The Oral Talmud: Episode 41: Goldilocks and the Wayward Son (Sanhedrin 71a)
SHOW NOTES
“The whole myth of ‘God wrote this,’ which I don't believe the rabbis bought into, is necessary in order to make these rationales convincing. It isn't so much intended to guarantee people's compliance and observance. What if that myth, ‘God wrote this’ is necessary to justify the hyper literal interpretations away from the text?” - 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.
What if the purpose of a question isn’t the answer, it’s how the question teaches you to think? In this episode, Benay & Dan keep tightening the screws on the “wayward and rebellious son,” a harsh law the rabbis seem determined to make impossible to put into action. The pre-requirements stack up: exact food, exact timing, exact circumstances, exact parents. Until the whole thing starts to feel less like law and more like a deliberate unraveling.
But then the real twist hits. The digressions, the absurd scenarios, the hyper-literal readings. They’re not mistakes. They’re the method. Then, Dan & Benay crack open a deeper claim: maybe the Talmud isn’t just solving problems or offering answers, it’s training a mind. Teaching us to follow threads, question assumptions, and even outgrow the text itself. This episode turns from legal analysis into something sharper: a theory of how traditions evolve, not by blind obedience, but by people learning how to think their way beyond what they inherited.
This week’s text: Sanhedrin 71a
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.
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DAN LIBENSON: This is The Oral Talmud - Episode 41: Goldilocks and the Wayward Son.
Welcome to the Oral Talmud, a co-production of Judaism Unbound and SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva. I’m Dan Libenson…
BENAY LAPPE: …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.
What if the purpose of a question isn’t the answer — it’s how the question teaches you to think? In this episode, Benay and I keep tightening the screws on the “wayward and rebellious son” — a harsh law the rabbis seem determined to make impossible to put into action. The pre-requirements stack up: exact food, exact timing, exact circumstances, exact parents. Until the whole thing starts to feel less like law… and more like a deliberate unraveling.
But then the real twist hits. The digressions, the absurd scenarios, the hyper-literal readings — they’re not mistakes. They’re the method. Then, we crack open a deeper claim: maybe the Talmud isn’t just solving problems or offering answers — it’s training a mind. Teaching us to follow threads, question assumptions, and even outgrow the text itself. This episode turns from legal analysis into something sharper: a theory of how traditions evolve — not by blind obedience, but by people learning how to think their way beyond what they inherited.
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 and share a link to the original video of our learning.
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.
And now, The Oral Talmud…
DAN LIBENSON: Hey Bene.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey Dan. How are you?
DAN LIBENSON: I'm good. Uh, another week, another week passed the Pandemic. Um, but it has been, uh, the first week of the Biden administration. That's been,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah, that's been a relief hasn't it?
DAN LIBENSON: Relief. That's exactly what I was gonna say.
BENAY LAPPE: I find myself not needing to rush to the TV to see what horrible thing has happened today.
DAN LIBENSON: Exactly.
BENAY LAPPE: And that's so nice. Like, do we really need more noise?
DAN LIBENSON: Exactly. Well, somebody, somebody said, uh, before this was that it was like, biden's so boring. And, and I remember seeing somebody reply like, I would love to have boring.
Like, please just give me boring.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly.
DAN LIBENSON: So, yeah. Um, I mean, I don't think that's actually true, but, uh, I mean that he is boring, but, uh, yeah, I'm happy with boring. If it, if it was, uh, alright, well let's get back into our text. We've been exploring this, this text for, for a few episodes now of the wayward and rebellious, or the stubborn and rebellious son that Ben Soro Mere.
And fundamentally, the reason why we're spending so much time on this text is. 'cause it's long, which by the way is interesting. We floated this theory. That may be one of the reasons why it's so long, is because it's actually in the Torah. And regular people would've known about this because they read it in the Torah every year.
So there might have been a lot of questions to rabbis about it. Uh, you know, well wait a second. Why are you saying we don't do this? It's written directly in the Torah, so they have to be armed with a lot of, a lot of information and a lot of, uh, thinking on it, but maybe there are other reasons why it's so long.
But it's a long text. And it's also, uh, a way to really get at this continuing question that we've been asking for a few months now. What does it look like when the rabbis are creating a new. Scheme of Judaism, a new approach to Judaism that will, in many cases actually not only add to what's in the Torah, but actually essentially subtract change, change what's in the Torah.
And that's a big deal. And so we wanna look at how they do that, and also why, you know, and we've been introducing these, these idea that, that the rabbis are actually emphasizing mercy and, uh, you know, and, and things like that, you know, uh, caring about the, the people in society who are less powerful, that, that, that the, that, not that the Torah doesn't have, that the Book of Deuteronomy, for example, has a lot of that, but that the rabbis are doing much more of it in, in ways that go far beyond what the Torah, uh, was doing.
And, and so we're looking at a bunch of texts about that.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. You know what, you made me have a question. As you were talking about adding to the Torah and also subtracting. It reminded me that, that the two main categories of messing. A can are expanding it and contracting it. And, and they're Hebrew terms for that is narrowing stuff that you didn't like and you really wanna kinda make its applicability very difficult or impossible.
And then some, which is expansive interpretation. You wanna take something that was good and you wanna make a big deal out of it, you wanna make it. Um, and I was just wondering is that also, are both of these categories also true in secular law? Sort of in constitutional law for sure. I understand how we've expanded the application, but is there also the narrowing?
DAN LIBENSON: For sure. There is a process of how you can read a statute or a constitution in a narrow way. Uh, it's a, it's a really interesting question whether. That is kind of something that you do as kind of a movement, right? Because we're suggesting here that the rabbis represent a kind of a movement of, of narrowing the bad stuff, you know, the stuff they don't like, as opposed to here and there.
Some judge doesn't like a particular law, so narrows its application. Uh, but you, I'm trying to think like, by the way, we've talked about having some American constitutional law professors on here, and I think we should to, to ask questions like that in a more, uh, deep way than, than I happen to know. But, um, but I, I tend to think of the era as like the, like the, the era of, um.
