The Oral Talmud: Episode 25 - Nitza’s Attic (Sanhedrin 74a)
SHOW NOTES
“When the Rabbis start saying: Well, when does this line in the Torah apply? And when doesn't apply? – You forget that their first radical move was to imply: This doesn't always apply. That's enormous. It's that shift that makes anything possible.” - Benay Lappe
Welcome to The Oral Talmud, our weekly deep dive chevruta study partnership, discovering how voices of the Talmud from 1500 years ago can help us rethink Judaism today.
So far, Dan & Benay have been exploring when the sages overturned Torah on a case-by-case basis, spending the last two weeks on pikuach nefesh and violating Shabbat to save a life. Now we move from a tricky question asked along the road, into a Judaism-defining vote held in a tiny attic: Is there any mitzvah we should allow ourselves to be killed over before transgressing it? How does tradition building work? How do we construct narratives about how tradition changes? How do we groove new traditions so that 2000 years from now people think of our innovations like we think of ya’avor v’al yay’ha’rayg (transgressing rather than dying)? Why is this monumental moment happening in an attic? Do we need to jettison existing traditions in order to make room for new, life-saving traditions? When are tzitzit, tefillin, and kippot serving the right purposes?
This episode was recorded around Rosh Hashana 2020, when there were conflicts between the tradition of coming together in-person to celebrate the High Holy Days, and not gathering in large groups, which was unfamiliar to many people, but would increase the disabling and deadly spread of COVID.
This week’s text: “Nitza’s Attic” (Sanhedrin 74a - Part 1)
Access the Sefaria Source Sheet to explore key Talmud texts and find the original video of our discussion. The Oral Talmud is a co-production of Judaism Unbound and SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva. If you’re enjoying this podcast, please help us keep both fabulous Jewish organizations going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation at oraltalmud.com. You can find a donate button on the top right corner of the website.
Further Learning
[1] For the Oven of Akhnai, listen to The Oral Talmud: Episode 3 - Misquoting God
[2] A Samovar is a Russian tabletop tea-water boiler. “My Samovar: A Connection to Soviet Jewry” by Beth Dwoskin (2021, Jewish Women’s Archive)
[3] The main towns of the tanna’im are listed on Sanhedrin 32b
[4] The previous nim’nu v’gamru was discussed in The Oral Talmud: Episode 22: “Hillel & Shammai: Beyond Elu v’Elu” (Eruvin 13b)
[5] For Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai on his deathbed, listen to The Oral Talmud: Episode 1 - Rebooting Judaism
[6] Rambam’s admonition not to send a child or a woman to take the potentially life saving actions that otherwise would be forbidden on Shabbat, but rather have the greatest of the generation do the task so that people understand it as a true mitzvah, is found in Mishneh Torah, Shabbat 2:3
[7] Yitz Greenberg discusses: “Wearing a mask is just as essential as wearing tzitzit, as washing our hands regularly. This is not an act of ritual preparation for eating; this is a fundamental act of m’shmar’tem, of looking out for one’s own life. Not to go into crowds, not to be thoughtless in exposure, not to be indifferent to a responsibility to fight the transmission and spread of covid in every way.” from Oct 1, 2020 Theological Responses to COVID-19: A Rabbinical Perspective (w/Rabbi Yitz Greenberg & Shlomo Riskin) via JBS (found on YouTube)
[8] Marie Kondo, decluttering icon
[9] Blu Greenberg biography, and more on the context of “Where there’s a rabbinic will, there’s a halakhic way” in encouraging the Orthodox authorities to resolves the agunah crisis (on Jewish Women’s Archive)
[10] David Kraemer was a guest on The Oral Talmud: Episode 4 - Retelling the History - David Kraemer
[11] Rabbi Gordon Tucker “Halakhic And Metahalakhic Arguments Concerning Judaism And Homosexuality” (2006, Rabbinical Assembly)
[12] For the story of Kamtza / bar Kamtza, listen to The Oral Talmud: Episode 11 - The Broken Social Contract (Gittin 55b-56a)
[13] The entire course “Justice with Michael Sandel” is free on Harvard’s YouTube – And his TED Talk related to his book on meritocracy “The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good” (2020)
[14] Explore The Trolley Problem at KnowYourMeme
[15] “The Two Men in the Desert with the Bottle of Water” is on Bava Metzia 62a
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DAN LIBENSON: This is The Oral Talmud - Episode 25: “Nitza’s Attic”. Welcome to The Oral Talmud, a co-production of Judaism Unbound and SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva. I’m Dan Libenson…
BENAY: …and I’m Benay Lappe.
DAN LIBENSON: The Oral Talmud is our weekly deep dive study partnership, in which we try to figure out how voices from the Talmud – voices from 1500 to 2000 years ago – can help us think in new ways about Judaism today.
So far on this show, we’ve been exploring moments in the Talmud where the sages overturned Torah on more of a case-by-case basis – for example, our past two weeks focused on pikuach nefesh, the idea that we can and should violate Shabbat to save a life.
For the next few weeks we’ll be discussing the most radical upheaval of Torah, more a general principle – a Judaism-defining vote that was held in a tiny attic when the Rabbis asked: Is there any mitzvah we should allow ourselves to be killed over rather than transgressing it?
This episodes’s conversation around changing tradition in order to keep each other alive was heavily influenced by the original recording taking place near Rosh Hashanah in 2020, when there was a conflict between the tradition of gathering together in-person to celebrate the High Holy Days, and the early COVID-19-era when we had come to understand that it was dangerous to gather in large groups. This transition was initially radical to many people, though of course it felt less so over time, as it decreased the disabling and deadly spread of COVID.
Every episode of The Oral Talmud has a number of resources to support your learning and to share with your own study partners! If you’re using a podcast app to listen, you’ll find these links in our show notes: First, to a Source Sheet on Sefaria, where you can find pretty much any Jewish text in the original and in translation – there we excerpt the core Talmud texts we discuss, draw out the central questions of each episode, and share a link to the original video of our learning from 2020.
In the show notes of your podcast app, you’ll also find a link to this episode on The Oral Talmud’s website, where we post an edited transcript, and where you can make a donation to keep the show going, if you feel so moved. On both the Sefaria Source Sheet and The Oral Talmud website, you’ll find extensive footnotes for exploring our many references inside and outside of Talmud.
And now, The Oral Talmud…
DAN LIBENSON: Welcome back everyone. This is Dan Libenson and I'm here with Benay Lappe for this week's episode of the Oral Talmud. Hey Benay.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey Dan. How are you?
DAN LIBENSON: Good. Um, by the way, I'm, I'm wearing, I dunno if you can really see, but I'm wearing my new SVARA shirt that you sent me.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, uh, so I'm very excited 'cause you're wearing the shirt that I usually wear.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: So now I feel like I'm, uh, I, I've got a, a, a wider SVARA wardrobe.
