Q&A: The Authority of the Talmud and Evaluating the Wisdom and Morality of the Amoraim
The Authority of the Talmud and Evaluating the Wisdom and Morality of the Amoraim
Question
Dear Rabbi Michael, hello,
I have a question:
I see expressions in the Talmud that seem to me incorrect and harmful regarding women and ignoramuses. (For example, a rabbi who wanted his daughter to die so that people would not gaze at her beauty, or that the evil inclination was created along with woman, or that ignoramuses deserve to be torn apart like fish, and there are many more.)
To me, this indicates that the author did not have such a high moral level.
If so, should I accept the words of the Amoraim only because they were ordained as rabbis? After all, the rabbis themselves installed themselves in place of the priests, claiming that the priests were corrupt. The Sadducean priests continued to believe that the Pharisees were mistaken.
So if the moral force of the Sages does not stand for them, then doesn’t the foundation on which they relied collapse, in your opinion?
But the main point is: how can one receive Torah from someone whose character traits are not refined? “If he is not like an angel of the Lord of Hosts in your eyes, do not seek Torah from his mouth.”
Thank you very much, and with blessings,
Answer
Each such expression needs to be examined on its own merits. But I do not agree that there is obvious immorality here. There is a lot of anachronism here, and a value system that you perhaps do not agree with. Beyond that, one could say that I would prefer that my daughter die in that sense, and not as a categorical statement that she should die. Like “let words of Torah be burned rather than handed over to X,” where the intention is not literally to burn them. It only comes to say that setting one’s eyes on a woman is something very severe. Beyond all this, I do not see a connection between the authority of the Talmud and the morality of its sages. Just as there is no connection between the authority of the Knesset and the morality of its members.
Discussion on Answer
The sages of the Talmud too were chosen in order to impose religious order and provide a framework for Jewish law. I do not see a difference.
Do you see the Talmud as a halakhic framework and religious order? So in your opinion is it possible to deviate from it according to personal or family understanding, like state law when several people write a special contract?
Seemingly, if the Talmud only comes to impose religious order or a framework, then the moment there is a family arrangement around a different order—say, an agreement about what a sukkah should be like or kiddush, or when an individual feels it suits him better to recite the blessings in prayer differently—then the Talmud is no longer binding, only a suggestion.
I am talking about binding religious order. The law does not allow anyone to deviate from it even if the whole world agreed to do so. There are laws of contracts in which there is freedom to contract, and that is true in Jewish law as well.
Rabbi Eliezer Melamed writes the following in the latest Revivim column, in the Besheva newspaper:
“Meaning, when the Jewish people dwell in their land with all their institutions—Temple, monarchy, priesthood, prophecy, judges and officers—and the members of the Great Court fully represent the entire people and its sages, it has the authority to decide. But when the condition of the Jewish people weakens, it no longer has the power to establish a Great Court with authority, and then the authority returns to the people as a whole, and the process of decision becomes complicated and continues for generations. However, since the Torah was given to the Jewish people, in the end the Jewish people decide.
So we find in the days of the medieval authorities and the later authorities differing opinions on every subject, and over time some opinions were entirely rejected, some were mentioned as minority opinions that are sometimes taken into account, and some were accepted as central opinions. Who decided this? The sages and the public together. Sometimes most of the sages wanted to decide one way, and the public decided in accordance with the opinion of the few sages, as for example in the prohibition of new grain and carrying in the public domain. This is ‘the acceptance of the nation,’ in the language of Rabbi Kook of blessed memory.”
And clearly this explains the authority of the Talmud.
https://revivim.yhb.org.il/2018/06/07/%d7%a8%d7%91%d7%a0%d7%95%d7%aa-%d7%a6%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9b%d7%94-%d7%9c%d7%99%d7%99%d7%a6%d7%92-%d7%90%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%a2%d7%9d/
There was a Sanhedrin and “do not turn aside” even when there was no king and no prophet. Let’s not exaggerate. Rabbi Shimon Fisher discusses this at length in Beit Yishai, vol. 2 (Homilies), sec. 15.
Still, there is a novel idea here in the sentence: “However, since the Torah was given to the Jewish people, in the end the Jewish people decide.” According to this, acceptance of the Torah is not merely passive but actually active. The power of decision was given into the hands of the collective of Israel, and it precedes the words of the sages. The Sanhedrin and “do not turn aside” are a delegation of authority when there is a Temple, but the source remains in the hands of the people.
(Unfortunately, I do not have the book Beit Yishai at hand.)
I will ask Oren to post that section from Beit Yishai here.
Please:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZJWSUJ_PCTfJ0N1HM5VGVh39mNA0EOxH
Thank you very much
There is a difference between the laws of the Knesset and the laws of the Torah.
The laws of the Knesset are chosen for lack of a better option in order to impose social order, because otherwise people would swallow one another alive. And alongside that there are individual freedoms, which balance the duty to obey.
By contrast, the laws of the Torah are meant to repair the soul and the social-moral order. And they also apply to what a person does in the privacy of private rooms.
How can you compare?
A. In order to morally improve others, you need to be moral yourself; otherwise how would you know what you are talking about?
B. There is no survival-based need for the laws of the Talmud like there is for the laws of the Knesset.
I agree regarding civil law between one person and another, and Temple law, and other laws that require social decision-making, that one must rely on the Talmud. But why rely on the sages of the Talmud, for example, in the laws of prayer and matters between the sexes? (Where there could be halakhic agreement between the spouses.)