Of the, uh, Warren Court, you know, in the sixties, seventies, uh, I think it's sixties, uh, as, uh, fifties, sixties, uh, whatever, uh, that, that it was a, an era of expansive readings of the Constitution. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, and I don't, and I mean, I suppose you could think of like what's called the Lochner era, which was the, the era sort of just before Franklin Roosevelt or just during Franklin Delano Roosevelt, where the Supreme Court was, was actually reading, uh.
Uh, was reading like the commerce Clause in the Constitution, right? Which is this clause in the Constitution that says that Congress or the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce. So an expansive reading of that says everything is interstate commerce these days. Mm-hmm. Uh, right.
There's nothing. 'cause you get a, even if something is fully made in Illinois, it probably got a part that was shipped from Min Minnesota, let's say. You know? And so it was like, so the whole car is made in interstate commerce, even if one little screw only came from Minneapolis. So, um, so you could say, well, if we can do an expansive reading and, and now Congress can, can.
You know, can, uh,
BENAY LAPPE: mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Legislate for almost everything because everything touches on interstate commerce. Or you can have a narrow reading of, of the commerce clause that say, no, no, no, you know, this is what we meant, you know, this is what it really meant. And, and actually we have to also understand that the Constitution never understood the federal government have that much power.
So it's not possible that that's what they meant by the Commerce clause, even though, you know, and there's all kinds of way. Would you, would you say that it's a, um, you know, I, I suppose that that would constitute a narrow, you know, a, a a a clause, an era like that, like the Lochner era that would say, we're gonna read this commerce clause very, very narrowly so that it restricts the ability of the federal government to, uh, just legislate on anything.
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. So I guess that does feel like a, a, a, an era base, not just a one judge. Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Interesting.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, all right, well, let's, uh, jump back into the text. So we've been looking at really, I guess, a narrowing here, right? A, a narrowing as part of a narrowing for sure. Era. Well, I would say the rabbinic era is both narrowing and expand, expanding and, and that I would have to do some more thinking about can we, can we say that about particular eras in the history of the Supreme Court, that they were expanding on some things and narrowing on others, and that putting the two together represented an approach
BENAY LAPPE: as well as what I think is the third bucket of material in any option three or any new system, which is new shit they're making up, right?
Mm-hmm. It's just new stuff that was never in the old tradition, that they're not, they're not either expanding or, or contracting stuff from the biblical material, but they're just trying out new technologies of which we, we have lots and lots and lots of examples, right? Mm-hmm. Making up.
DAN LIBENSON: By, by the way, I, I should throw in here that we are actually in the midst right now in the US of a, a significant constitutional question that's, that's being thrown around, that has a lot of these interpretive moves in it.
Because we're talking about this question of whether a president can be impeached or can, or can be convicted in the Senate once they are a former president. And so the constitu, so the arguments are actually very interesting because the Constitution says that a president can be impeached and removed from office through this procedure.
Uh, but it also says that the president can be impeached, removed from office, and I can't remember the exact words, not allowed to ever run for office again. Mm-hmm. If you just read the Constitution very, very narrowly, it's, it would suggest that a former president cannot be impeached and removed from office 'cause they've already been removed from office, the, the Democrats and Republicans who are advocating that we can, that we can kind of, I mean, he, Trump was impeached when he was still the President, but then his term ended.
And so can he, can we have the trial in the Senate and the, and could we have a conviction in the Senate? Uh, they say, well, no, because he's now a former president. And the Democrats and Republicans who say yes are saying that, well, the Constitution says that you can, uh, prevent somebody from ever running again.
If the, if, if, if I had done something wrong as a president and I immediately resigned. Then, and I would say, well now I can't be impeached because I've already resigned. Then I could run again in the next election and if I have popular support, I could win again. And, and then it would allow this kind of weird way of evading the whole system and they'd say, well, that can't be, and that's, we've talked about it before in this show, like it's a interpretive move that produces an absurd result.
So they're, they haven't been using that language 'cause they're talking to the press and not in a court of law, but they're saying like, essentially that would be an absurd result. So that can't be mm-hmm. What was meant by the framers of the constitution. And, you know, we could talk about that for a whole hour.
I mean, it, it's, it's likely that, my opinion, it's likely that they probably didn't think of this particularly, that didn't completely play out the scenario. So it, it seems likely that the framers of the constitution. Don't, don't have a clear view of that one way or the other, so that, you know, what do you do with that when you're, you know, so it's, so it's, uh, it's, we're actually living through a, a very clear question that's about whether we wanna choose an expansive or
BENAY LAPPE: mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Or a contracting view of this particular clause.
BENAY LAPPE: Fascinating Fascinat.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So let's, so let's jump back into this class. Okay. So here we're in narrowing. So, so with Benzo Marre, the wayward and rebellious son, we're in a narrowing. So the, the Torah seems to have this expansive idea that you have a certain kind of son.
He is bad. He, he seems like he's a bad guy, bad kid. Uh, and, uh, at a certain point, the parents get so frustrated with him that they bring him to the elders and say, you know, we wanted you to, or we wanna declare this. So they would rebellious son. And if the, if they agree, then then the, then they would be stoned by the people.
And the Torah doesn't, I mean, the Talmud, uh. It seems not to like this too much. And so they've been narrowing and narrowing, narrowing it over the, the weeks that we've, we've had, and they've done it in all kinds of ways, including sort of suggesting that this is really not about, uh, like punishment for a crime.
This is about a suspicion that this person has a kind of character that's gonna lead him to do future crimes, future terrible things like that, Tom Cruise movie. And, uh, you know, we're gonna punish him now for what he's gonna do in the future. That's a problematic idea. So they, so then there's narrowing and narrowing it more.
So then there's all kinds of cases. Is it? He can only be caught in a very particular situation. He's eating meat, drinking wine, and it's from his father and he ate it somewhere else. And it's narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow. We've been talking about that. So now we're gonna talk, uh, more narrowing. And, um, and, and we're gonna talk, you know, relatively briefly about this idea that it says the, that he has to, uh, take the food from his mother, from his father and mother.
And we're gonna talk about that right now, and then we're gonna look at some, some more, even more narrowing that kind of flows from that next
BENAY LAPPE: Great. Or at least the money to buy the food.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, we're gonna get it. Yeah. Okay. That's part of what we're gonna see. Um, yeah. Great. Okay. So let's read, uh, from the Gamara here.