BENAY LAPPE: Right? We haven't really changed clothes, we've just exchanged our shirts.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Um, but I'm very excited to be representing and I'm glad you are too. Yeah. Thank you. So one thing that we should just say is, is wish people, uh, a happy New Year, Shana Tova because, uh, tomorrow night starts, uh, Rosh Hashanah. And one of the things I'm excited about this year in terms of the scheduling of the holidays is that it doesn't get in the way of our Oral Talmud shows. 'cause there's no, no. Thursdays.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Yay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, yay. Um, so what we're doing now is we're continuing to explore these, these key texts about kind of what is the, what is: What are some of the ways that the rabbis are setting up their new system in the early, in the early days, in the, in the, in the foundational times, let's say of, of what we know today is Judaism, what we could call Rabbinic Judaism.
And there are ways in which, you know, I think we talked about a little last week, we talked about early on in the show that that idea in the Oven of Akhnai story, that there's a time in which certain more conservative elements can actually, metaphorically call down the voice of God or in other ways, say: but it says it right here, that that's not the way to do it! And nevertheless, it turns out that the system is created so that it actually does something that's profoundly different from what it says in the Torah.
And some of what we're looking at here is these questions of like: When are you actually allowed to violate prohibitions from the Torah? Uh, for, for some other reason - when it doesn't actually say that in the Torah, you know? And according to the Torah, it would seem that the answer is never, but according to Rubinic Judaism, that's not the case.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And not only when can you, but the quest- just the notion that you might be able to, is the real radical innovation.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: You know, the, the, the rabbis, um, you know, when they start saying, well, when does this line in the Torah apply? And when doesn't apply? - You forget that their, that their first radical move was to imply: this doesn't always apply. That's enormous. So it's that shift that makes, um, anything possible.
And um, yeah, like you said there, what we're surfacing now are stories of the rabbis coming up with the foundational principles of the new, their new Judaism.
And I think it's really interesting because I feel like that's, that's what we need to do now. Um, we need to figure out what really foundational ideas - you know, feminism being one of them, non heteronormativity - and I need a better word for that, another. Anti-racism, another - that aren't explicitly in the tradition, maybe not even hinted at, maybe not even at all, maybe the opposite certainly. But these are the things that we need to sort of retroject back into the tradition and build on. And they're, they're showing us A) that it's been done before - and) this is, and this is how it's done.
DAN LIBENSON: So I just wanna, I, I just wanna say like, I, I just wanna make super explicit what you just said 'cause I think it's really would be a fascinating exercise, which is like, if we have principles -
so, so today we're talking about the idea of um, you know, whether the alternative is actually losing your life 'cause someone's gonna kill you. Last week we talked about the alternative, basically to be losing your life because you might get sick and die. Um, and, and the rabbis end up saying that: there are Torah prohibitions, most of them actually, that you can violate if you're gonna die as a consequence, if you weren't, if you said: I can't violate them.
If we are to take that into our time and to say, well, you could say, well, you know, we would have, as a principle, if you're gonna do something racist, you shouldn't do the Jewish law. If it's somehow racist to not to, to, uh, you know, do this or that law, you shouldn't do it.
In some ways, uh, I, as I was saying, that what was occurring to me was something even more that, that, that seems like a very more obvious example of like kahrut, keeping kosher. If the ways in which we are eating are destroying the planet, then maybe you should even eat something that's not kosher, other than, you know - if the alternative is to be part of the destruction of the planet by X, right? The now and that, whether that's, uh, racism, uh, you know, uh, uh, homophobia, uh, uh, destroying the planet, climate change, whatever those principles might be today…
Now you could look at these and say, but that's different from being killed. Well, maybe, maybe not. But what we're suggesting is at least possibly, there's an argument that, that flows from here, that, that: not being killed was not at all clear that in the time of the Torah, that was an excuse. By the time of the rabbis, they say no, the not being killed is actually a really important principle for us. Like we don't wanna have a religion that makes us be killed on its account.
And today we might well say, you know, we don't want a religion that makes us be racist, or that makes us be, uh, complicit in destruction of the planet, et cetera. And what would it look like to elevate those principles to a position where they could actually countermand commands from the Torah or from the, the Talmud, from the rabbis. And that's exactly what the rabbis are doing here, because it, it, it's hard to, the,
The thing that I'm trying to say is that it's hard to, um, fully internalize – something that we kind of now take as a given that to be killed would be the worst thing. And that you should, of course, you can violate a Torah prohibition if you're gonna be killed. But that wasn't at all obvious in those days, and they chose to go that direction.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. And, and by now, you know, as I think I said last week, 2000 years into that being part of the Jewish tradition, that feels like Torah to us.
DAN LIBENSON: Right, right, right.
BENAY LAPPE: And now it is.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it feels like, um, it feels like the most Jewish thing in the world to say that: Of course you shouldn't die. I mean, you can imagine every, you know, every Jewish grandmother “you know, ah, you shouldn't die for this!” you know, like, or whatever. Right.
It just feels like, like stereotypically Jewish. That's why it's so hard to, that's why I'm, I'm working to sort of remind us that this was not at all an obvious point at that time, and that it's, like you say, it's become so obvious because it's become so stereotypically Jewish to think this way. But, but that was an innovation.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. And because we did a really good job of laying down precedents and practices and reminders everywhere to tell us this isn't, this isn't just an idea or, you know what I mean? It, it plays out. And I, and
I need to think to, to have some more immediate examples of this, but, but I think that's what the, the way tradition building works: You figure out what your foundational principles and values are, and then you figure out lots of spiritual technologies like holidays and prayers and rituals and prac- daily practices that remind you over and over, and groove these values into your life. Um, so that's, that's the second task. After, you know what, what do we stand for? What, what, what is this gonna have to be about? Um, is how do we actually groove it?
So the 2000 years from now, people go: Yeah. O of of course being a racist is a violation of Judaism. Mm-hmm. Of, of course, you know, any sort of misogynistic practice is anti-Jewish, and contrary to Torah, of course, no one would ever think otherwise.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay. So do you wanna give us a little bit, uh, more like a sort of connection to where we were last week and a framing before we jump into today's text, which by the way, is from the tractate of Sanhedrin page 74a. That's today's text.
BENAY LAPPE: Yep. Okay. So we're in the eighth chapter of Sanhedrin, and this chapter is called Ben Sorer u’Moreh, the Wayward and Rebellious Son, and for some stretch of a few weeks - At some point, we're gonna learn this text maybe soon because it's amazing –
And the chapter is dealing with death. It's dealing with those places in the Torah where the Torah proscribes killing someone for a certain violation - whether it's not obeying your parents - or, um, whether it's the thief or the the intruder who comes burrowing into your house and you don't know if they're coming to kill you or steal your, steal your samovar, you can actually kill that person.
