis of the “we require the verse as written” discussions, regarding the wayward and rebellious son and the condemned city.
Discussion on Answer
Traditions are sometimes transmitted orally. It depends on Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s editorial considerations. The baraitot and the Tosefta prove that.
It is possible that there was a tradition that the wayward son is not meant to be applied, and they left it to the Sages to expound and interpret in order to reach that result. That also explains how the tanna knew that a wayward son was never going to exist.
I meant that the discussion whether this is abuse or supportive exposition lies at the basis of the “verse as written” discussions.
Quite a few times one gets the feeling that the Sages did not believe that the Torah is from Heaven.
It seems they saw the morality in the Torah as primitive, and they did everything to straighten out the Torah’s crooked line, including using crooked tools.
Regarding the side that this is a tradition: after all, tradition is something that should be better known to the generation of the Tannaim than to the generation of the Amoraim, since they are closer to the source. If so, why is the tradition regarding the condition that the meat must be cheap not brought to us in the Mishnah, and then suddenly pops up in the Talmud? Also, it is a bit strange that there are disputes surrounding the mode of exposition of the passage if this is a tradition and supportive exposition. For example: “Rabbi Yehuda says: If his mother was not equal to his father in voice, appearance, and height, he does not become a wayward and rebellious son. What is the reason? Because the verse says, ‘He does not listen to our voice.’ Since with regard to voice we require them to be alike, with regard to appearance and height too we require them to be alike.” And the Jewish law does not follow Rabbi Yehuda. Also, from the form and wording of the exposition, it seems to be an exposition that is not merely supportive.
As for your closing line, I didn’t really understand it—which infrastructure did you mean by the word “this”?