Oops. Uh, sorry I pressed the wrong button. Um, and, uh, and here we, here we have, it says, the, the mission of teaches that Rabbi yo, the son of Rabbi Yehuda says that somebody can't be deemed a. Spencer wayward and rebellious son, unless he steals that which belonged to his father and to his mother. And so the Gamara asks with regard to his mother from where does she have independently owned property?
Uh, because the basis of, of this question is that the rule is that anything that a woman, this is the haha, this is the general principle, the general law that, uh, anything that a woman acquires is acquired by her husband,
BENAY LAPPE: right? In other words, as soon as a woman gets something, a woman who is married, heteronormative context to a man, that's their assumption.
As soon as a woman who is married acquires something, the instant she acquires it, it becomes property of her husband and not her. So the challenge to osi, the Gamma's challenge to OSI and the Mishna who says that boy has to steal from his mother as well, is, can the mother even have anything to steal from?
Because as soon as she gets something, it belongs to the husband.
DAN LIBENSON: Challenge. Well, what I think is interesting about it is that not only that specific point, but the issue is that you, you could imagine that they would say yes. Uh, well, yeah, that's right. And therefore there could never be a stubborn and rebellious son, uh, right.
Because the mother has no property. It has to be from the father and the mother. So boom, we just solved the problem. It's zero cases. Right? And it feels like they don't quite wanna get to zero, right? Because if we get to zero, then we're saying like, there's something, by the way, yet, I mean, we'll, we'll get there, right?
But, but they, they don't wanna get to zero because it's like, well, what if it's zero? Then why is this even in the Torah at all? This doesn't seem quite right. So it, we have to have an infinitesimal number of cases that this could apply to greater than zero, but close to zero. And if, if it, if it says mother and father and the mother can't own any property, then that would make it zero.
And that would be, that would be too, too restricted. It would, it would go to, yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: That's interesting. And, but it also occurs to me that there maybe I'm, I'm. Giving too much credence to kind of the internal rule of the Talmud, which is that mission is can't be contradicted mission. The rule is the mission is always right.
Now there are a bazillion examples of the gamara not following that rule, but that's kind of the assumption. So it feels like the gamara is beholden to Robbi Yosi in that it has to find a way for Robbi yoi to be both right and actually state something that's virtually impossible. 'cause that's their agenda.
But they also, they just can't say, oh, Robbi, yoi is wrong because a, a woman can ever own anything. They have to find where, in what extraordinarily narrow case he's actually right. So that the, the mission is sort of standing as right.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. Okay. So to continue, um.
The, so the m so the, so the, uh, so Rabbie, the son of Rabbi Kina says to answer this question, the mission is talking about a case where the boy stole food from a meal that had been prepared for his father and mother. And in a case like that, the, that wa the husband, or the explanation here is that the husband grants his wife ownership of the food that she will eat over the course of the meal.
So I guess a woman has a very narrow amount of property, which is just that which was given to her for her meal that she hasn't eaten yet. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, great. So this is a resolution to the challenge. Does Robbi Rob's statement that the boy has to steal from his father and his mother? Make any sense? Oh, yes, actually it can make sense in the case where the neighbor sends over a tray of food for the parents, and the father explicitly says this.
Food also belongs to you, Mrs. Wife. Okay. Okay. So that tray of food belongs to her as well. And now I, I guess in this, in this case, the assumption is the boy is stealing food rather than money for food, but okay,
DAN LIBENSON: fine. Well, the bunny is about to come next, but the, the, um, yeah, but, but the. You know, it's like, it's like, but that even more so, right?
It kind of, uh, it kind of, I mean, it's just trying to picture the scene, right? I mean the, the food, first of all, it has to be a Tarte mar of meat and a half lot of wine or whatever. So it's a very specific amount of food. And it's like sitting there, it's almost like, uh, you know, Goldilocks in the Three Bears where, you know, they, the food has arrived, but the parents decide to take a walk before they sit down and eat it.
And then the son sneaks in and he runs off with the food and he has to leave the house, right? So he has to run off to eat it on someone else's property, you know? And the whole thing is just, you know, or is it just like the, the mom turns her back and the sun runs, grabs it, you know, I think about how my dogs are always sneaking up on each other, like, grab the other person, the other dog's bone, you know, it's like, it's very kind of a sneaky, you know, funny scene that you're watching.
BENAY LAPPE: But I totally forgot that the food has to be the required food. Right. The neighbor has to have sent over the Italian wine,
DAN LIBENSON: right,
BENAY LAPPE: right. Mix this way and not mix that way. And the meat salted this way and not that way and raw, and not this and this amount of it. I totally forgot about that.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so, okay.
So, so, you know, we have that whole scene in mind and then, uh, but, and then the Talmud, uh, asks, but doesn't Rabbi Rabbi Hannan bar Moda say that Una says that a stubborn, rebellious sun is not liable unless he purchases inexpensive meat and eats it. Right. And he purchases inexpensive wine and drinks it, which indicates he becomes liable only if he steals money, not if he steals the actual food.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. So, right. So we we're, we're in this back and forth with the Talmud in very characteristic dialogic form, walking you through a thought process. And in my opinion, it's doing that to teach us how to think. Because at the moment we had the albeit laughable scenario of the tray of food that your neighbor sent over.
I think the G wants to allow us into, or allow us to go where we would naturally go, which is okay, right? It's a little bit laughable, but it works.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Only then to wrap us on the knuckle and say, no, no, no. You're not thinking well enough. Okay. You're here to learn how to think and I'm gonna show you how you didn't think hard enough because you forgot the fact that a prior requirement that was already established was that he has to steal money and this tray of food doesn't have the money piece in it.
Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Well, that's what I was thinking about actually when, uh, you know, my wife and I have been doing this Talmud study, the Daily Talmud page, and, you know, it, it, we're in the, we're in the tractate of like, it's about Passover and it's constantly making these like long digressions, you know, oh, why we mentioned, you know, uh, something about the end of days.