Or the, the pursuer, the rodef, who's chasing after someone to kill them. And the, you know, the, the rabbis say you can actually kill them to prevent them from killing someone else. Um, so, so the, the,
They’re case by case dealing with when is it actually okay to kill? even though the Torah you know, it says do not kill? and when is it not gonna be okay to kill? and when is it actually not okay to transgress the Torah, even to save your own life?
So they've been working case-by-case - and now we're gonna get to them finally making a piece of legislation that's going to be, you know, the yardstick, that principle that they're gonna lay is okay.
DAN LIBENSON: so should we jump into the text?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, let's do it.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So 74a Sanhedrin is a tractate that's talking more about like courts, right? I mean, that would be, it's one of the more law related, you know, legislation, you know, or, or, uh, you know, day-to-day law, I guess would be a way to, to say it. Um
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah And, um, sort of courts generally, but primarily, um, the Sanhedrin itself, the sort of Supreme Court, which deals only in capital cases. So again, they're, they're –
The question is life or death. The question is, when does actual, when do ideas and concepts and, um, what we stand for, take precedence even over our own lives? Um,
When is life actually less important than, you know, than, than the, the big things that our civilization has to stand for?
And, and when is our life more important than pieces of the Torah? pieces of our tradition? um, that are here to help us, but when they don't, uh, it, it is better, better to save your life than to do them.
So the, this big question, um, is on the table.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay? So. So, we'll, we'll look at the, at the text. It's a relatively short text, this part of it and, um, and, and so, but there's a lot, there's a lot packed in it.
BENAY LAPPE: And we may, we may continue, um, next week with it.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. And, and with what comes after it.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: So the Gemara now continues, uh, sorry. The Gemara now considers this is in, in Steinsaltz’s explanation. The Gemara is moving on to consider which prohibitions are permitted in times of mortal danger - in times where your life might be threatened.
Rabbi Yochanan says in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak, the sages who discussed this issue, counted the votes of those assembled and concluded in the upper story of the House of Nitza and the City of Lod, you often refer to this as Nitza's Attic - The upper story.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. There's so much in this line I really wanna slow down, which is, um, one of the dangers of learning in translation mm-hmm. Um, is that it, it kind of leads you to float on the surface of - Meaning you go: oh yeah, I get that. Mm-hmm. Uh, but there are so many, um, pieces of the meaning here that really are hidden under the surface understanding.
Okay. So, so these guys, Ravi Yohannan, um, okay. mishoom Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzedak um, It’s Rabbi Yochanan, saying the following thing in the name of, of, uh, Rabbi Yochanan, in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak, is saying the follow thing. Okay?
So when is he living? He's, he's a first generation amora, so he's living somewhere around the third, fourth century. Okay. Um, and he's talking about an event that happened before. We can't know exactly when before, but I'm going to guess that at some time after the examples that we've had before - of when the rabbis on a case by case basis have said: oh, violate the Torah to save a life.
So last week for example, we had the case of a person who had a certain illness and the cure for that illness is a certain herb. And can you tear out that herb from your garden and boil it - you know - which requires at least two Torah prohibitions: pulling up a plant on Shabbos and making a fire on Shabbos - in order to make the medicine. Can you do that to give this person the medicine to cure them on Shabbat? And the answer is yes.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, by the way, wait, just to, just to, just to set this, I mean, I think that in support of what you're saying - in terms of the order of things = that scene was set on the road. These rabbis were just kind of walking along and their students were trailing and they were having this chitchat conversation. And then here there's actually a formal process being described.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. There's a formal process, and what I think is fascinating is that this formal process happens in an attic. Now maybe I'm making too much of the whole attic thing. So this is the attic of some guy in the House of Lod named Nitza. Rashi tells us that's his name. We don't know anything more about him. I am always wondering who is he? Is he like a lay leader? Is he like a funder? Like who, who is this guy Nitza?
But in any case, he seems to be providing a safe haven for the rabbis. The attic thing makes me feel like this is a secret huddle.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Um,
DAN LIBENSON: Is this a common, is this described more than once and many times? This Nitza’s Attic,
BENAY LAPPE: it occurs, uh, for a total of, there are three Nitza’s Attic scenes in all of the corpus of Talmud. It's here, it's over in Kidushin on 40b, where the rabbis get together and Nitza's Attic to ask the question: What's more important doing or learning? And I, I, you know, we'll learn that text as well.
But I think over there, I think the huddle is about: “Hey, you know, we made learning this new like way to meet God. Do we really think,” you know, I think they're anxious about it. It's like, really, is this really, is this making us better people? Or should we be out there on the streets? Actually that - I just have a feeling they were meeting secretly, secretly to really surface their doubts.
And there's a third example, and I can't remember at this moment what the third one is about, but they're, I think they're all sort of really important foundational decisions that are made. And this feels secretive - It feels, um, it's like if we, if we got the whole council together, we'd never get this thing passed.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, yeah. It's like a, like a caucus.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly. We're gonna push this through in an executive session, and we're gonna come out and it's gonna be done.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, there, there's this other thing. First of all, like Lod, right? That's where Rabbi Eliezer’s yeshiva was. I think so. And, and he's the more conservative voice, Uhhuh. So it's interesting that they're in Lod, but they're in a secret place in Lod if that's the story, you know,
BENAY LAPPE: I like that.
DAN LIBENSON: As opposed to, right, if they were in, uh, Bnei Brak, that's Rabbi Akiva's hometown, you know, his yeshiva, you know, if they're in, uh, I think Peki’in, that's Rabbi Joshua's place. So like, those are the more progressive voices, but we're in Lod and we're not in Yavne, which is the, you know, kind of, uh, like the, the capital, you know, the, the, the, the, I don't know what you call the Supreme Court, you know, the mo the, the, the more official place. So we're in like one of the, one of the places the more conservative place, but we're upstairs in the attic. So there's a little bit something, I mean, it's interesting, like maybe it's all a big nothing.
But the question also is like, why does the editor of the Talmud, you know, 500 years later. Feel the need to note this fact that they were in the upper story, the attic. Right? I mean, that's a, that's a detail that, you know, seems to have meaning, right? Why would they note it if not?
BENAY LAPPE: I know, I think so too. Um, plus like, how many guys can fit in an attic,
DAN LIBENSON: right.
