The Oral Talmud: Episode 42: But I Sat on His Grave! (Sanhedrin 71a)
SHOW NOTES
““ The power of the methodology that is modeled over and over and over in the Talmud is that it makes very clear that we are not limited by the original intent or the obvious meaning of a text. So even if a text actually does mean what it looks like, it means, and we find it difficult, we are not bound to continue perpetuating that norm in the tradition.” - 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.
In this episode of Oral Talmud, Dan & Benay bring the “wayward and rebellious son” text to its end game. After spilling so much ink to narrow the law into absurdity, the rabbis finally say the quiet part out loud: this law was never real. No one was ever executed. No one ever will be. So why is it in the Torah at all?
Because the purpose all along has been transformation. Dan and Benay surface one of the Talmud’s most radical claims: some texts exist in order to be argued out of existence. Not to follow them, but to outgrow them. But just when the tradition seems ready to erase its past, another voice interrupts: it did happen. People were harmed. And you don’t get to rewrite history just because you’ve evolved. This episode is a gut-punch — a blueprint for moral courage that refuses both blind obedience and convenient amnesia.
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 42: But I Sat on His Grave!
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.
In this episode of Oral Talmud, we bring the “wayward and rebellious son” text to its end game. After spilling so much ink to narrow the law into absurdity, the rabbis finally say the quiet part out loud: this law was never real. No one was ever executed. No one ever will be. So why is it in the Torah at all?
Because the purpose all along has been transformation. We surface one of the Talmud’s most radical claims: some texts exist in order to be argued out of existence. Not to follow them, but to outgrow them. But just when the tradition seems ready to erase its past, another voice interrupts: it did happen. People were harmed. And you don’t get to rewrite history just because you’ve evolved. This episode is a gut-punch — a blueprint for moral courage that refuses both blind obedience and convenient amnesia.
DAN LIBENSON: Hey Bene.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey Dan. How are you?
DAN LIBENSON: I'm good. Um, yeah, things, I feel like things are turning, going back to normal.
BENAY LAPPE: I know it. The calm, the relative calm Right. In the political world is really nice.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Now we can only do something about the pandemic and you and I are both in Chicago and we're getting hit with snow everywhere.
BENAY LAPPE: I know.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, well, I I think the East coast is even worse. Um, so maybe we should move this operation out to the west Coast, or My dream is Hawaii. If anybody out there watches this show from Hawaii and would like to, uh, have us, uh, do it due to the show from there.
I love,
BENAY LAPPE: I love that.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, so, uh, just wanted to report that on our Safaria collections. We now have, uh, all, all 41 of our previous episodes. And, um, and now I'll be posting the most recent episode as soon as it, it processes after we do this. So you can go to, uh, safari also, by the way I'm saying Safari. I changed the name so that it's now, uh, alphabetized under O rather than T.
So if you go to the Safari collections list and go to Oral Talmud, you'll find it there. And, um. Yeah. And so, so please, uh, spread the word for that. 'cause I think that's a good way for people to, um, to, to find, you know, to start the show because the, the source sheet is right there. So if you're a person who just wants to watch or listen, then you don't, you could do it through our website, which is oral thomas.com.
But if you are someone who really likes to read along and, and actually sort of be looking at the source as we're talking, is now a really easy way to do it. So it's exciting.
BENAY LAPPE: IWI was so excited when you showed me what the source sheets, what the video looked like altogether. I thought, oh my goodness.
Someone could really learn Talmud on their own with the videos, with the text curriculum that. Someone could do individually with a and a synagogue, a school. I'm very excited about this.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, well then as again, like last week we, we were doing our admin work in public here, but like we should have that conversation because we should think about, we should think about ways to really enhance that and, and not only and for this show, but maybe there are all kinds of ways and we would love to hear.
Feedback from folks that are watching this and using that. Are there, are there ways that we can do that? You know, sometimes to some extent the technology may not quite be there yet for certain things, but who knows? 'cause if people have thoughts that people, we could potentially pass that on to Safaria and like we just, somebody just shared with us that they were, um, using one of these, uh, episodes in a class and was showing us a certain Yeah.
Of software where you can kind of like have a video running and then people can like, make comments in different parts of the video. And there's all this technology out there that makes some of the stuff like that you're talking about really start to be possible.
BENAY LAPPE: That blew my mind. It's called Perusal, which by the way I think is a horrible name.
They really need a different name for that program. But it's amazing. So the, the, the Watchers learners, it's like a live Talmud page that you can create. You make a comment and then someone else makes a comment about your comment, whether it's a question about what you just heard, and it's really cool.
And that, and that was being used at what university was that?
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, I think Mount Holyoke.
BENAY LAPPE: Mount
DAN LIBENSON: Holyoke. Um, the, the, uh, yeah. And, and it seems very Talmudic. I mean, and, and or so it's, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. So those are some of the recent developments on the, uh, backend of the Oral Talmud. And, um, and, and we, I, I just wanna say that again, just that, uh, we're, I think at this stage we're really looking for ideas and feedback from folks that are watching this because there are a number of things that, that we can do.
And we, we, we are now deeply in touch with the folks at Safaria. There's certain things that are easy to do, certain things that maybe their technology doesn't do yet. And ours, if theirs doesn't, ours certainly doesn't. Um, you know, we're about 10 years behind. But the, um, but the, but there, but I think that have real, you know, ideas coming from people say, well, this, I think this would really help me learn, uh, would be useful.
One thing, I mentioned it last week, but that I'm planning to do when I have a chunk of time next, is that there's some, some, uh, parts like this. We've done this, uh, this text, the wayward and rebellious sun for a few weeks already, and there's a way to highlight. Text in a different color. So I'll, you know, put in yellow or something so that you can see for each episode.
We, I for, I put the whole text in each of the, in each of the sheets so you, the entire, all the texts that we're doing for the way we're in Rebellious Sun are there, even if we've only covered a few lines. But, you know, we can highlight the specific lines that we covered in that show, and that way you can kind of see this continuous, it's not just you're seeing little chunks, but you can just see the whole thing.