Let's explore that for a couple of pages. The end of days has nothing to do with Passover, you know, and that's famous what this Hammad does. Uh, but I was also even thinking about our own conversation last week, uh, towards the end of last week where we were reading the whole thing about, you know, the bucks of four where you steal from the father and run away and eat it somewhere else or vice versa.
And, and, you know, you said something about, you know, as a parent of a teen, you, you're, you, you realize that you're actually worried about the things that you don't know about. And I was like, oh, we could have had a really great conversation about that. And it's actually an important topic that only came to your mind because we happen to be talking about this other thing.
And, and that would be like a valid way to have a conversation. Meaning, and by the way, we're doing it right now. Right now we've just gone into digression or two digressions. 'cause you, you know, in a sense 'cause you're explaining that No, no, no. The Talmud actually agenda here is as much to teach you how to think as it is to solve this particular question about the Bens morre.
And now I'm taking us on another like little digression to say, actually that whole thing about digressions is important. 'cause that's how, that's how you actually. Realize what's really important to talk about. And if you don't talk about it right now, you're probably gonna forget it later. And you, you know, and, and, and you kind of know that you can come back to the main topic because you know what the main topic was.
You're not gonna forget the main topic, but you might forget the digression. That's actually very important. So you might as well go on the digression and then come back to the main topic. You might as well explore the process lesson and then you'll come back to the substance analysis, something like that.
And, and it's been giving me more and more appreciation for the way the Talmud is edited or not edited.
BENAY LAPPE: I love that. Okay, so lemme tell me if I've got you right. What you're saying is the digressions aren't really digressions from the main show. It's a lesson that this is a good way to think, follow your associations, and that's really interesting.
Yeah. That, that also solves for me the fact that the digressions and of, there are many of them never really fit into the scheme mm-hmm. That I ha, that I have for what the Gamar is doing. You know, my very sort of mathematical plan rubric of their five agendas. The digressions don't fit into any of those agendas and that's always bothered me.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I have to, you know, I have to think about it more like, I, I was interested, I don't think he said it on our show, but what Shai nda, who maybe he did, who writes about the Persian context of Right, right. The Talmud. He, in his book at least, he talks about how. The, in Persia, there was a particular literary style where rather than having a lot of books on single topics, they kind of tried to have like a big book about everything that was just the Persian way.
Mm-hmm. And so the Talmud understood as a work of Persian literature rather than as a work of Jewish literature potentially. It's also significant in that it, it does that in part because that's the genre of literature that it is. Uh, but then we could say with, and that actually there are some strengths and weaknesses to that genre of literature.
Uh, so I don't wanna say it's always great to go on long digressions that, you know, ultimately are disconnected, but it's not necessarily bad either, you know? And, and I think that some of us have a, a tendency, even those who take the Talmud very seriously and love the Talmud, have a tendency to feel like the digressions are a little bit annoying or a little bit like it's a sign of some bad editing or something.
As opposed to like, no, in this genre of literature, they're, it's exactly what you just said. It's like, no, no, it's okay to go on these digressions. It's good. It, it's how you think of certain things and that's just how it works.
BENAY LAPPE: I love this. I have to think a lot more about it, but I'm loving it for all sorts of reasons.
One of which additionally is. I think this way.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I go off my big aggressions. Right. And, and that's, it's fun. And I really appreciate when people go there with me.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And, and there's space in the relationship to do that because it helps me, I don't know, seeing things that seem unrelated or that I've half understood in the past fitting into this thing.
Mm-hmm. Not for the purpose of this thing, but for the purpose of just understanding the world bigger, I dunno.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Well, I, I like this a lot.
DAN LIBENSON: All right, well, so good. So good digression. Let's jump back into the text.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, um,
BENAY LAPPE: and I have a feeling that man fish is gonna have a lot to say about this.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. All right. Well, we should tell folks that we're starting to book, uh, a new round, another round of, of guests to do some, uh, conversations with guests coming up. So Manum Fish is one of the confirmed guests, so stay tuned for that in a few, starting in a few weeks.
BENAY LAPPE: Sorry to be a spoiler.
DAN LIBENSON: That's okay. Um, all right.
So, um, so, so this question like, doesn't, it, doesn't it say isn't the whole thing that it's, it's supposed to be about purchasing and not, not just taking food, but about taking money. We, we talked about that last week. So the Thomas says, oh yeah, that's actually right. So rather, rather than saying that the, like, the neighbor brought this food and the parents went on a walk and the kid stole the food, rather say that the boys stole money that was set aside for a meal that was to be prepared for his father and mother.
Now I by the way, think this also creates a silly scene because
BENAY LAPPE: Right, right. But, but, okay, let's picture that. This is not the neighbor sending a tray of food. It's the neighbor sending an envelope of money and scribbled on the front of the envelope Is. For a meal. Hope this helps you buy a meal. Buy a meal.
DAN LIBENSON: 'cause it has to be stolen from the father and mother and eaten somewhere else, right? That's right. Just,
BENAY LAPPE: just for the two of you. Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so it can't, it can't, it's not that you're coming to the neighbor's house and stealing the money that the neighbor has set aside for the meal for the parents, and then going to buy the food and then eating.
It's, it's that the ne neighbor has to have sent the money to the parents. Then you steal the money from the parents. You, when they're not looking at, went for a walk with, you know, and, and
BENAY LAPPE: oh, and, and don't forget the, the neighbor sends the money to the parents and the husband has to articulate that half of this money.
Is for the food that will belong to you.
DAN LIBENSON: Right?
BENAY LAPPE: And that declaration then makes her own the food that will be bought with that money from which the sun then can feel Okay
DAN LIBENSON: right now, dear, let's go for a walk before we go to the grocery store and to the sun runs, the money goes, buys the, you know, the cheap meat and the Italian wine, and then runs off to eat it somewhere else.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. This is a lot funnier than I even realized.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, so, okay, so then, um, so then the gamara presents ano a different answer to the question. Uh, the question that was raised here and say that there's another way to look at this, if you wish. Say instead that another person gave property to the mother and said to her, this shall be yours on the condition that your husband shall have no right to it.