BENAY LAPPE: Not that many. I think this was a really small number of people, and I think the, the editor in reporting this detail is really suggesting: sometimes you gotta just get shit done that you think is right. You just gotta put it down with, with your buddies and, you know, rai-raise it up on the flagpole and just go for it. So, I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. By the way, one other thing that, at least here in the Steinsaltz translation, he confirms at least that he agrees with your translation from last week about the, the idea of, um, uh, nim’nu v’gamru - that they, they, uh: sort of were counted and, uh, counted and concluded that, that he adds, “they counted the votes.” So he, he is agreeing with you that it was the vote.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And I think that's really interesting. It's like: Okay, everybody, anti-racism. Mm-hmm. Raise your hand, you know who's in, who's out? Feminism, who's in or who's out? Like, is this gonna be Jewish or not? Let's just vote. Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Yeah. Or where, where it's a little, I mean, it's a little different than that, I think only in the sense that it's like: anti-racism, like more or less, you know, you just put that word on, everyone's like: ah, sure, I'm into that. But when you say like, you know, but that's gonna mean that we're gonna be like eating Ham and Cheese sandwiches from now on. You know, because the only, the only, uh, kosher meat is produced in a racist way, you know, whatever that might be. Then you kind of start to see the people not so sure that they're on board.
So then it's like, okay, well let's take a vote guys, because, you know, we take this seriously and if we're really gonna be anti-racist, like we really gonna have to do this, and if not, then you know, this game's over, then I'm leaving, you know, because this is a racist, you know, by definition, what, whatever that might be, that's when you need, that's when the rubber meets the road. Right?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I love that. And what if it's like, okay, anti-racism, is this one of those things we're gonna die for?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Ya know?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Yep.
BENAY LAPPE: That's, that's big.
DAN LIBENSON: You know, it's interesting because, um, that also, yeah, we'll get to it, but that raises the question of like, what, what ultimately is being voted on here is like, you, you at first glance what they're voting on is, is whether you should,
BENAY LAPPE: well, let's say, let, let, let's learn this part. Okay. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So let's go, let's go on. Um, so, so here's where they're voted. So the sages, uh, they voted in, in the Nitza's attic, and, uh, this was what they, what they've, what the majority held: with regard to all other transgressions in the Torah, if a person is told, transgress this prohibition and you will not be killed -
Meaning: I'll kill you unless you do transgress this, this, uh, this, uh, prohibition, then. Uh, then you should, uh, you may, uh, transgress that prohibition and not be killed because the preserve - this is Steinsaltz’s addition - because the preserving of his own life overrides all the Torah prohibitions.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, so, sorry, go ahead.
DAN LIBENSON: No, so they, so, so what they agreed to was this proposal that, that, uh: if the alternative is that somebody's going to kill you, then you can transgress any of the Torah’s prohibitions – except for what's about to be said - although it's not clear just from the way, well, it, it seems less clear from Steinsaltz than from the original. It seems like in the original, the next clause is actually part of what they voted on with Steinsaltz -it kind of, uh, suggest that maybe this was an addition. But, uh, I think probably,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah, I, yeah. I don't love the translation and the English kind of flattens out the drama for me because it fills in the last part of the sentence in the beginning. The beginning is just, it's, it, it's really dramatic. “All Transgressions that are in the Torah.” And it explicitly says “that are written in the Torah”
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And I think that's important. – If someone should say to you, go ahead and make, do that transgression. Eat that cheese sandwich, light that fire on Shabbat, steal from that person, hit that person. GRRR - If someone says: violate this law, and if you don't, I'm gonna kill you. Bracket. The Torah itself has always been clear: Don't transgress. Mm-hmm. There is no like, but there's no asterisk in the Torah. You know, like: only when, but if! No, it says: don't eat the cheeseburger, don't light the fire on Shabbat. Don't steal.
DAN LIBENSON: Oh wait. It doesn't say don't, don't eat the cheeseburger. But that's another, that's for another day.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. It's, it is for another day. Okay, don't it, just don't do that, period. It's like, it's super clear. You know what to do and you don't know and you know what not to do. That's one of the beauties of a Master Story. And that's the end of it.
Now, close bracket – what they're saying in the attic, in Lod is: if someone tells you to transgress one of those things, and if you don't, I'll kill you. - Go ahead and transgress them. Idiot! – I feel like it's, it's, that's what they're saying is: of course we should violate the Torah and not let ourselves be killed because of it.
DAN LIBENSON: I mean, I mean the Hebrew is very, or the, you know, Hebrew, Arabic, it is very, it is very clear in a beautiful way that the, there's, there's an absolute mirroring 'cause it says: because the, the, um, you know, the, the, the thing that you're being, uh, if, if, if somebody is said to, um.
If somebody is saying to somebody: avor v’al tay’ha’reg meaning, uh, “transgress, and you won't be killed,” then, ya’avor v’al yay’ha’rayg - it’s exactly mirrored. You know, it says: and then you should transgress and not be killed. So it's, it's with a,
like you say, the translation flattens it out. It doesn't, doesn't give you the exact kind of linguistic, um, uh, echoing and, and rhyming. But it really is like a, almost like a poem here - you know - if if you, if somebody says to you: violate and don't be killed, then violate and don't be killed.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly. Exactly. And, and, and my, you know, insertion of the “you idiot” is really only the obviousness really is only what they're hoping to telescope into the future in which, and which they were successful in doing. But at that time, that was scary and enormous and. They had to have been afraid. You know,
Just like the story of Rabbi Yohanan [ben Zakkai] on his deathbed. He makes all these radical innovations and on his deathbed, he's terrified that he did the wrong thing - and that God's gonna be angry with him. And that, you know, he was really responsible actually for destroying the whole tradition, whatever chance it had to survive. He didn't know whether he had done the right thing.
I, I can only imagine that they were that terrified. With a rule like this, you can violate anything in the Torah. That's a pretty big statement. Okay. They're gonna make some exceptions, but for me that, that's the minor tag tagging on piece.
The, the big piece is: yes, violate the Torah anytime following your, would cause your death. Just like the case last week and – and I think what I'm hearing in this statement. Is what I think is the invisible sort of life experience that was, we know was going on at the time, which was that: the Romans were creating policies and literally threatening people all the time - Jews - all the time with death. So, so this was, this was an issue they were living with.
They had the dilemma of being presented with ultimatums. Either you do this or you're gonna die.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, I wanna, I wanna give you, I mean, I think it's a sort of appropriate for, for, um, for what we're about to go into with Rosh Hashanah on, on this - because I, I've been really struggling with, with a lot of the pandemic related stuff relating to Jewish law. And I, I'm a little hesitant to sort of talk about it too strongly only because, you know, I don't observe Jewish law that way. So it's easy for me to say a little bit, but nevertheless, like, I wanna say it, which is that I, I,
I've also talked before about, let, let's imagine the, the coronavirus to be a antisemite. Because, because I think it is, because it's out there killing a lot of Jews. Now it happens to also be killing a lot of other people. But, you know, so, so does certain antisemites like also don't hate other people? So does that make them not an antisemite? No, they're an antisemite because they kill, wanna kill Jews.