But you can see each time where we're really focusing things like that. So if people have ideas, you know, we, we'd love to hear them.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. I just had an idea while you were talking.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: You know, we could do, we could link from the oral Talmud text page to the Spar text page where we have resources up on the spar website of the text in the original bracketed out, you know, one week at a time with H Sheets, with extra resources.
Verse sheets so people can have resources to learn in the original, to learn in translation and the video. That's cool.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. You're gonna have to show me that we'll get, again, we probably should be doing this off the show. So, so this is exciting. So this is, this is the kind of like open-minded feedback that we imagine.
And so we'd love to, love to get it from you. So, um, so let's jump back into our text that we think that we can finish this text today. Uh, which is good, uh, because not next week, but I think in two weeks we're, we're gonna have a guest and then hopefully some more guests. So it's a good, it's good to wrap up this long section.
And, uh, we're really excited about the guests that, that we have starting to be lined up. So we're not gonna, not gonna spoil those. Um, maybe we already did last week, but, uh, we
BENAY LAPPE: might have
DAN LIBENSON: anyway, so, so let's go back to this text. So we're, we're looking at this, this idea of the wayward rebellious sun, which is, as a reminder, the Torah says, basically should be killed.
Uh, if the parents say that I can't, we can't deal with this. There's so, so much, uh, detail there that we've talked about. Um, but then we've been seeing that the Talmud, the Mishna, and then the Gamara are limiting and limiting and limiting these cases, uh, almost to the point of absurdity, or I would say past the point of absurdity, uh, where you, it is so rare to be able to have a situation where somebody could possibly be deemed a stubborn or rebellious son that, but without saying.
We are erasing this category, they're just tacking away at it bit by bit, by bit, so that it's almost impossible to imagine a situation remaining where somebody ever could be deemed a stubborn, rebellious sun. And the whole point of this is not so much that stubborn, rebellious suns are the most important thing in the world.
What we're seeing here, what we're continuing to see here is that the Talmud, the rabbis are really, uh, are really replacing the biblical Judaism in all kinds of ways. Uh, and sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's harder, but where there are pieces where they really think we shouldn't be doing those things anymore, they're finding all kinds of ways to sort of legislate those out of existence.
And then, and then on the flip side, there are things that they're introducing that are really important principles, like saving a life. It's more important than anything which we saw a few weeks ago that they really kind of build up. So, so there's, uh, sometimes building up and sometimes taking things down.
You might see them both as the same depending on the situation. But, uh, that's the example that we're, we're seeing here. And, and I think at our conversation today, it's gonna be crystal clear how some of that has applicability to things that today's rabbis or today's post rabbis might, might wanna say.
Well, yeah, these things that were part of rabbinic Judaism are problematic and not part of the, the system as we see it going forward. And we can use similar techniques, or maybe we don't have to, uh, but we can be inspired by. What they were doing to, to understand that we have more power than we might have believed, to just say, well, we're not doing that anymore.
BENAY LAPPE: Which I think, in my opinion from my read of the, these texts, was their intention all along. The intention of the editor of this book is to create a how-to, uh, I think it's, and, and we, I think we've, we've clarified, we, our work is clarified to me that what they're doing here is not making the case for, uh, in this case outlawing a Ben Morre, because probably before they even began in the Mishna, it was never practiced.
But showing you how you might, how one could, um, argue this out of existence for the purpose of being able to argue out of existence, something that. Isn't in the past, but is in the present, but needs to be in the past. And I think that was their intent all along for their colleagues, for their descendants.
Um, and certainly all the more so for us. So,
DAN LIBENSON: I mean, let make it crystal clear because I, I was thinking that I would sort of raise this later, but I think I'll raise it now as just an example to kind of let us track with this. But I, in my mind I was thinking about two examples of more contemporary times that are analogous in a certain way to the benzo mo red, the wayward rebellious sun and the idea.
So, okay, so we haven't been stoning anybody for the last 2000 years in Judaism, but we have been doing other awful things to people. And so I was thinking for example, of somebody who intermarries and how when I was a kid, they were still even in the conservative movement. There were still ideas that you should sit Shiva, you should, you know, it's as if the person who intermarried is dead and you shouldn't have a relationship with them or much of a relationship and a lot of pain was caused due to that attitude.
So that was one thought that I had. And then the other, of course, is the status of people, LGBT folks that, that, um, you know, up until quite recently in, in Judaism and many Jewish denominations and approaches, there was some notion that it's a very, very bad thing. And if you're that, you know, then we're going to.
Treat you in a way that would be very harmful. And somehow we would feel either that our Jewish, our religion, our Jewish, you know, obligations justify that treatment or require that treatment, you know, or that, um. You know, what can we do? I mean, our, our hands are tied. That, that old statement, our hands are tied.
I, I don't wanna be against, you know, just because, you know, I understand as a sexual orientation, I understand, you know, that it's not a choice for you. But I mean, look, I read it right here. This is what it has to be, you know, and, and that, and those are, are, are tho those, I think, and maybe we can talk about other categories that are still very, very much alive.
Those two, I think again, in the Orthodox world, they're still very alive. And the rest of the Jewish world, thankfully, I think have become much, much less, um, are still around, especially intermarriage, I would say is still kind of around even in liberal denominations that people, you know, and, and I think that, and I'm not necessarily saying here that people have to have.
My opinion about it, which is that it's fine, you know, but, um, but, but I do wanna put out there that these feel like analogous categories to the Ben Marette. And what we're seeing in all these weeks that we've been studying this text is that the rabbis didn't take the attitude that our hands are tied.
You know, they took the attitude that if we don't think that it's right to treat people this way anymore for these particular supposed, uh, infractions, we can reimagine the Judaism that doesn't require that and Right. So,
BENAY LAPPE: absolutely.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so I think that those examples will be poignant as we look at some of today's gamara.
I don't know if you wanna add to that or if you have other
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Well you, you're just reminding me that I tend, I never teach Leviticus. Okay. Ever. Because
DAN LIBENSON: the line in Leviticus about,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah, right. The line in Leviticus, it says, A man shall not live with man. In other words, PE people are, are, over the years have always said, will you teach us about Leviticus?
What, you know, what is the Jewish take on homosexuality? And I think it's much more powerful to teach what the rabbis have done with the biblical ideas that they've found morally repugnant. And to let people connect the dots. And rather than imagine that there's something suey generous about Leviticus and the issue of quote unquote homosexuality.