In such a case, the woman acquires property for herself and the husband does not acquire it. Therefore, it is possible for the son to steal from his mother's property. So there is a limited case where a. Mother can have property separate from the father. A wife can have property separate from the husband, and that's if somebody specifically gave her money, I guess in this case, and said, this is for you and not for your husband.
And that's that limited way in which she can,
BENAY LAPPE: right. If a gift, a gift to her had a stipulation that her husband couldn't have possession over it, she actually can't accept that it does belong to her. There ain't much in her bank account or in her little basket, but that would be something that she gets to keep in her basket or her.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, but now, but, but by the way, like, not that this creates like any less of an absurd story because now you're imagining this, this son like sneaking around the house, specifically grabbing a little bit of money from his mother's basket and a little bit of money from his father's wallet. You know, why wouldn't he just take it off from one place?
You know? Right. And then, and, and only then he runs off and bites the cheap food and the Italian wine and, and he goes off and he eats it. Right. So it's like, it's like, again, not likely that that is a scenario that would happen.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, just it's not quite as, as hilarious, the, the visual of it, but
BENAY LAPPE: yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: That's very funny. Okay, so that's, so that's that. Um, so now we're going to look a little bit more at this, uh, business about the father and the mother. And I think what we're gonna do here right, is we're gonna read two different missionaries. Uh, and then we're, so
BENAY LAPPE: we're, we're right. We're chronologically going back in time now to the mission.
We keep bouncing back and forth between the early layer of the Talmud, the Mishna, and then the GM's expansion, or narrowing of that narrowing, and then back to a mic. Now we're gonna go back to a Mishna and we're gonna do two mishna in a row and then go back to the later era of the Gamara, because they
DAN LIBENSON: look at the, the, the, the format of the Talmud is usually, um, the mishna are in order as they are in the mishna.
But then they, but they're spread apart. And, and in between them are commentaries, the gamara commenting on each of those mishna. And so usually you would read ish Gamara Mishna Gamara. But for now, we're gonna read Mishna Mishna and then go back to the gamara for the first mishna. Right,
BENAY LAPPE: right. I think one of our listeners just posted something about the parents.
What is it? And the parents who go for a walk. This is Lisa Edwards. Okay. Lisa, what is Whatcha saying? And the parents who go for a walk when the kid steals from them have to be bears.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Deluxe. Yeah. That would be,
BENAY LAPPE: I get it. Get it. That's good one. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: This might be our first real time interaction with a, uh, viewer comment.
Hey, Lisa. Okay. So, um, so, okay, so let's, uh, look at these, at these mishna and then, and then we'll go back to the, the gamara that you see here on the page.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So. If his father wishes to have him punished, but his mother does not wish that, or if his father does not wish to have him punished, but his mother does wish that he does not become a stubborn or rebellious son unless they both wish that he be punished.
So they have to agree.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, judge, wait. Before you go on, let's just notice that we've now shifted into a new category of narrow narrowings, right? The first category was the chronological category, right? At what age is this boy eligible? We narrowed girls out. Boys, okay? This is sort of in a binary gender mindset.
The second category of narrowing was, okay, once a person is in this chronological category, what does this boy have to do? What are the sort of required behaviors to keep him in this category? Now, this third category of narrowings is. The father and the mother, what behaviors, characteristics are upon the father and the mother that implicate the boy to continue to be in this, uh, identity category.
Okay. So that's where we are, we're in this category of the father and the mother's qualifications writ large. Okay. Okay.
And the first thing we learned is that both of them agree the child, not if I
rationale for why that. So I, it's because the text actually says his father and his mother bring him to the elders of the town, which we noted the very beginning is really unusual. It's unusual that the mother is even present in the story. And that And Torah. Yeah, in the Torah and that. She's part of bringing him was interesting.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, and now they're drawing a legal deduction from that mention of her as saying, oh, she actually has to want it. She, I think it's saying her presence in the Torah is part of the, you know, set of qualifications. It indicates that she wanted it, therefore both parents have to want it, not one or the other.
Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So, so
BENAY LAPPE: how many want, how many mothers are gonna want this? Okay. I think this is a real narrowing,
DAN LIBENSON: you know, I mean, like, I think that's a really interesting and serious point. I mean, I, I asked it, I don't remember if we ever talked about it on this show, but, but a few months ago, well, around the time of Rosh Hashanah, we did this project called the Aade DA Project, which was a collection of 30 different videos about the binding of Isaac story.
And, and as we were putting that together, oh, you know what? It wa was there, there's a, an amazing artist who's doing, uh, this is only tangentially, it wasn't for that specific project, but there's this amazing artist who's doing a re gendered bible where she's, uh, changing all the genders in, in the Bible so that, uh, all the female characters are male and vice versa.
And, and, and her name is Al Ek. And, um. And the, the binding of Isaac's story then becomes the binding of, which is a, a female version, you know? And, and Abraham is changed to, uh, Amra Rahma or something, a some, I forget, Arah Ma, whatever the exact name was. And, and it's the mother sacrificing her daughter.
And one of the things that struck me is like, this story becomes absurd because like, I don't really believe that a mother would ever do that. Now, it's kind of horrible to believe that. I could imagine that a father, you know, it doesn't, it's not quite as unthinkable. Uh, but, but no, but that's a, that's an idea that, that if it's saying that, that if it's emphasizing that the mother has to actually be agreeing to do this, that's gonna be much more limited.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. You know, what you're reminding me of, and this, this whole, this whole issue of mothers versus fathers is, and not to get overly essentialist about, oh, mothers do this, fathers to this, but, um, Larry Hoffman. And I hope I'm not doing him a disservice. And his idea disservice 'cause it's been years since I read it.
But my recollection is that he talks about circumcision as the accommodation that we're, will, the tradition is willing to give a father who he believes the tradition assumes, has a kind of death wish out for his kid. Like there's a violent competitive tension between fathers and sons that like just leads fathers to wanna kill their sons.
And the tradition is saying, with circumcision, we're gonna let you go this far and no further, we're gonna let you draw this blood. And then that's it. And that feels like it. That that, if that's true, um, that the, the presence of the mother here is. You know, kind of a limiting factor of the father's impulse to go further than the circumcision to draw blood with this kid.