So, um, so, so think about the coronavirus as in the place of the Romans in this story. And here are these people that they all wanna go to in-person Rosh Hashanah services – and that might lead to their death. Or it might lead to the death of somebody else - which by the way, even here, we're about to see, you know, you're not allowed, you know, you're, you're not allowed to, whatever, you know, you can't, you can't kill somebody else in order to violate a to prohibition, much less to, to fulfill one!
You know, so, so the point is that, that, um, that here I think people aren't brave enough, and I don't mean here the people that are regular Jews that they wanna go to services. Like, that's, that's, you know, I wish that they would be brave, even braver, but I don't know that you have to expect that from a regular person.
I feel like the rabbis. And many rabbis have been brave and have said we're not doing in-person services – but the rabbis who are doing in-person services, even kind of in a safe sort of way in, in quotation marks, you know, 10 people here and 10 people there and outside and whatever.
Like, to my mind, it's a failure of bravery to say, this year we're not doing Rosh Hashanah services in person, period. Because there's an antisemite out there that wants to kill us and is only able to kill us if we are doing this particular commandment from the Torah, and therefore we will not do this commandment from the Torah. It means not even from the Torah, but like, you know, the commandment, you know, to, to have Rosh Hashanah services. We will not do it based on a principle like this,
But I, I feel like people don't have the bravery to say, we're gonna not do something that we feel obligated to do. Unless it gets really, unless it's like, yeah, if somebody is there like with a bomb, of course we're not gonna do it. But the coronavirus is basically the same. But because it's not quite as obvious. People are afraid to give, to give up something that they think is a commandment.
And here it feels like what we're seeing is, is bravery. But like you say, it had to be in an attic. You know, it had to be because it was too scare- or, you know, you get in too much trouble for doing it out on the street. But, but they did find a way they got into the attic and they made, they, they'd check to see, do we have a majority here?
Maybe that's the answer. Maybe they went into the attic to make sure that, are you all, are we all together on this? You know? And then they could go down to the people and, and they would know that they're not gonna have some rogue person saying, you know, uh, follow me because I'm more committed to the Torah.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And, and you are reminding me that throughout Jewish history, from the moment of Nitz- of Nitza's Attic onward, there have always been people who, understandably, I get it, understandably, are, are reluctant to take advantage of what they think of as some like liberal leniency, some. Mm-hmm. You know, some, like, I don't know, it, some fringy thing. It's not, it's not real.
And, and I think that's the, that's the, the danger of, of all innovation: is that it, it doesn't feel real - and there will always be people who won't fully accept that that's Torah and um… when in reality they - That's the way Torah works and you can look at them and say: what you're doing is actually anti Torah, but it doesn't feel that way to them.
And Rambam makes this beautiful - Um, in talking about this law of pikuach nefesh he creates this beautiful illustration and he says: if there's somebody sick on Shabbat, and then you need to do what would've been seen as a violation before this rule of pikuach nefesh - before Nitza’s Attic - Know that it's not only not a violation; you shouldn't go out of your way to get a pre bar mitzvah boy, who's not commanded to the mitzvot to go pick the herbs or to start the fire! Don't do that! 'cause it makes it look like you're doing something forbidden. And the only reason you're allowed to do it is because this kid isn't yet obligated to the mitzvot.
He says, don't get, I, and I hate to say it, but he actually says, don't get a kid. Don't get a woman. Sticky on that. Don't get a, don't get a servant - a non-Jewish servant. He said, get the greatest of the generation. Get someone who is like an authority in your community - who everyone will look to and say, oh, he must be doing the right thing. And that person pull up the herbs and you know, make up the fire so people know this is the right thing to do.
Um, and I think he's speaking to those people who are reluctant to cancel the minyan or the Rosh Hashanah service in the face of Coronavirus because Rosh Hashana is more important because getting together in the minyan is more important.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. No, and, and I think it's tied to something that I, I've been thinking about all week because, you know, Yitz Greenberg, who's, who's, um, our hero, he, he was doing a, uh, talk the other day and I, I, I may have, I don't want to put words in his mouth because I, I don't, don't know that I quite might have been listening in that moment, you know, but it, it struck me,
I think what he said was that in a world of the next era of Judaism, which he taught, which he talks about, and, and taught us to think about that, that would be like, that, a profound paradigm shift, right. In his mind, in his theology, we are on the cusp as, as we've talked about all along, that, that, of this next version of Judaism, this post-rabbinic Judaism, whatever one might call it, and.
He talked about something like, in this next era wearing a mask, you should be just as, just as, uh, meticulous about wearing a mask, as about tying tzitzit. And I would take that a step further and say, you should be more meticulous about wearing a mask than tying tzitzit. And maybe even that, in order to facilitate that, we have to get rid of tying of tzitzit as a Jewish practice.
Now that may be an overstatement. Maybe you could say, well, what's the connection? There's, you could wear tzitzit and you know, those are the ritual fringes. You know, you could wear tzitzit and wear a mask. Yeah. Yes, yes you could. But if it turns out that the way that human brains work is that there's only so much information you can put in them before they kind of overflow, and then things just sort of are randomly done and dropped out, you, this is the Marie Kondo decluttering, you know, perspective. It, I, I think, and I think that's where we are.
I think you have to get to a point that if it turns out that we need to be doing new things in this next era, that means we're gonna have to be stopping to do some old things because we just don't have enough room in our brains to do both. And we're seeing the evidence of that in the fact that some of the most meticulous halakha observers – who have proven that they are great at never forgetting to do something. – They forgot to put on a mask. How can, how can they forget to put on a mask? But they remember to put on film every morning, something is wrong. Right?
Either they're not seeing the, the importance of it, or their brains are just full and somebody has to be brave enough to say, well, we, I think we might need to stop doing some of these other things that we're meticulous about because we need to, it's more important to be meticulous about this other thing, and, and our brains are full. Something like that. And nobody's been brave enough to say it, I don't think.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. It, it, and what I think your story brings out is something that happens when traditions live for a long time and work for a long time and become, I don't, I'll, I'll leave out the, the understanding of the diagnosis 'cause I'm not sure I'm totally there.
But tzitzit isn't meant to be a thing in and of itself for itself, it's supposed to be the finger that points to the moon and you don't look at the right. You don't look at the finger and go, oh, that's the moon. No, it's pointing to the moon. That sense is supposed to be there to remind you to put on the mask. It's not the thing in of itself. It's supposed to be the thing you look at and say, what masks do I need to put on and what do I need to do?
