Q&A: He Shall Send Forth His Roots
He Shall Send Forth His Roots
Question
Have a good week,
On p. 606, in the quotation from Rabbi Isaac Ze’ev Perek Frankel, a typo slipped in:
“But our master the Gaon, of blessed memory, did not accept this at all and did not hold this reasoning; therefore he counted each and every type among the shades of human leprous afflictions as a separate commandment, and his rationale and explanation are with him …”
And allow me to note that, because of the abundance of material, it would have been appropriate to add page numbers to the table of contents and the cross-references as well. In the PDF this is not such a problem, but when reading the book on the Sabbath, the pagination could have been helpful.
With your permission, a point that came up for me this week. The Talmud in Bava Batra 21a says:
For Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: Indeed, remember that man for good, and Joshua ben Gamla was his name, for were it not for him, Torah would have been forgotten from Israel. At first, whoever had a father, his father would teach him Torah; whoever did not have a father would not learn Torah. What verse did they expound? “And you shall teach them” — you shall teach, yourselves. They then instituted that teachers of children should be established in Jerusalem. What verse did they expound? “For out of Zion shall go forth Torah.” Still, whoever had a father would bring him up and teach him, but whoever did not have a father would not go up and learn. They then instituted that teachers should be established in every district, and they would bring in the children at about age sixteen or seventeen. And if his teacher got angry with him, he would kick him and leave. Until Joshua ben Gamla came and instituted that teachers of children should be established in every province and every city, and that they should bring them in at about age six or seven.
In the first and second stages they expounded verses; in the third and fourth stages they did not expound verses. And why, at the first stage, did they not expound the previous verse: “And you shall sharpen them to your children”?
Maimonides, in Laws of Torah Study 1:2, wrote that every sage has a commandment to teach all the students. From what I found, only the Vilna Gaon brings sources for this ruling, and they are all aggadic. Do you know of a halakhic source? And while we are on the subject, have you written about aggadah as a halakhic source?
Best regards,
Answer
Many thanks.
It is clear that all these expositions are merely scriptural supports. After all, it is explicit that we are dealing with an enactment. Why didn’t they anchor it in the previous verse? Perhaps the exposition works in the opposite direction. At first, only fathers taught because of “and you shall sharpen them to your children.” And why should others not teach (at least those who have no father)? Because they expound “you shall teach” as “you yourselves,” and not others. The exposition comes to exclude others, not to include the father, who is obviously included by “and you shall sharpen them to your children.”
Or perhaps there was room to infer from “and you shall teach them” that it comes to include more than just your sons (beyond the previous verse), and therefore they expounded it as “you yourselves” — not “them” — to exclude that possibility.
As for the obligation to teach Torah to students, ostensibly it is included within Torah study itself (and the Sages already addressed this in the distinction between a Torah of kindness and one that is not of kindness, and so on). If there is a commandment to study in general, then there is also a commandment to teach. That seems to me a logical inference. If they do not teach me, I cannot learn.