DAN LIBENSON: Alright, well I'll, I'll say that I've never had that impulse, but, um, like calling Dr. Freud moments, um, okay, so, um, so, so, so the parents would both have to agree and Rabbi Yehuda says if his mother was not suited for his father, he does not become a stubborn or rebellious son. So meaning, so that somebody can only be a stubborn or rebellious son if his parents were like a good match.
I mean, that's what it seems like, uh, right. And if they have tension in the merit, well, we'll get to what that means. But, you know, if it's like not a good match, then their child can never be a seven Millicent.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. So this is a, a very opaque statement. What does it, what does it mean to be suited. The Mishna doesn't flesh that out.
The Gamara is gonna jump on that. Mm-hmm. But we're gonna put a sticky on that because we're gonna jump to the next mishna before taking up the gamara. Uh, clarification of that.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So then the next Micah says, uh, if one of the parents was without hands or lame, or mute or blind or deaf, their son does not become a sub rebellious son.
So I mean, if the parent has a disability, by definition, they could never have a, a child with that would turn into a sub rebellious son and
BENAY LAPPE: specifically one of these specific disabilities.
DAN LIBENSON: Specific disabilities.
BENAY LAPPE: Right? Which they deduce from our original verse. And we'll take a look at the verse and then let's look at how they deduce this new.
Requirement from the verse. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: By the way, like it would be interesting, I mean, I, I know that the, this particular analysis that we're about to look wouldn't really hold here. But what's interesting to think about is, as it, when we're talking about expansive or contracting readings, is if you read this mishna, I mean this would be like a good example of constitutional interpretation.
If you read this mishna and it says A parent was without hands or lame, or mute or blind or deaf, uh, those were like the main disabilities that they knew about at that time. They didn't know about, you know, attention deficit disorder and OCD and whatever, you know. And so the question is, now that we know about those disabilities.
Is the better way to read this is if one of the parents had a disability. Mm-hmm. And the fact that they were laying out the specific ones was just 'cause they didn't have a word for disability back then, or they didn't think of it as a concept that was tied together. But now we also do have that. And so now that we know about all this disabilities, we could narrow it even more by saying if the parents have any kind of a disability.
And by the way, and like most of us have some kind of disability, you know, uh, in our times, you know, or many, I shouldn't say most, but many, many people do, uh, one of those diagnoses. And, um, and so Wow. That even narrows it more. Or you could say, no, no, no, this is a very specific list because of a very specific way of reading the verse.
And it's only these particular disabilities. And I, I could make the argument both ways.
BENAY LAPPE: Very interesting.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so they're, but they're referring us to the original, um. Statement in Deuteronomy that we looked at a few weeks ago, where it says, then shall his father and his mother lay hold of him and bring him out to the city and to the gate of his place.
And they shall say to the elders of the city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voices. He is a glutton and a drunkard. That's from the Torah. And so the sages derive then shall his father and mother lay hold of him. But not people without hands. 'cause they can't, they can't hold him.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. So this is a, you know, it's, it's one of the standard tools in the rabbinic tool belt of exegetical techniques to read something out of the Torah that. I would suggest isn't there, uh, maybe God put, you know, the little crowns in order for us to put in there. Like I said, Jesus. But regardless, thi this is a technique called a duk, which is a hyper literal read, which can allow you to make a deduction, which is not born out by the simple plain meaning.
So if anyone is gonna lay hold of anyone, this technique would say they have to have hands to do that laying hold of. That's, that's hyper, hyper literal.
DAN LIBENSON: Yep.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: And then
BENAY LAPPE: again, I
DAN LIBENSON: mean,
BENAY LAPPE: I don't know, I used to be a dog catcher and when I would go, go catch, did you know that?
DAN LIBENSON: No. You used to be really, you used to be a dog catcher.
BENAY LAPPE: I was a dog catcher. I actually, they don't call them dog catchers and they didn't, back then it, I was an animal control. Animal, uh, animal control officer. I worked for the village of Skokie and I used to be a dog catcher and it, which involved a lot of things beyond catching dogs, like picking up dead animals and all sorts of things.
But we didn't catch dogs with our hands. We had noose poles, you know, and nets. There are all sorts of ways to lay hold of something beside with your hands. So the hyper, literal read is not all that rational unless you imagine, you know, I think the backstory is a, a god who is, I don't know what, you know, who, who wants?
I don't know. Anyway, that's what they deduce. Laying hold requires hands fine.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Sorry, dog. Catch your digression.
DAN LIBENSON: So then they take the next, uh, part of the quote and from Deuteronomy where it says, and bring him out, but not lame people who, who can't walk, you know, a la they bring, so they're, this is like a double duk in a way because they're, they're saying bring him out.
They're saying that must mean that they walked him out, which is not the language. That's right. It doesn't say. Right. So, um, so they're saying only people who can walk could bring someone out. Um,
BENAY LAPPE: that's right.
DAN LIBENSON: And, uh, and then, and then the, the Deuteronomy continues and that, that the next thing the parents do, and they shall say, you know, that he is a, uh, glutton.
Uh, so if they're mute, if they can't speak, then they can't say so. By definition the parents need neither. The parents could be mute, otherwise it wouldn't fit with these. Right. And then, uh, this is like another, this may maybe like a triple view. Uh, this son of ours, they, right. 'cause they say this son of ours is a glutton.
Right. And so, so they can't be blind because how would they be able to point where the sun is? Right. I guess.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. They couldn't ascertain if in fact he was standing there in order to point to him. So any indication of this sun couldn't possibly be the reliable, therefore, okay.
DAN LIBENSON: And by the way, and of course we all know that blind, uh, people can know where their sun is.
Absolutely. And they know it too. Right. So like, that's, that's the part, like to, to me, this part here is like, this is a, a, this is like an obviously silly, ridiculous analysis. And, and the question goes back to that, that question that we've been raising, like, who is it for? You know, like who is, is this, is this an argument that would ever actually be made to a person who is asking, what should we do with a stubborn, rebellious son?
Uh, you know, that was really asking that? Or, or is this just some kind of internal Oh
BENAY LAPPE: my God. Okay. I just had this big click as you were talking.
The whole myth of God wrote this, which I don't believe the rabbis bought into is necessary in order to make these rationales convincing.