DAN LIBENSON: It's the ribbon tied around your finger, you know.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. And it's the same with the tefillin or or so many other rituals. We've lost track of their actual function and we've used them as. I don't know. I even know what to call it as objects rather than reminders. I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Although I think though, those are two different points, both of which I agree with. You know, one is that, and I hadn't even thought about what you just said, that the tzitzit itself as a great, as an example, like it's actually not really meant to be in, in a, a, a central, uh, you know, mitzvah in its own right. It, it, it is only in so far that it reminds you of the more important mitzvot, uh, whether that's wearing a mask or, you know, remembering that, you know, there's only one God, whatever that might be.
But it, it's function is to be a reminder. So if you're not doing the thing itself because you're too busy doing the reminder, then it's actually not working as a reminder and the whole thing has to be rethought. Right.
But the other piece of it is, is, you know, what I was saying is that maybe it's just like too much, and if people have too much to do, then maybe we should just take a load off them.
And I wonder, like, how would that decision be made today? Like if it were to be made, which it wouldn't because people aren't brave enough, but let's imagine that they were, how would it happen?
I think that the rabbis, the orthodox rabbis, for example, would all have to get together in an attic and say: Hey, I, I, I think we have to lighten the load on people a little bit because they're getting confused and they're dying because they're getting exposed to coronavirus. And you know, it's because they're so, we've taught them for so many decades and centuries now to be absolutely punctilious about certain mitzvot. And as a result, they don't have time to, they, they can't, they, they seem to be not taking seriously the mask issue, which has now been proven that it's gonna save their lives. We have to do something fellas, you know, and, uh, what are we gonna do? We, I think we're gonna have to do something really dramatic here, and that we're gonna have to make a, a big statement that we're not doing tefillin anymore. You know, are you in, like, are you, you know, and, and, and, and actually,
I wonder on that score, maybe they went to Lod to do this because they had to get the conservatives involved, right? They had a, they had a, they knew that Rabbi Eliezer wouldn't come to the meeting if it was in Bnei Brak, so we we're coming to him. You know, to make sure that we've got everybody on board here and then we're gonna do, have that secret meeting and then when we all agree, we're gonna come down and, and, and share this to the people, but there won’t be any daylight between us. So they can't say, well, but Rabbi Eliezer is doing it the other way. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: I love that. I love that. But I think we, we can't forget that these legislative innovations, and this is the moment when this innovation becomes law – that isn't the beginning of the life cycle of a radical innovation.
The beginning of the life cycle of new principle or a new innovation is what always with the people, you know, I used to think that svara as a source of truth that the rabbis use to name, the authenticity of a new law is so powerful. But what's much more powerful than that as a source of change is ma’aseh as a source of change. Ma’aseh is - oh sorry, ma’aseh actually, minhag is much more minhag. It's, it's what people do.
And you know, Blu Greenberg gets his wife Blu's famous words: Where there's a rabbinic will, there's a halachic way. Begins to hint at the fact that this rabbinic, there has to be a rabbinic will, but that rabbinic will typically is shaped and moved by people who are stakeholders who say: I'm staying, I'm not leaving. I don't wanna tear this thing down. I don't wanna burn it down. I actually want in. And this is the way that's meaningful for me to be in. Um.
You know the fact that the Maccabees went and fought on Shabbat and the fact that people were healing their sick family members on Shabbat…
Okay. I have a story to tell. So I'm in rabbinical school and my chevruta Eddie and I are in one of the lounges in one of the large hallways at JTS and we're arguing back and forth and debating an issue from his dissertation.
And his dissertation was on the question: Can you do a double ring wedding ceremony? Where in a heterosexual context, which is what he was dealing with, the bride gives the groom a ring - as well as the groom giving the bride a ring and can be mutual?
DAN LIBENSON: which is Jewish traditional weddings. It's only the groom that gives the bride the ring because he's effectively acquiring her.
BENAY LAPPE: That's correct. In the heterosexual context.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Uh, heteronormative context. And so we're arguing back and forth because, uh, there are legal decisors who say that: if she does that, if she attempts to do that, it actually invalidates his act and no wedding has taken place.
Others say, if she does it, she's basically whistling Dixie and it's neither here nor there. His acquisition of her is still valid, but she has not, you know, effectively acquired her.
So we're arguing back and forth of how we can create a mechanism where her acquisition is equally valid - Halachically, using some precedent in the tradition. And our professor, David Kraemer, who's been on our show, I think he was our first guest, right? He, he, he walks down the hallway and we say: David, okay, help us, help us figure out, you know, the halakhic basis. How can we do this? And he says: I recall him using an expletive, but I may be wrong. It could have been just the drama of how it landed for me. So I won't say for sure, he said the F-bomb,
But he basically said: Just like F’ing do it. Just go out there and do two ring wedding ceremonies. And when people start doing it, the rabbis will see that it's not burning down Judaism. That it's actually a wonderful thing. It's invigorating and inspiring and it calls pe- You know what I mean? And then the halakha will change. Mm-hmm. You don't need to worry about a halakhic justification now just go out and encourage people to do it. That's going to eventually push – that's gonna create the Nitza’s Attic moment.
And the same thing has been true. Uh, Gordon Tucker said the exact same thing about the enfranchisement - quote unquote - Of queer people in the tradition and being admitted to rabbinical school. It's like, you know, he said that. The law committee is gonna see that they're not destroying things. This isn't a bad thing. This is actually a really good thing. They want in,
DAN LIBENSON: but what that requires is that enough people are willing to fundamentally functionally, uh, commit sort of civil disobedience. And the thing about civil disobedience is that you have to be willing to pay the consequence. Meaning that if I try to engage in civil disobedience, but as, as soon as the police come, I run away. 'cause I don't wanna be arrested. It doesn't work because the whole point is that I have to be willing to show the injustice of the system by also paying the price of that system.
And there are certain people who are so committed to the halakhic system, for example, in this case that, you know, and – I, I think about like people that post on Facebook and, and sometimes, you know, my wife and I are just like, we just don't understand it. You know, that they're asking these very picayune questions about like, well, which service comes first? You know, which prayer has to be said before this prayer? And is it okay to say this thing before nightfall? Or can it only be said after nightfall? And this is in a world of the pandemic and of having outdoor Rosh Hashanah services that these questions are being asked. And we're kinda like at the end of like, why is this so critical? Like, I mean, who's, what's gonna happen if you say the prayer at the wrong time? You know, a few minutes here or there, like, is it, and, and I think those are the wrong questions.