I, I hope the dots are easy to and obvious to connect for people, but I appreciate you, you connecting.
DAN LIBENSON: I dunno, maybe I have less faith in people. I wanna, I wanna bang them over the head with them. Um, okay, so, so in the text where we've been, we, last week we read these two mishna that we're showing, uh, limitations.
That, that there's the first mishna, uh, well, I can show them here. So the, the first mishna that we looked at, um, the, the, the Mishna says that the, the father and mother have to agree that they both wanna have this son deemed a stubborn and rebellious son and therefore, uh, punished or stoned. And the then Rabbi Yehuda adds that.
There's even another limitation that. It's not only that they have to agree, but that they have to be quote, suited for one another, which we're gonna get into sort of more detail on that in the Kamara. But that there has to be some way in which the mother and father are really very suited to each other and, you know, connected and, and, and they have to agree, you know, so, so again, it's just another sort of limitation.
And then the other mishna that we looked at ha, was this one that,
BENAY LAPPE: which is, which is the continuation of that one above
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh. And, and we, we. But instead of reading the Gamara and then the next mishna, we wanted to read both missions together. And this other mishna was, um, also sort of li limiting it by these, this very kind of strange reading of Deuteronomy where they were se, you know, reading something that the mother and father lay hold of him.
And that means they both have to have hands. And so if one of them doesn't have a hand, then the sun can't be a stubborn and rebellious son, you know, because which is kind of ob obviously absurd. I mean, absurd in the sense that clearly that's not the intent of Deuteronomy. The intent of Deuteronomy is focusing on is the sun bad or not, not whether the parents have hands or feet or voices or whatever that, you know, and these are obviously just taking the words of Deuteronomy and using them in a very strained way to limit and limit and limit the, the scope of, of the, the rule.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And I think it's doing, it's doing just that. What the rabbis are saying here is there's actually no limit. To how far you can force a read or read something out of a text that clearly wasn't there to do the work you need to do. And you are right there. It makes no obvious sense to find qualifications and the parents' physical bodies that have bearing on whether a child is deemed to be stoned or not.
That it's so obviously unrelated that I think what it's saying is, Hey, don't be, don't be limited even by what's relevant. Oh, so, so the read, so the learner that, you know, the law student of the Yeshiva, rabbi Akiva, is gonna go, oh, I, I see how it works. Oh, I get what I can do. Oh my gosh. Alright,
DAN LIBENSON: right
BENAY LAPPE: now.
DAN LIBENSON: I mean, I mean like an example of that is like, so it's been a long time since I've read it.
I think we talked about it a little bit last week or a previous time, like, you know, Steve Greenberg, rabbi Steve Greenberg, wrote a book called Wrestling with God in Men where he try, he's an orthodox rabbi who's gay and he is trying to, um, find waves to deal with Leviticus and other, other sort, you know, problematic sources about homosexuality and.
One thing that I remember, I think in that book is that he talks about, well, when it says a man should not lie with a man, you know, the, the way the man lies with a woman, that meant a, a very particular thing in the ancient world. You know, there, it wasn't what we call today homosexuality, where it's a loving relationship.
It was a power. You know, all kinds of things like that. Be that as it may, I'm not saying that's a bad argument and it's not true. I think it's a great argument, but you could go further than that. And I think Steve doesn't, and I'm not sure exactly. I haven't prepared that particular, but you know, imagine it's like.
Well, um, you know, the, the, the, this, the verse right before it said, you know, said that something else, you know, I said, well, but that's not, you know, that because that somebody didn't have hands or because, you know, a, a person, let's say a person, a person who, uh, doesn't have a foot, can't really lie the way that a woman lies.
You know, I mean, like, things like that. Right. And you're, you're kind of like, well, it's kind of absurd. It's not obviously what they're trying to get at, but, but it's obviously a technique that would be very analogous to this, you know? Yeah. You say, well, lying there, they meant on a bed of straw, and now we lie on a mattress, so it's not, you know, and, and that's a much less profound argument than what Steve is doing by like, researching the ancient world and the kinds of relationships that people had.
But it may be just as valid to say, well, it doesn't count, because then it was a bed of straw, and now we only have mattresses, you know?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. My problem. I, I love Steve. My problem with his approach though, is that it allows for the possibility that in fact, the verse means exactly what it's been used to mean, Uhhuh, and then your hands would be tied.
If you can't make the argument, oh no, that doesn't mean what we experience, that doesn't mean what queerness is about today. That allows for the possibility that if it did, you'd be stuck. And the fact is you would not be stuck.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: No one is stuck.
DAN LIBENSON: Right?
BENAY LAPPE: Nobody's hands are tied. The point of the Talmud is to say,
DAN LIBENSON: Hey, everybody, sorry about that technical issue. We don't know what happened. Um, so hopefully you are now seeing, uh, if you're watching on Facebook, you're now seeing, uh, a new thing that popped up and, and we're back. So, uh, anyway, so, so Benet, uh, you were saying that, um, the,
BENAY LAPPE: the, the problem with. The approach of this part of the Torah doesn't apply because it didn't mean what we think it meant, it meant something else.
In other words saying that Leviticus 1822 doesn't refer to homosexuality, quote unquote today because it was talking about a relationship of power difference between heterosexual people. The problem with that argument is you would then be stuck in a corner with a verse that probably very clearly Absolutely.
Did mean, and it could be the case with Leviticus or some other verse did mean exactly what we have trouble with it. Meaning, and if you can't say, oh no, that,
DAN LIBENSON: hey, I think I know what's going on. But, uh, let's just keep, keep going, I think.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. Alright. Um, the. The
power of the methodology that is modeled over and over and over in the Talmud is that it makes very clear that we are not limited by the original intent or the obvious meaning of a text. So even if a text actually does mean what it looks like, it means, and we find it difficult, we are not bound to continue, um, perpetuating that norm in the tradition.