So I, I'm, let me see if I can, if I can say it better. The. The myth of God wrote, this isn't so much in intended to guarantee people's compliance and observance, but what if that myth, God wrote this is necessary to justify the, the very hyper, literal interpretations away from the text and, right.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. I mean, like, as you're saying that, like, it, it, it, you know, again, we were talking a little bit before we started the, the show today, like.
That neither of us wants to do it, but it would be really amazing if, and maybe somebody has, but probably not. Uh, but if, if somebody would or has gone through all of the arguments that are in the Talmud, you know, it kind of categorized like when certain kind of arguments are used. Like are there, are there, are there similar case types where a cer a certain kind of argument, in this case a duk would be used?
And one thought just as, as you were talking about that, is that, yeah, I can imagine that, that as we've talked about, because the Ben Soer Moez and the Torah, the Torah, that a ch a, a like, you know, back in the year, you know, 400, there could be this, you know. Family of Jewish farmers not, you know, not very well educated in, in the, the law who have a really horrible son who's always going around, you know, like smashing mailboxes and, you know, herding animals or whatever, you know?
Right. And, um, and they kind of say, wait a second, I, you know, we, we were just in shul, you know, I mean, I don't exactly, but we read in the Torah, you know, that there's this thing called the stubborn rebellious son. And I, I guess our son seems to fit all this, and we should bring him to the town square and to the elders, and they should stone him.
And I mean, it was very painful, but like, uh, you know, he is a very terrible son. And so then the rabbi, he says to, well, let me sit down with you and explain to you that we don't actually do that. Anymore, you know, and they said, but what it says right here on the Torah, right. You know, and, and, and then you say, well, yeah, let, let's actually read it really carefully, right?
It says that the parents should grab hold of the son. Uh, you know, but you know, your, your husband's hand was chopped off in a accident, you know, so really, this, you can't, can't apply to you, you know? And it, it, it actually seems that it is. Um, and, and then you're right. It's like that only makes sense if they believe that God gave the Torah, because then the rabbi is sitting with them and saying, you know, every word here, lemme explain to you.
Every word has meaning here, this Torah, it's a, because they'll say, oh, what do, what do you mean it just grab hold? That's not what it, no, no, that's right.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. Without that myth, everyone's gonna go, oh, come on. You know, as well as I do, that's not what it means,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
BENAY LAPPE: Because nothing we read, we do that to, we, we understand what it means,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
BENAY LAPPE: But in order to make the case that no, it doesn't mean what it. Obviously means it means something else. You have to have that myth of it. Me, it, it's, it has the precision of what a deity would create, deliberate, deliberately. Correct. God, it, yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: And, and that would suggest that when we see a deu Right.
Then, then the PhD dissertation that I'd like to see somebody write would be one that would show that every case where there's a duk is a case where there is a overturning of something in the Torah that regular people might discover and bring to the Rabbi. Something like that. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: But I, I would go further, and I think we touch on this last week.
I, I think it's not just the Duke and it's not just some verses that the rabbis invoke. It's every single time they make midrash, every, which they do, every single time, they bring a verse in.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Every verse is brought in to read it out of its shot.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Because. If it's being read as it's shot, it doesn't need to be brought in.
No, nothing in the Talmud. The Talmud isn't here to do a review of what works in the Torah mm-hmm. And why it works.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: You know, they don't, they don't say, oh, how do we know that you are obligated to honor your parent? Oh, because it says this in the Torah. They only bring in that verse in the Torah about honoring your parent when they, I wanna, when they wanna say, how far do you really have to go?
And do you really, it's only when they're messing with it do they ever bring in a verse.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Although it's not the most important thing in the world, but I'm, but I'm, I'm wondering a case like the, the divorce cases that we were doing, uh, a few weeks ago where it's not something that's explicit in the Torah, so therefore you're not going to have a random Jew coming along and saying to the rabbi, wait, you, you're wrong.
I read it in the Torah the other way that they, like, I now. They are still talking about the Torah in that case, because they're deriving the idea of, uh, of the ca category of onus from the Torah. But that's probably like just an internal rabbinic conversation because the re regular Jews won't know about it.
I wonder if those cases include something like a ridiculous duk, because they don't need to have that, because they're not going to be in that kind of conversation with somebody who's thinking about the Torah that way. You know, like, I, like, I, I would be really interested if we discovered that DUCs are never used in those inter int rabbinic conversations about more obscure topics.
Even when they're derived from the Torah, they use other, other tricks and tools, but not, not something like a Duk, because that they don't need to, they're, they're, they don't, they don't need to be that. Explicit about the ridiculousness.
BENAY LAPPE: That's interesting. I'm, I'm interested in your theory about the possibility that there are two categories of material that they're dealing with.
One of which is stuff that people will go, Hey, wait a minute. That's not what it says. And the other stuff. But what comes to mind is the, you know, the story of Abraham smashing his father's idols mm-hmm. Which so many of us as kids heard and thought was in the Torah. Yeah. And obviously it's not in the Torah and it doesn't actually make a difference to most people.
That's just, it's Torah. It's, it's the tradition. And I think the fact that onas, or a lot of other examples aren't literally in the Torah was neither here nor there as far as people were concerned. And as far as the way the rabbis had to deal with the. People's understanding of those concepts, it was in the Torah.
So I'm not sure yet about if this theory of yours is so much, I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. That's why I'd want somebody to do a real, a real research. Okay. Um, so let's, uh, let's, uh, go back and finish the mishna. Yeah. Um, so, okay, so, um, so the, the, the blind parents can't point out their son, so the son of ours doesn't fit.
Uh, and then the next part is that where they tell the, uh, elders, he will not obey our voices. So they can't be deaf people because they don't have voices. I guess they're thinking like of a, like a deaf mute, basically. Right?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. For, for the rabbis, which we typically translate as deaf, actually meant deaf mute.
And this, this is a little messy. What exactly is the issue here? Is it that we can't, if we're, we can't speak, therefore he doesn't have a voice to not obey.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Or is it that, um, you know, when he says F you, after we say, you know, clean out the garage and he says, F you the ish deaf mute parent can't hear him say f you.