Like for those particular people, those questions are so important for whatever reason, that I can't empathize with, but I shouldn't be pushing that person to be engaging in civil disobedience. Like that's not gonna be the leading edge person on this, on this endeavor, whatever that endeavor might be.
Um, I think the question is, you know, right, and, and so those of us who, who are less worried about the consequence, right? Because I'm like, look, I don't think God is gonna punish me if I say the prayer at the wrong time if I do a two ring ceremony. So I'm like, I'll, I'll, I'll roll the dice like I, I, or the principle is more important to me of, of, of gender equality or whatever it might be. The, the, the principle's more important to me right now. That I actually feel like I'd pay a higher price if I don't do the two ring ceremony than if I do. And it turns out if I burn in hell for that, you know, then I just, it was like Pascal's Wager, the opposite of Pascal's Wager - and I messed it up and okay, I'm willing to take that chance. I really don't believe it's so profoundly - that I'm willing to -
Those are the people that are doing, those are go and, and if, if, if the majority of people are functionally taking that perspective, which we see by the fact that they're just doing it, then eventually those more, uh, conservative voices and or the rabbis will, will come along and, and, um, and, and, and, and change the rules. Not because they actually believe that anybody was gonna burn in hell if they didn't do the one ring ceremony. But there's something going on in their minds that can't, that can't break the – i, you know,
For me it's really, really hard to, to fully empathize and, and articulate that position because it's so not me. But, but I also want to, you know, respect it and do justice to it. So I, I struggle, you know, um,
The attic thing I think is interesting to me though, because it feels to me, like with the attic is that moment where the consequence is so important that we have to make sure – I mean, again, this is my emerging theory of the attic, right? That we have to make sure that everybody's on board. It's, it's actually not okay for that person to be not breaking the Torah law. We need everybody breaking the law because the consequence on the other side is so horrific: Jews are being killed by the Romans. Jews are being killed by the coronavirus.
We have to change this and we gotta do it fast, and we gotta all be on the same page about it. So we've gotta do something dramatic. Let's get ourselves into that attic. Let's go to Rabbi Eliezer’s hometown, the most conservative guy, and let's, let's see if we can vote and get – you know, I wonder if that vote, you know, it doesn't say it was unanimous. I wonder if it had to be unanimous or if they had some kind of agreement that whatever the vote comes out, we're gonna unanimously support it. Like, I'm curious about that. I feel like there's something going on there.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I love that. Okay. Two things came up for me as you were talking. One is that, that the, the thing that's hard to wrap our minds around reminds me of the end of the Kamtza / bar Kamtza story. Where, you know, there's this blemished sacrifice that comes from the emperor. And the rabbis are saying, well, gosh, knowing that if they, they don't allow the sacrifice to be made, the emperor will assume, you know, the Jews are revolting against them and will be the end of the temple and our autonomy and our people. And, and in fact, that's exactly what came to pass.
And, and they, and they show how the, the insistence that, oh no, if we actually sacrifice this animal, people will - God forbid, think that it's okay to sacrifice an animal with this kind of blemish on its eye, so we, you know, we can't, we can't – it it's that same, I don't know what that, what that is.
Uh, the second image that came to my mind is, what matters to the folks who insist on wearing tzitzit and not the mask or holding Rosh Hashanah services in a dangerous way rather than, you know, heed the, the, the danger of the coronavirus. Um, they're only gonna pay attention to the folks who, you know, they, they see as the stakeholders.
So I'm picturing what if people actually took their tzitzit, people who wear tzitzit and tied it around a, a mask. So what, what hangs on your four corners are masks. And beside the mask you're wearing, of course your tzitzit, his ties up a mask. And I don't know, that's kind of a, a fun image.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. My, my version of that was that I was thinking about like, could we design, and by the way, if anyone listening here wants to do it, you're welcome to steal my ideas because realistically I'm not gonna do this.
But like, if we could design a mask that had the, like, the stripes across it, like a Tallis, I've actually seen an art, like there was like an art project that I saw online that was a a, that actually had fringes hanging down from the mask. Like it was a, a Tallis, which, which I love, I think it might be a little extreme, but something that would be a mask, but it would, it would feel like a tallis, you know? Like that would be beautiful! Like it could –I
I actually said early in coronavirus, uh, you know, could we have that instead of wearing a yarmulka? And I, I didn't mean that people who wear yarmulka should wear a mask instead. I just meant like, could those of us who don't wear a yarmulka kind of adopt a mask?
Like, and what I was looking for was a mask that would feel like a very Jewish mask. Like it would say: Love the Stranger on it, or something like that, you know? And it would, it would feel like the, when I'm wearing my mask is how I imagine somebody who does wear a yarmulka every day, like feels when they're wearing yarmulka, it's telling the world I'm Jewish. It's kind of doing something that I see as sacred. That's all those things. I would be very fine with a mask that told the world I was Jewish, and I certainly would feel it's something sacred that I, that I do.
And so, um, so I think it would be a cool idea. I, I starting to feel though, that I would make the argument that maybe it should replace wearing a kippah. Because I think it's just too hard for people to, to do both. I, I would like to be proven wrong, but why is it that it seems that, for example, in Israel, the ultraorthodox are the least good mask wearers? You know, why should they should be the opposite! Because not only do they have, uh, not only do they, are they very vulnerable because they gather a lot in, in, in small places to pray, for example. But also they're very good at doing things habitually. They're, they're, they're very committed to principles like these, like saving a life, you know? Right. So it's, it's, it would seem that that should be a community that would be the best at it, but it isn't. So that seems to be a sign that the system isn't working.
And, and if the system isn't working, maybe it's not that the principles are wrong somehow, but maybe it's just that people's brains are full of all these other things that they're worrying about and, and, and they have been taught to privilege ancient things over modern things. And so it's just really hard psychologically to elevate something like wearing a mask to the same level of wearing a yarmulka, even though it actually is more likely to save your life. I, I don't get it, but I think it's something there.
And then, and, and, and so then if I were thinking about as a leader of, of that community, I would say like, gee, we have a problem because our people are dying. And so can we fix this somehow? Can we get ourselves into an attic and figure out some way that we can adjust the rules here so that our people will stop dying? And that feels like what they're doing here, uh, and the Romans or the coronavirus, right?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, absolutely.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, should we go to the exceptions before we -
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, so there's this, this grand statement: Any law in the Torah, if someone says to you: violate it, and if you don't, I'll kill you. Go ahead and violate it and don't let yourself be killed on account of your insistence or sense that you need to actually, um, avoid transgressing the Torah. But there are three exceptions to that. Okay? Here we go.
DAN LIBENSON: So, except for idol worship, forbidden sexual relations, and bloodshed, meaning you being asked to shed someone else's blood,
BENAY LAPPE: right? So… Idol worship, idolatry, something like that. And there's a big question mark, like, what exactly is that?