And our very text, I, I, I think, is going to speak to exactly this issue in the end. Um, so let's put a sticky on it and, um, we'll, we'll see that exact issue come up today.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay,
BENAY LAPPE: I hope today.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. And apologies for the, uh, tech, uh, issues. I think we hit solved them. Um, okay, good. All right. So, so the Gamara is looking, is, is really focused on this last statement of Rabbi Yehuda who says this thing about if the mother was not suited for the father, uh, then you can't be a southern rebellious son.
So he's kind of, so the gemara is kind of going into, well, what does, what does he mean? The not suited for the father? And the gemara says if we say that, uh, due to their marriage, they are among those who are liable to receive curate. In other words, that they're, uh, a kind of, some kind of marriage that shouldn't be allowed, uh, which I imagine means like, uh, things like, uh, like, um, incest or that kind of thing.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, so, so in, in a case like that where the marriage, they wouldn't actually be married. Um, and, and certainly if the union puts them in, uh, a ca in a kind of a case, an even worse case of I guess incest that like they, that they received the death penalty. So is some kind of like, uh, being cut off from the community and, and the death penalty is even worse
BENAY LAPPE: and the light and the world to come,
DAN LIBENSON: the world to
BENAY LAPPE: come divine extrication as it were.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So these kind of very like sinful marriages then, then they're not actually married. So that's the initial attempt to explain this. Uh, right. And, and, and then they say, you know, that's, that's what they mean, that they're not suited, they're not actually married. And so maybe that has somehow has an effect on the kid, I guess is kind of what the, the original thinking is.
And the, the gamara says, uh, but ultimately his father is still his father and his mother is still his mother. So that can't be the, that can't be what Rabbi Yehuda means is that. The right way to,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah. Yeah, I agree. And we know that according to Jewish law, the marital status of two people who are halachically permitted to marry one another.
In other words, whether they actually are married or not is immaterial to the halachic status of their child. The, the, the bastard, the moms there is not a child who is conceived out of wedlock. It's a child conceived from, um, a forbidden. Union, but nevertheless, in this case, the father is still the father and the mother is still the mother, and those are the two parties involved in bringing the child to the elder.
The objection says, so what, what difference does it make? Even if they were, um, not suited in the sense of not being halachically permitted to one another. Okay, fine.
DAN LIBENSON: Right, so the. To the Kamara goes on to explain. No. So yeah, that wasn't the reason. That wasn't the explanation. The explanation is that rather he's saying, rabbi Huda is saying that the boys mother must be,
BENAY LAPPE: I'm sorry, why?
Why take what could be the likely explanation, I think could take of a much more ridiculous one Here. This is the most ridiculous definition of not suited that we can think of. Let's
DAN LIBENSON: play that one out. So what, so what Rabbi Yehuda is actually saying is that the mother must be identical to the father. In, in, in several respects is the, the commentary.
So, so in, so we're gonna go on to, um, to see what that, what that, uh, identical means, but, but, uh, suit and what the, the, the word that, uh, rabbi Yehuda uses in the Hebrew. The mishna is is what? Riri
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah,
DAN LIBENSON: ri yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Like the feminine of ra ui.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. So that is, so I, I would say suited is a pretty good explanation.
Like appropriate for Yeah. Appropriate suit.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, so, uh, okay, so the, um, so the, the Kumar says, no, no, what what suited means is identical, which really, you know, it, it doesn't, uh, I mean that's not a great, um, that's not a great way to, to interpret that. It's not like, it's not like it's a word that could be translated as identical.
Right, right.
BENAY LAPPE: And in what world are two people being similar in the ways we're about to see physical appearance in, in what way does anyone think of that as suitability in terms of a partnership?
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: It's an obviously farfetched un unsupported by the text. Obviously never intended, um, meaning,
DAN LIBENSON: right.
BENAY LAPPE: So another lesson in how to, uh, interpret text out of its
DAN LIBENSON: well and well, and just to, and just to make the point that it's actually sort of like a double limitation here, because in the Mishna, right, Mishna put into around the year 200, it's, it's finalized.
So in the Mishna, uh, it says that the mother and the father have to be suited to each other. And we just said before, well, what does that have to do with the kid? You know, like, the kid is battery is not bad. What does it matter if the parents are suited for one another? So Rabbi Yehuda's already making this limitation that has nothing to do with the kid being wayward and rebellious as a way of limiting the, the, uh, the, the scope of, of the, uh, applicability.
And then the gamara, you know, three, 400 years later is coming along and say, and, and, and interpreting that in a way that makes it even more absurd and even more limited. Than it was, which was already absurdly limiting because it had nothing to do with the kid in the first place. Right. So,
BENAY LAPPE: you know, what you're making me think of is probably when Rabbi Yehuda, at the time of the mission has said the parents have to be suited to one another.
It's, I think it's reasonable to assume that what he meant was
they not,
I don't know. They have to be both on, I'm not even sure. I was going to say that we're gonna give the kid an out if his parents are like, their relationship is so messed up as to. Kind of late, maybe this is guilty parent talking.
DAN LIBENSON: I dunno. Well, I was Do, sorry,
BENAY LAPPE: go ahead. Go ahead.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, I was, I was just thinking about it as like, in the context of like divorce, you know, like in the context of parents who are not suited to each other, you, you, you know, you could imagine this case where they're kind of using the child as a way to hurt the other one.
So, you know, I almost think about Solomon and the, the two mothers, you know, the splitting, the, you know, there's something about saying, well, like, you know, just to like, I don't want you to get custody. I don't want you to get custody. So like, let's just kill the boy, you know, and like, okay, I'll kill him.
You know? Right. Whereas like if you say no, no, the parents have to be suited for each other. Meaning they have to actually be, be still loving and still in a relationship. And if parents who have a good relationship nevertheless come and say. We both agree that this, this is a bad seed or a bad egg. My wife and I always argue whether the kids are a bad seed or a bad egg, you know?
But, um, the, the, you know, and then, and then they, they, um, and then they, they would agree then that that would be a sign. Like, okay, you know, we should take that seriously because these are actually parents who, who love each other and are good for each other. And they agree that this is a very bad, dangerous.
So that,
BENAY LAPPE: that's what I was trying to say, but I got lost in the negatives
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: That's it. That's it.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, you know, so in that case, it's not quite as absurd. It actually, it's maybe a bit of a limitation that makes some sense,
BENAY LAPPE: right? But now the gamara is taking it to obvious, absurd place,
DAN LIBENSON: right? So the Gamara goes on, it says, so the boy is identical to the father in several aspects.