It, it's a little unclear, but okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So, and then, uh, so, so, so then, so that's the end of that part. So they, they say, okay, so that's why we know that these parents with disabilities, with these particular disabilities can't. By definition be parents of somebody who could become a southern rebellious son, be deemed as one.
Uh, and so then the Aish says after he is brought, before the elders of the city, he is admonished before three people, and they flog him for having stolen. If he says again, oh,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah, well, let's just notice that this is an absolute invention of a a, a procedure, which has been fitted in to the, uh. Process that you imagine the, the verse had in mind.
There's an extra, you, you can already feel the, if you didn't already. The rabbis are really trying to do everything they can to throw up barriers to this kid getting through the system of qualifications to get him to be stoned.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Well, so I mean, like, if we look at that, the whole like, silly scenario, you know, the whole like, uh, Goldilocks scenario that we've been talking about, uh, that now we've got that it has to happen twice, right?
Because the first time he's flogged and only the second time he does that, uh, it is, um, would he possibly be deemed to be a seven rebellious son and then, and then stone. So not only does he have to be, have gone through this crazy machinations one time, but he has to be so, you know, so stupid as to like, you know, do the whole, the whole thing again.
Right,
BENAY LAPPE: right. And this whole thing, he has to be admonished again before three people, is really interesting. You know, it, it reminds me of a similar evidentiary requirement that the rabbis put on capital punishment in their attempt to do that narrowing legislation. Um, where they say that in order for someone to even be tried for murder, they have to be witnessed by two people doing the murder.
Those two witnesses have to stop him before doing the murder and say, do you know? They have to, he has to be warned in a very particular way. I'm warning you that we're here watching you if you do that, you know, and. Further, do you know that the thing you're about to do is a capital crime? And the punishment for this particular capital crime is this particular form of execution and, and on and on and on.
So the, the, for me, this raises that scenario of, you know, a very rare and particular thing that has to happen. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So we probably look at that one, uh, sometime the, uh, yeah. Thing. But, um, okay, so then here's the last, uh, part of the mission on the last part, the last, uh, narrowing. Uh, so if he sends, again, he is judged by a court of 23 judges, but he is not,
BENAY LAPPE: again, again, a whole new thing.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: It's not in the verse. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. So he has to, he has to do it twice. First time he, he has a court of three judges. Second time he is a court of 23 judges
BENAY LAPPE: the sun had run.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Right. He's not stoned as a seven rebellious son, unless. The first three judges before whom he had been flogged the first time are there, are present there as it is stated in the Torah.
Now we're we're quoting for the Torah again, this son of ours, which we thought was the parents saying the son of ours. In fact, we, we, we found that, uh, that can't, that's one of the reasons why it can't be blind people because the parents said the son of ours, but they can't point to him. But no, no, actually the son of ours refers to something that the court is saying that three person court, that this was the son who was, who was already flogged, who we, you know, we had already ordered to be flogged.
Right? Some,
BENAY LAPPE: I'm not sure if the court is saying this, this son of ours, this is the son who's already flogged before you. I'm losing how this requirement that three of the 23 judges and the son Hadron have to be those three before whom he was admonished. Well, how does that come out of this son of ours?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Well, yeah, that's why, that's why I, in my reading, I, I was thinking it's the sun. It is those three judges who are saying this, this son of ours, meaning like this kid that we already judged. Oh,
BENAY LAPPE: I'm not sure.
DAN LIBENSON: But maybe not. Yeah. But like, yeah,
BENAY LAPPE: but, but what jumps out at me, I mean, picture this, the Sun Heran.
The sun Heran is like the Supreme Court. Okay. So the three people before whom this son has to get the admonishment, this is like getting Kennedy Sotomayor and,
DAN LIBENSON: oh, Kennedy retired.
BENAY LAPPE: Sorry. Okay. Gimme, gimme three Supreme Court judges. This is,
DAN LIBENSON: well, we'll take, we'll take Mayor and Kagan 'cause they're probably the least likely to, uh,
BENAY LAPPE: exactly.
Okay. Like, where am I gonna get them to come to my house? To have me yell at my kid in front of, and it's, it's really funny. Mm-hmm. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So that, that's it for the mishna and that's it for, for our time today. So that's, that's good. So next week, we'll, we'll pick up with the, with the gamara and, and just to, right.
Just to, um, make those time periods clear. And, and for folks who wanna go back, go through the text is just to notice that there's actually, I mean, just in the same way that we talked about all these narrowings, including, oh, now it's like, it has to be the second time you do it, that all of that is within the mishna.
So that early layer of rabbis here, we're talking about, you know, the, just relatively soon after the end of the quote, biblical period, A after the destruction of the temple. Uh, so they're already narrowing this in very substantial ways. And then that, that whole other thing, that whole other line of the gamara, which is, you know, three, 400 years later.
Uh, is narrowing it even more. It's already absurdly narrowed in the mishna and then it's even more absurdly narrowed in the kamara. And if you, if you want, if it helps you to go over those two and to sort of see which, you know, ridiculous arguments are in the mishna and which ridiculous arguments are in the kamara, it makes it even more interesting in certain ways.
'cause you see, like you, you would think like the Mishna seems on its own kind of enough to have legislated this out of existence, but the Gamara wants to take even another hack at it.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, I, I've never done it, but it'd be really interesting to line up the Mishna and Gamara in vertical columns. The mission on the left, going straight down mission to mission to Mishna, and then the corresponding gamara in the right hand column and seeing which.
What happens in the gamara to each piece of Mishna.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. And it's even, it's interesting whether the Gamara is doing that because somehow there were these cases that escaped the mishna that they wanna make sure even those, or they were getting questions about that, or they wanted to even shut that whole thing down.
Or was it just because they were using it as a way to just, like you were saying earlier, teach logical reasoning and that what you see in the gamara is more about playing around rather than mm-hmm. Actually having to narrow it too much more because, um, they didn't need to. 'cause the mission does a pretty good job of, of shutting it down.
I think it's both anyway. Mm-hmm. Well, we'll, we should, we should think about that and, and we'll talk about it next week.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, great.
DAN LIBENSON: All right, see you then. Bene
BENAY LAPPE: so fun. Bye.
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