And I think your question as we were talking about this earlier, what are these really is really a good question. What, what's going on in these exceptions? Why are these three things exceptions?
Idolatry, certain, a certain set of sexual improprieties, not all of them, a certain set like rape, like incest, um, and murder. Um, so these are the three things which if someone says, commit these trans- these three, one of these three transgressions, you shouldn’t or I'll kill you, or I'll kill you. You should allow yourself to be killed. Rather than commit them. So…
DAN LIBENSON: And by the way, like these are traditionally known as ya’harayg v’al ya’avor, which is the opposite of ya’avor v’al yay’ha’rayg, which is what we, what we read earlier, which we translate as: transgress or be killed. And these are the ones that are: be killed rather than transgress.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And so I think, I think that question of why are these three things, the com- commit committing of these three things worse than dying unnecessarily. Why is that so necessary? That it is even more important than living? Um, I don't know.
I know this is an exaggerated, it, it, it's not the same. But I, I'm thinking about schools, you know, and my daughter just started high school and her school started in person. It was really hard for me to understand and - When I hear people saying things like it, and I get it, I get that it's really hard to work and have your kids be at home, you know? But when I hear, you know, they really need to learn, they need to socialize, they need to be in school. It's, yeah, I get it. But at the expense of their lives or other people's lives really, is that more important? Is that ya’harayg v’al ya’avor?
But why are these three?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Particularly like, yeah, I mean, uh, and, and I mean like, killing it, it feels like that's the easiest one, right?
I mean, although, but it's not, if you really think, I mean, it becomes a little bit monstrous to think about it – but if you say like, like if I'm being asked to kill 10 people, then I should be willing to be killed. Rather than kill the 10 people, uh, sounds plausible, except that if, if I'm killed, then they'll probably get somebody else to do it. So then it'll be 11 people, you know, like meaning am I actually saving the life of the people that I'm refusing to kill?
Um, I mean, there's just like, if you play it out, you know, there, there's actually a, a course at Harvard called Justice with Michael Sandel, who actually just came out with a new book, uh, yesterday or a few days ago about meritocracy. But his, his course Justice is the biggest course at Harvard, and there was a PBS version of it where you see anybody could watch it, or, and there's a, there's a book that he wrote.
And, and it starts out with these like classic, um, these classic, uh, uh, thought experiments of like, you know, a, a subway is coming and there's, if it goes down this track, it'll kill one person. And if it goes down this track, it'll kill, you know, three people. Do you change it to the track where it'll kill the one person, you know? And, and, and no
BENAY LAPPE: The Trolley Problem
DAN LIBENSON: with the what? The troll- the classic, The Trolley Problem. Yeah. But, and then there's like, you know, if there's a person and he is on - and, and then people, people generally say you should move it to the track where it kills the, the one person.
But then it's like, well, what if you're standing on a bridge and you could throw a man off the bridge and he would stop the trolley and then it wouldn't kill the people that are standing there. Well, people tend to be, not to say not to do that, because that person who was on the bridge, you know, wasn't really involved at all until you pushed him over, you know, until you're being more active about it.
And, and so, you know what, what's great about those, that problem and how he leads you down this path is you realize, well, of course, and at first glance of, well, of course I, I should be killed rather than kill somebody else. But pretty quickly you can start to start to get to this point that says like, well, really, like maybe, you know, maybe it depends who you are, you know, you know,
BENAY LAPPE: that reminds me after we play out all these three examples, 'cause the text is gonna go into why they understand these three things to be so important that you should rather sacrifice your life than commit. Let's go to the, the, the, the two men in the desert with the bottle of water. It's a fascinating text and it, it also gets at The Trolley Problem kinds of principles.
Um, so, so this murder one, so here's the scenario on the murder one, it's someone comes up to you essentially, God forbid, holds a gun to your head and says, kill that person. Some innocent person. Should you kill that innocent person or let yourself be killed by his gun. And let's not forget that if you can kill the guy holding the gun to your head, they've already established that's what you should do, Uhhuh, right? Killing in self-defense is absolutely permitted. So if you can kill the person threatening your life, if you don't kill some innocent person, that's the thing to do.
But if you can't. Do I kill this innocent person? Do I allow, do I allow myself to be killed in, in the text it says: you allow yourself to be killed. And the proof for that is fascinating. It's a svara proof. I just wanna put a teaser out there and we'll get to that next week.
And this issue of, of idolatry is fascinating. They seem to be, um, at this moment in Jewish history, I think so in flux about what is kosher worship, that they're gonna play with us a lot and we'll see, we'll talk about that next week.
And, um, the tradition has never come to an agreement about what precisely and definitively the sexual prohibitions are. There are different sets of them that are thought to be the ones for which you shouldn't commit, um, even to save your life. But we'll, we'll get to that next week as well.
DAN LIBENSON: All right, well, we'll get to that next week. In the meantime, I, whatever people do this Rosh Hashanah, I think, I think, uh, this is one of those years where it's like an experiment and, uh, people are gonna, do, you know what the interesting piece about this year is? Like, you can't do the traditional thing. Nobody, nobody is doing the traditional.
Now, some people may not be violating laws if they can avoid it, but, you know, but nobody, I don't, as far as I know, is having like a typical last year's Rosh Hashanah service, even the most Orthodox. So it's gonna be, it's an interesting year of, you know, discovery and experimentation.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And, and there, there's, there's, I I, I don't want to minimize the, the sense of loss and sadness and isolation and disappointment at not being able to do things the way we've always done them – but for me, there's something really important in the fact that we can't. You know, I've talked a lot about how when the temple was destroyed, there was a certain blessing in not being able to continue the illusion that it, this old practice was working because it wasn't working for a lot of people.
And, and we've been in this different, much more difficult situation of feeling guilty that we weren't doing a whole bunch of Jewish things, whether it was going to the shul on the corner or whatever, you know, davening – because we could, but we were choosing not to. And now that we, we, that noise has been removed, it's like we can't, okay, now I don't have to feel guilty about not doing it.
Now I can start thinking about, okay, now that I can't do it that way. How might I, and what actually of that worked? Because a Zoom service is gonna have to be a lot shorter, so we're gonna have to find you, you know what I mean? There, I think there's room being created in this inability to do it the old way that is going to end up being, in spite of all the sadness, a real blessing.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. I think the next Talmud is being written, so it's, uh, it's, well, so wishing everybody a, a blessed year, it can't get much worse or hopefully it can't. And so, uh, hopefully it'll get better and, uh, we'll see you next year.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. A good healthy, healthy, happy New Year.
DAN LIBENSON: Yep.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. Bye Dan.
DAN LIBENSON: Bye.
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