This is also taught in a Brita, which means that the Gamara is claiming. We didn't, we never really know if this is, uh, true, although I guess sometimes you, it's actually in a book of the Tosta. But the, the Gamara is saying that there's another source that we have from the time of the Mishna that's not part of the Mishna, but it's from the same period of the Mishna, the same characters.
And, and there, rabbi Yehuda actually, uh, said, went further than, than what he said here. And he said if the mother was not identical to the father in voice, appearance and height, he does not become a, a stubborn and rebellious son. So, you know, so there's like, they, they justand they have to be like literally identical.
Like they have to be the same height, the same voice, and they have to look the same,
BENAY LAPPE: right? I mean, once you, once you say height. Appearance. Appearance, that's obviously like, okay, wild, ridiculous. And then voice, they have to actually have the same tone, tenor quality of voice,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
BENAY LAPPE: So
DAN LIBENSON: this is like the, you know, attack of the clones, you know, and, and Star Wars, you know, it's like they only if they're clones, right?
Could they, could they, you know, be, and um,
BENAY LAPPE: okay, so now, now, now the reader, the learners in the bait mer are laughing out loud,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
BENAY LAPPE: And now the text tur now starts to really show its hand and it's no longer winking. And there are not that many examples in the Talmud where the wink is named, in other words, where they show their hand and they say.
I am overturning this because of my Sava or the, the, all the ic interpretive moves we've made.
W we know we are making them, um, only because our savara is driving us. Okay? And this is one of those examples where they start to show their hand, and here it comes.
DAN LIBENSON: So the Gamara explains the basis for what Rabbi Yehuda apparently said. What is the reason for this? The verse states, the ver the verse Deuteronomy, the same verse that we were looking at about saying that the parents had to have the same ha uh, you know, how to both have hands and legs and all that, you know, misreading that verse.
So they now gonna continue, or, you know, misread the verse in a different way. And the verse in Deuteronomy says that the parents come to the elders and they say that our son will not obey our voices Knu. And the Gamara is saying that what that means is that. They must be identical in voice, so, so instead of saying our voice is knu, the gamara is understanding that to be our voice.
Right. And that they have not, that they sang in unison and they both agreed, which is a reasonable interpretation, but the unreasonable interpretation of they actually have the same voice. Right,
BENAY LAPPE: right. Because if the wink, the wink goes, if the texted said he doesn't.
That would be the plural of voice, that would be voices. If it, if it didn't wanna say they have to speak in an identical voice, it would've said it differently. The fact that it says in our one singular voice, ah, they have to speak with the same tone of voice. Okay. Obviously ridiculous.
DAN LIBENSON: And then this is a term like I, I was thinking of least a prayer, right.
That we sang on Shabbat, you know, Shama knu, you know, God listened to our voice like it, you know, it doesn't mean that all the Jews have the same voice. Right. Um, okay. So, uh, so the Kamar goes on since we require that they be identical in voice, of course, you know, clearly follows from there that we should also require that they be identical in appearance and height,
BENAY LAPPE: presumably, because in order to be identical in voice, you have to be identical in appearance and height.
So those are derivative interpretations, which are obvious. Also nonsensical.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. 'cause of some like physical, physical way that the voice is produced. That was, that they have like a pseudoscience idea of that. And by the way, like, yeah. Okay. I'm just thinking about how, you know, there are these studies that you come to look like your spouse over a long period of time, or like,
BENAY LAPPE: I thought that was your dog.
DAN LIBENSON: I, I was gonna say like, a person looks like their dog, you know, it's like, that's maybe like, they look a little similar, not identical, you know. Um, okay. Okay. So, um, so the Gamara asks in accordance with, whose opinion is that? Which is Todd Reta. Here's another statement from Abrea. There has never been a stubborn or rebellious son, and there never will be one in the future.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. So this is super famous line and this is like the, the, the, the Talmud is really now acknowledging that we. Have not only now written out of possibility or existence, a stubborn and rebellious sun, but such as stubborn and rebellious sun never, ever actually happened. Ben Surya never was and never will be.
Okay. K
DAN LIBENSON: And, and when they say that they're ascribing this to a Brita, they're, they're saying that even though we've just gone all through all these machinations and all these limitations, everything, it turns out that they had another, or they claim to have another well-known saying, you know, in their back pocket that they're never this, this never, there never was any such thing and there never will be.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: They could have just brought that. Much earlier.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. But they needed to do the how to
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: But I think this move is really important. Um, but, but put the text back because where it's gonna go next I think is even a more radical move by the tradition than the tradition acknowledging that it's not only the boys who meet the req ridiculous requirements that we just laid out, who will never be deemed a Ben Mor.
Nobody, no matter what requirements they fulfill or not fulfill will ever be deemed one. So all of these requirements are immaterial, nor has such a child ever been so deemed or stoned.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. It's, it, it's like taking your arm and wiping it across the chest table and saying. Everything that happened here, it doesn't matter because I win.
Mm. It it, none of the moves matter. None of the rules matter. We really mean to wipe this category out of existence and regardless of one's adherence to these, you know, or, or fulfillment of these evidentiary requirements, nobody will ever velo will ever be a Ben Marette, and none ever was. I, I think it's the, and none ever was, is actually the place that motivates the, the next piece of text.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Because while there's a certain beauty in saying no, there never was and there never will be. I think that, that the rabbis recognize the danger. And saying Never was and never will be, never was, and never will be, is beautiful. And it's a, a broad statement of what we're about and what we will always be about, but it erases a history and, and that's what I think is important.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. So the, the gemara is asking initially, well, I was asking whose, whose opinion is that statement meant to accord with? And they go on and ask, and why was the passage relating to sub rebellious unwritten in the Torah? Like, if, if this, uh, never was and never will be, then why does it say this in the, in the Torah?
And they, I guess what they're saying is that the, this, uh, this Brita goes on and, and explain and says, you know, again, they're asking whose opinion is this whole set of statements that this, uh, never was and ever will be? And why was it written in the Torah so that you may expound and receive a reward?
