Q&A: The Amoraim’s Expositions and Their Necessity
The Amoraim’s Expositions and Their Necessity.
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Today in the Daf Yomi, Gittin 45a, it says:
For it was taught in a baraita: “They shall not dwell in your land, lest they cause you to sin against Me” etc. Could the verse be speaking even about an idolater who accepted upon himself not to worship idols? Therefore the verse states: “You shall not hand over a slave to his master, when he escapes to you from his master.” What is his remedy? “He shall dwell with you, in your midst,” etc. And this was difficult for Rabbi Yoshiya: this phrase “from his master” should have said “from his father.” Therefore Rabbi Yoshiya said: the verse is speaking about one who sells his slave outside the Land. And this was difficult for Rabbi Aḥi son of Rabbi Yoshiya: this phrase “who escapes to you” should have said “who escapes from you.” Therefore Rabbi Aḥi son of Rabbi Yoshiya said: the verse is speaking about a slave who fled from outside the Land to the Land of Israel. Another baraita taught: “You shall not hand over a slave to his master” — Rabbi says: the verse is speaking about one who buys a slave on condition that he will free him. What are the circumstances? Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said: that he writes to him as follows: “When I buy you, you are acquired to yourself from now”…
There are three approaches here:
A. Rabbi Yoshiya, who learned that the verses teach that if someone sells his slave outside the Land, the slave goes free.
B. Rabbi Yoshiya’s son, who objects to his father’s exposition because that is not what the words imply, since if so it should have said “escapes from you.”
C. Rabbi, who interprets it altogether differently: that a person can free a slave even before he has acquired him.
And here is what I’m asking / trying to understand: this does not seem like a dispute about what was simply transmitted at Sinai, and it also does not seem like a dispute involving hermeneutical principles of exposition unknown to us. (Maybe I’m mistaken.)
It looks like a dispute based on reasoning about how to read the text. (Reasonably so.)
Seemingly, this is something in which those Amoraim have no advantage over any average person.
(All three expositions do not fit the plain meaning of the verse. Rabbi Yoshiya’s son is the closest.)
Because the plain meaning of the verse is: that there is a prohibition against handing over an ordinary slave who has run away.
There are many expositions like this that are, simply, pure reasoning — not a formal exegetical principle and not tradition.
The question is: in such places, does it make sense that only because we accepted the Talmud upon ourselves we are obligated accordingly, even though it seems reasonable that this was not God’s intention in writing the verse?
Something here is frustrating.
God commanded me something, and I do not know exactly what it is because it is hard to understand Scripture on its own, so I follow arbitrary expositions that ordinary people came up with because we accepted them upon ourselves?!
This is not just some statute that I have to obey like in a country; I want to do God’s will and His intention in what He commanded me. And if it were possible to read Scripture on my own, I would do that myself; and if not, then to keep thousands of Jewish laws only because that is what we accepted upon ourselves does not feel right?
Because my goal is to fulfill the intention of the verses — God’s will.
Thank you very much.
Answer
I did not understand the question. This is indeed a dispute based on interpretive reasoning. And it is true that the Sages were not necessarily correct. That is also true regarding the formal hermeneutical principles of exposition. But the authority of the Talmud is relevant to this as well.
If you had another interpretation that was clearly persuasive, then perhaps there would be room to argue that, from your perspective, the Sages erred and you are not obligated to obey them here (as in the law of someone who errs regarding the commandment to heed the words of the Sages). But I find it hard to see such a situation. The Sages also understood the plain meaning as you do, and nevertheless interpreted it differently. I assume we would agree that even if they were not seraphs, they also were not idiots. They have questions about the simple interpretation, and that too has to be taken into account.
Discussion on Answer
If it is frustrating, you can go to therapy and get a pill for frustration. A mature person learns to live in a world without certainty.
True.
But you also have to make some estimate of how likely it is that their expositions actually hit the divine truth.
If they missed a lot, do we still need to keep their rulings?
Do you think that most of the time they got the original intent right?
I have no way of knowing. As I wrote, as long as I do not have a clear position that they erred on a specific point, I see no need or justification to depart from it.
You have no way of knowing for certain.
But:
I learn a lot of Talmud, and many times I kind of chuckle in frustration and say: “Okay, if you say so.”
My frustration is not a psychological problem, and not arrogance either; it comes from the feeling that this whole business is too loose, too much like shots in the air. A lot of the time it feels like dime-store reasoning.
Don’t you ever feel sometimes that it is just a random shot in the dark?
Since my overall impression of the Sages is not like that, I assume that when it looks that way, I probably have not understood something (or there is a tradition, methods of exposition unfamiliar to me, and so on).
Add to that the fact that the exposition comes in addition to the plain meaning, not in its place, and it does not have to match the plain meaning of the text.
Thank you very much.
Right. I understand.
But as you wrote in the past, in your view the reason we are obligated in Torah and commandments is that this is God’s will, that this is the truth.
Bottom line, that is our goal in all this effort — the truth.
And expositions based on reasoning, which may be correct and maybe not, feel like a shot in the dark, a bit like a gamble in the air, and that does not satisfy someone who is interested in the original author’s intent — which means God’s will.
True, I have no way of interpreting Scripture on my own, but the Amoraim are also guessing, and it is frustrating to think there is a good chance that this is not what God intended.