So that you, that that it was somebody's opinion is that it was written in the Torah simply to allow you to, um, go through this process of, of figuring out how not to do it so that you would be rewarded for it. Is that how you read it?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. You know, I, I sort of skipped over this move, skipped this move is, is stunning.
And I, I think is the point. Is it the, like a fulcrum, I dunno. It's the point after which the tradition will never be the same again and has never been the same. What it's saying here is, gosh, if, if that's so that there never will be a Ben Marette and there never was one, well then why did God put in the Torah that there is such a person and such a person should be stoned?
And the rabbi's answer to that is so that you will look at that verse in the Torah and. I see them saying is, and interpret it outta existence. Not just interpret it, interpret it outta existence, and that that's what you get the gold star for. That's what God wants you to do. But what's fascinating about this move is that it changes the Torah from the manual for how to behave according to God's will into an unreliable manual for knowing what God wants of me.
And it turns what's right and what's wrong into a where's Waldo essentially. Because if God put that in the Torah so that I would find it, feel morally disgusted by it and write it out of existence, that means God must have done the same thing with other pieces in the Torah. And we're about to see, there are several examples.
Um. Now, every line I read in the Torah, I cannot take it face value completely shifting my relationship with God in the tradition. I'm no longer sort of a passive recipient of how do I know what to do? Just read it, follow this and you'll be good to go. No, I'm no longer good to go. Now I know that God wants me to read each line and go, is this what God wants me to do or does?
Is this what God wants me to absolutely not do and write out of existence for my children and the future generations? That's enormous. Now, every one of us is essentially a rabbi whose job it is to dro star, to read and decide, is this what I should do or is this what I, what God put here as a kind of moral, not trap exactly, but.
Opportunity and responsibility to say, no, this is what I'm not gonna do. And the reward is becoming the kind of human being that it takes to do that. And the world we, we build from that stance. Sorry.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, I think it's another one of these categories like Savara or, um, you know, and others that, that are very dangerous.
Like, actually, I, I, uh, texted you last week because I was reading, my wife and I were doing the Domi, the Daily Talmud page. And, and one of the things that, that I came across, which like I don't think that I had known before, was with the, that it said that X shava, which is a certain kind of, uh, interpretive technique where you basically just take like a, ran the, the two words are in two different verses and they have nothing at all to do with each other whatsoever, except that two words are there.
The same word is in this verse, and the same word is in that verse, and you can somehow derive some principle based on the fact that the same word was in two completely different verses. Right?
BENAY LAPPE: Right. There's something that applies to the context where the word appeared at one time. Must therefore also equally apply in the other context.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. And even, even though for from a sort of like normal, straightforward reading, they have zero to do with each other. And actually in the Talmud there, it said that you're only allowed to do that move if you learned it from a teacher on the theory that the teacher learned it from his teacher all the way back to Moses and Sinai.
And so yeah, these are like secret, uh, you know, the oral traditional secret things that were, are being passed down and that they're actually there, but you're not allowed to discover it on your own. You're only allowed to know it if you get it from a teacher. That was a case of a very, uh, and a very explicit attempt to limit that.
And my guess is that, you know, at some point they, somebody went a little far with that and, and they got nervous, right, that they said, wait a second. This is a very powerful interpretive technique because we all. We all know that you could do that, kind of take everything out of context completely. That's a really dangerous move.
Let's try to limit it, uh, or at least give the facade of limiting it.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Because I don't believe the rabbis believed in any, even the theoretical limitation, uhhuh to interpretation, it's always bothered me that I, that that limitation on the g rash cha has always bothered me. And at this moment I'm wondering if they limited it, not because it's so dangerous, but because it's so flimsy and obvious because it, it's so kind of baldly reveals the capriciousness and the deliberate.
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh
BENAY LAPPE: at the win. Dunno.
DAN LIBENSON: No, that's a great perspective. We should come back to that. That's a great, uh, point of view. Like, yeah. But, but there are these kind of moves that are out there that are, that are just so powerful that they are dangerous or I, you know, I wouldn't call them dangerous. I would call them, uh, I would call them exciting, but, uh, but they're, they're dangerous.
If you believe that this is supposed to be this kind of closed system that is very, very limiting. These kinds of interpretive moves like Dr. Kakar, this idea that the reason why this terrible thing is in the Torah is specifically so that you won't do it, so that you will be motivated to practice your skills at.
What we talked about months ago, this idea that the great students were the ones that could find 70 different ways to say that the creepy, crawling and pure thing was actually pure. Like that. The whole point is to use as a, um, you know, as a, as a, as a training ground to cultivate this ability to make sure that you don't actually do immoral things just because they're in the Torah.
Uh, you know, but, and the obvious, the obvious danger is there that, the obvious danger about that is that, you know, well, how do I know that any law in the Torah isn't that keeping kosher? You know, how do I know that that's not just there to, you know, to to, so that I can legislate it out of existence? And so that, you know, and that's where I guess also you have to say, well, that's where we trust your safara.
You know, you're, that you've cultivated your, your wisdom and you're not gonna just do it willy-nilly just so you can get away with things.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And to return to the point you made originally, that there are contemporary issues. That call upon us to use the same approach. Um, I am, I'm recalling that Gordon Tucker, um, who was a member of the Conservative Movements Committee on Jewish law and Standards, wrote a very, very powerful paper when the issue of the conservative movement's stance on quote unquote gays and lesbians, um, was up for a vote.
And the title, he, he argued very strongly that the seminary should admit openly queer folk to the seminary and should place gay rabbis and so on. And the title of his cva Dro Kakar.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm. So he was arguing that we should specifically do that with. Leviticus.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Okay. Um, okay.
BENAY LAPPE: But, but now here comes, here comes my favorite part.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Um,
BENAY LAPPE: so of this entire se
DAN LIBENSON: um, so then the, then the Talmud says, in accordance with whose opinion is it, it's in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda, who was talking about the parents having identical characteristics. Or you have, you could say that it's actually in accordance with a different opinion from a different Brita that, uh, of Rabbi Shimo, because we have a Brita where rabbi, again, a Brita is a piece of, uh, text from the time of the mission that's not actually in the Mishna.
And, and apparently we have a text where Rabbi Shiman says, uh, and is it simply due to the fact that the boy ate a Tarte Mar of meat and drank a half log of Italian wine, that his father and mother should take him out to stone him? So that goes back to one of the, you know. Uh, limitations that we had, that, you know, he can only be a stubborn, rebellious son if he met this crazy limitation of having, you know, a certain amount of meat and a certain amount of wine.
And that seems, you know, rabbi Shiman here seems to say, like, that seems kind of absurd. Like, you're gonna, you're gonna execute somebody just because he happened to eat this right kind of meat and the right kind of wine. I mean, and he goes on and he says, no rather, there has never been a stubborn, rebellious sun and there never will be one in the future.
Uh, and why was this written in the tourist? So you may expound and receive a reward.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, so the text is, now, this isn't the part I was so excited about it's part coming out. But in any case, this is the part where, again, they're trying to connect the dots for you, that these outrageous requirements were written by people who believed that there never was and there never will be.
In other words, by people whose. Goal, it was to write the stoning of a stubborn and rebellious son out of the Jewish tradition in spite of the fact that the Torah has it. So,
DAN LIBENSON: right.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: And so Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimo are both agreeing that this never was, never will be. That all of this stuff that we've been studying, all of these limitations that they're, that, that they, yeah, they're, they're like potential limitations.
But the point of all of them was exactly what we've been saying, which is to demonstrate to you that this has never actually existed. And if it's never actually existed, why in the Torah. So that you will interpret and receive a reward for your, you know, brilliant interpretations. And then,
BENAY LAPPE: and write it and write out, out, write it out of existence.
DAN LIBENSON: Write it out of existence.
BENAY LAPPE: It, and the, and the text could end here and it would be glorious. Mm-hmm. Right. Never was and never will be. You find something that, that really morally violates what you think any reasonable God could want. Your job is to write that out of existence and play the never was and never will be card, right?
No, no, no, no. It doesn't. You know, there aren't these requirements. It's never existed, which is a stronger argument on its face than we're not gonna do this anymore. No, it's not just that we're not gonna do it anymore. We never did it. Mm. So don't think that I'm playing fast and loose with the Torah. There was nothing to play fast and loose with.
It never was done, and it never will be done, never will be done. And it never was done. So it's not like I'm doing something radical here.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm.
BENAY LAPPE: But that could have been the end, and that would've been powerful and interesting, and we could have taken that approach with everything that we see in the tower that violates us, that we don't want to be part of the future.
Okay. Now comes Rabbi,
DAN LIBENSON: and then comes in the voice of Rabbi who says. No, this isn't, that's not right. That this never was and never will be. I saw one and I even sat on his grave.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. So Ravi time is saying, wait a minute. Stop. Stop this. BS with never was and never will be. There absolutely was. Okay, let's get real folks.
There was a stubborn, rebellious son who was stoned. I know that with my life because I sat on that child's grave. I know it as a fact. Now you have to know that rabbi was a kohe. Okay? And what that means is, and everyone who reads this text is presumed to know. That a khan is not permitted into a cemetery, okay?
They're not permitted to come that close to dead bodies, which transmit impurity. But there's an exception to that law for Kohanim, and that's for their own family. In other words, for their seven relations, father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, child.
So if this child whose grave rabbi is sitting on was a stubborn and rebellious sign, as he says he was, it had to have been his own child. Could conceivably be, have been his brother. My sense is it was his child. The child that he brought to the elders of the town to be stoned. And he did just what the tradition told him to do.
And he's saying, I, I did what you told me to do. I did what God told me. I followed the law and my kid is dead, so don't tell me this never happened. And what do you, you know what I mean? There's something very violent about wiping out the abuses that the tradition perpetrated on us in the past.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Don't forget the violence that happened, and that can happen if you forget what was done.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I don't know that, that, for me, this, this moment is just, it's heartbreaking. You know? I also imagine him saying, what do you mean we're not supposed to do this? Right. What do you mean? Then we were, now, I, I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, no, and that's where like I, I think about it. You know, for me being so far from the reality of a stubborn or rebellious son or any son that you would stone any person that you would stone. And, um, you know, by the way, in the, in the Daily Talmud page the other day, there was something about like, uh, you know, how to execute somebody and in a merciful way that, that to pour, like burning lead down their throat.
My wife couldn't get over that. She was like, that's a merciful way to execute people. You know, we're so far from, from any of that, that it's poignant and yet it sort of still feels like a story. But when I think about, let's say that Gordon Tucker was at the rabbinical meeting where he is presenting this analysis of Leviticus and saying, and, and that's why we shouldn't.
Uh, cut, you know, cut off our children who are gay and, and we never did. We never, it was never the law to do that. And some rabbis sitting there saying, but I did. But I did do that and, and I did it not because I wanted to. I, it was the last thing I wanted to do is because, by the way, like I know rabbis who have done, like, for example, um, um, you know, cut off relatives, uh, that have intermarried or, you know, refuse to attend a wedding of somebody who's intermarried, which is a much less horrible thing than cutting them off from your life.
But it's still very painful. And the reason why they did it was not because they. Wanted to, or even, because if they were a a, like a, a citizen, they would've not gone. It's because they're a rabbi that they think that they're supposed to kind of be an example to the community. And so they're willing sort of, I put this in quotation, but they're willing to accept this pain and this destruction into their own family so that they can do what they perceive of as their job, which is to stand for the ideal way to be Jewish and, and a lot of pain.
Comes from that. And you imagine a situation like this where somebody says, you know, actually we've never sat Shiva for somebody that, and you're married, we've never had a rule that they should be, you know, cut off from the community. And this person is saying, but wait a second. I, I did it. And it wasn't even for me.
It was because I thought that that was my job as a rabbi. And you know, that's,
BENAY LAPPE: and you told me it was my job and you told me I was gonna be disbarred if I didn't do it. Because
DAN LIBENSON: by the way Yeah, you told me that last week. You wasn't like, you know, this wasn't like ancient history. This was like, I, I did this last week.
Yeah. You know, and now you're telling me it never was and never will be. And it's only there so that we wouldn't interpret it and get a reward, you know? It's, yeah. Very tragic.
BENAY LAPPE: And, and I think it's so poignant that the editor puts in the Rabbi Yoan story, and it's not just for the stubborn, rebellious sun.
We're gonna see two other examples of other things that the rabbis wrote out of existence and stuck the. Very powerful, but also dangerous label of, oh, that never was, it never will be. Oh, that never was. It never. And again, every time Rabbi Unan stands up and he goes, wait a minute, you know that that city I, that that idolatrous city that Right, you told us we weren't supposed to destroy and kill all the, i I sat on the ruins of that city and so on and so forth.
And I just think it's an ingenious move by the, to say don't, I'm not sure what a better term is on whitewash, but don't forget the his, don't forget the violence of the history. You have to tell the story of the violence. Because if you don't, then the person who reads Dr. Kakar never was and never will be, may only be moved by something that they don't actually know happened, but that they think maybe never did happen.
Oh. So we only have this power to say, you know, never was and never will be to stuff that actually never happened. We actually have the power to say never should be to stuff that did happen. And I think, I think that's a takeaway from the Rabbi Yan piece. It's, yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: So your, your take is that these, these ideas of never was and never will be, are actually from Bright Tote.
So meaning they're, they're older traditions, texts or traditions and what you understand the gamara to be doing. So, and a lot of the gamara we see them, the gamara limiting the application of this more, even more than the Mica does. Or more obviously, or more absurdly than the Mishna does. But at the end of the day, the Mishna, or let's say the bright, the contemporary time of the Mishna was trying to kind of like get away with, oh, we never really did this.
And the, the gamara is coming in there and it's saying, no, no, no. We're not gonna let you do that. Right. We're gonna, we're gonna actually do a better job than you mission of people of, of actually showing how this is going to ne never will happen in the future because this is so limited in all these absurd ways.
But we're not gonna let you get away with the claim that it actually never happened in the past because it did. And, and you need to kind of do truva for that.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. The more radical move is actually to say was but never will be.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Than to say never was and never will be.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: And I think that's what the Rabbi Time pieces said.
Yeah. It was,
DAN LIBENSON: yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Despite the fact that it was
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Meant exactly what it says.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: And we did it and we shouldn't anymore. Yeah. That's the move you want to put into the tradition as something for your descendants to stand on, your shoulders to do.
DAN LIBENSON: You know, I, I think I told this story before and on this show, but I, I think it, it's very, it, it, it fits in right here and, and may maybe I, I didn't, when I was a law professor, I was actually teaching at a Catholic law school, and one of my colleagues was a Catholic Canon lawyer, and he.
You know, had come up with this, uh, reasoning for a, or I don't think it was just him. I think there was a, a school that was, had this, this new reasoning for having an annulment, which would, you know, allow a lot of people to get outta bad marriages, which was basically like if your spouse had an affair, that means that he wasn't really the person you believed him to be when you got married.
And, and therefore the contract was, uh, wasn't, you know, it was, it was like, I, I think I probably told the story back when we were talking about like. Contracts under duress or different excuses for contracts. Because in this particular case, it's like, well, since you didn't know, you didn't actually know who you were marrying, so you didn't really marry them.
And in Catholicism you can only, you can't get divorced. 'cause the, the idea is you physically can't get divorced 'cause the marriage bond is, is unbreakable. And so you, the only way to, to, to break it is to say or to it never was. Never was and never will be. Right. You know? Mm-hmm. And so he came up with this, uh, argument that said, this is called a mistake, which is often a way to get out of a contract, a mistake as to the quality of the person.
And from now on, you can get an annulment. I mean, I don't know if this is widely accepted in Catholicism, but at least in his argument, it was like, from now on, you would be able to get an annulment if it turns out that your spouse had an affair. Because that would mean by definition that it was a mistake as to the quality of the person.
And I said to him, that's sounds wonderful. I'm very happy for people to be able to get out of a bad marriage. And, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna opine about the, the Catholic. Rules. I don't know, but I said to him, but it strikes me as kind of tragic also because it feels to me like what you're saying is that for the last 2000 years, there have been people that have been stuck in bad marriages and it turns out that they actually were never married, you know, and they could have had an annulment.
And that just feels very sad. And I don't think it really, he wasn't that excited about my take, you know? And I don't, but, and, and I don't think I meant this at the time, but now on reflection from this conversation, like I'm thinking like actually that's the appropriate, that's the tragedy that we're talking about.
Like, it did happen for 2000 years. There were people, women generally trapped in bad marriages with a cheating spouse. And that is horrible and sad. And it was a result of the way that the law was understood. And we can't erase that, but we're never gonna do it again. You know,
BENAY LAPPE: it's not that it was the result of the way the law was understood.
It, it was a result of the lack of.
License or sense that the right thing to do that what God really wants us to do is to no longer do that, is to interpret it differently, to interpret it out of existence.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: All right. Well, um, I, I'm looking forward to, to, you know, more of these, uh, Dr. And, and seeing how that works and it's another, another, um, arrow in our quiver, I guess.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so we'll, uh, we'll end there and we will pick it up again next week. Well, with a new, a new, uh, piece of text.
BENAY LAPPE: Great.
DAN LIBENSON: Thanks Dan. Bye.
BENAY LAPPE: Bye.
DAN LIBENSON: Thanks so much for joining our chevruta today! We hope you’ve enjoyed learning with us… and with the Talmud. You can find links to the source sheets for all episodes in the show notes and on our website at oraltalmud.com. Your support helps keep Oral Talmud going. You can find a link on the website to contribute. We’d also love to hear from you! Email us with any questions, comments, or thoughts at hello@oraltalmud.com. Please, share your Oral Talmud with us – we’re so excited to learn from you. The Oral Talmud is a joint project of SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva and Judaism Unbound, two organizations that are dedicated to making Jewish texts and ideas more accessible for everyone. We are especially grateful to Sefaria for an incredible platform that makes the Talmud available to everyone. It’s free at sefaria.org. And we are grateful to SVARA-nik Ezra Furman for composing and performing The Oral Talmud’s musical theme. The Oral Talmud is produced by Joey Taylor, with help from Olivia Devorah Tucker, and with financial support from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. Thanks so much for listening–and with that, this has been the Oral Talmud. See ya next time.
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