The Oral Talmud Episode 45: The Svara Torah (Bava Batra 9a)
SHOW NOTES
“ I think the value that's being privileged here is relieving suffering. It's not fiscal responsibility, it's not caution, it's not never making a mistake in giving to an undeserving person. Those are values, but making sure someone who's suffering isn't suffering, even if it's gonna cost us more money, that's a more fundamental value. And that's the Svara that wins.” - 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, a community collects its money, lines form, and the demand is always greater than the supply. Some people are hungry. Some are exposed. Some are lying. And someone has to decide—right now—who gets helped and who gets turned away.
Benay and Dan dive into a brutal rabbinic argument about triage: Do you check up on the claims of the hungry and risk their suffering, or trust them and risk being fooled? Beneath the surface, the question cuts deeper, what matters more: preventing abuse, or preventing pain? And who gets to decide when those values collide?
This week’s text: Bava Batra 9a
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 45: The Svara Torah.
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, a community collects its money, lines form, and the demand is always greater than the supply. Some people are hungry. Some are exposed. Some are lying. And someone has to decide—right now—who gets helped and who gets turned away.
Benay and I dive into a brutal rabbinic argument about triage: Do you check up on the claims of the hungry and risk their suffering, or trust them and risk being fooled? Beneath the surface, the question cuts deeper—what matters more: preventing abuse, or preventing pain? And who gets to decide when those values collide?
DAN LIBENSON: Welcome back everyone. I'm Dan Levison, and I am here with Bene Lapi, as always for this week's episode of the Oral Talmud. Hey Bene.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey, Dan. How are you?
DAN LIBENSON: All right. Um, so Benet, what, uh, what's on our agenda today?
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, so we're gonna learn a text. I know I always say this, but one of my favorites from Babara, um, and what's going on in the track date of Babara in this, uh, first chapter specifically, um, is.
Uh, our discussions about how we, um, distribute, collect, and distribute to daca. So the rabbis are fleshing out their system of economic justice and in our, on our particular page, they're dealing with the question of how do we distribute charitable funds that have been collected from the communi community equitably and responsibly?
And I think the background that this page expects you to know is that the rabbis have defined what it means to have a Jewish community. And a Jewish community is a town. Um. That has a school and it has a mikvah and it has a number of things. And as far as social and economic justice goes, it has to have two methods of distributing help to people who need help.
One is a daily distribution of food, and that's food that was collected from the members of the town, and that's called the Tam Hui. The daily distribution of food to those members who, um, uh, those people who live in the town or passers through, they're also eligible to collect from the daily food bank, essentially the tam.
And then every town needs to have what's called a cuppa. And the cuppa is a more substantial distribution of monetary funds that's distributed once a week on a Friday. And only those residents of the town are eligible to collect passersby are not eligible. And they're very interesting rules about who's obligated to contribute.
So if you have lived in the town for 30 days, you are then responsible to contribute food to the tam. And if you have lived in the town for three months, you are then responsible to contribute money to the cup. And there are takah collectors who go house to house every day collecting, you know, a little bit of your kugel, a little bit of your pot roast, whatever, and they distribute it.
And takah collectors who go to every home once a week and collect money. And it, what's interesting is they decide how much you should give. Probably this is before tax returns and all of that. And they,
DAN LIBENSON: the collectors decide how much you should
BENAY LAPPE: give the collectors decide how much like they decide how much.
10%. So that's what you, they, you know, that's what the rabbi set as the minimal amount. You can give up to 20, but not more than 20. The collectors say, okay, you live in this house. I think it, it's a little problematic maybe, but they decide what basically 10% is. They use all sorts of forms of coercion to get you to give that 10%, and there are all sorts of rules for what pocket they can put the money in so that they're not misperceived as pocketing it and stealing it.
All sorts of interesting rules. Okay. Now the question at hand in our passage and our sogi is we've already learned how the money and the food is collected with regard to the, the Coupa, the distribution of money institution specifically, how do we distribute the funds? The assumption is that there will be more requests and more need than there will ever be funds for.
So the question is, what do you do then? To whom do you give, to whom do you not give? How do we best distribute the funds so that the people who need it most get it? Uh, knowing that there will also be people who will stand in line. That's their assumption. Who will ask for money, who aren't deserving. So that adds a different complication.
So that's the question. How do we distribute these funds? And they're distributed by Abate Dean, three people. Uh, but the question is, what criteria do we use to distribute less funds than there's need for? Alright. That's, that's the setup.
DAN LIBENSON: And, and I know that we're gonna look at some of this a little bit in, in the passage, but to what, I guess my question is like, how much of this is your sense that this whole institution is rabbinic as opposed to like that there was some.
Longstanding Israelite practice of this nature because we don't find anything like that in the Bible. Right. Like, we don't have any, right. We have a sense that the priests were taken care of by sacrifices and whatnot, but not that there was any kind of structure taken care of poor people other than commands that you should care for the poor.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. And my understanding of the rabbinic project is among other things to take the, the very broad directives of taking care of the poor and institutionalizing them and saying, okay, exactly. How are we gonna do that? But I don't know if they were building, probably they were building on some practice that was ex extent.
I, I'm not sure.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay. So let's jump into the text. So we're at in, uh, the Tractate Baba Batra. Uh, and, uh, that's a series of track tapes that have to do more with like, I guess you'd call it like civil law, right? I mean, uh, yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: And, um, and so, you know, I've actually been, um, you know, we've been doing the daily Talmud page and it's been, uh, the track date of PA Passover.
Uh, now I, I was so excited. You know, we're gonna learn things about Passover, but somewhere we're on page, I think like 96, and it's only been about the Pascal Lamb, and it's very frustrating. These are very much more interesting, in my opinion, track dates. Anyway, okay, let's jump in. Uh,
BENAY LAPPE: so we're, we're on page nine A,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
So page nine A. So it starts by saying that Una says Sedah collectors, these folks that you're talking about, they examine one who asks for food, but they do not examine one who asks for clothing.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. So I think I've, I. Might wanna tweak this translation a bit more to say Takah distributors Uhhuh. Right now we're talking about the distributors and they are probably different people, or could be different people than the ones who actually collected money from the townspeople.
Okay, so we've got Ra Huna. First I just wanna say something about Ra Huna. He was known to have been poor.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: He also was, as my memory serves the head. He the head of the academy in Surah. So this is a town in Babylonia. He is like the Roosh Yeshiva there, and his buddy Ravi Huda is the Roosh Yeshiva in a competing Yeshiva in Pita.
So these guys are buddies and they're heads of different academies and they're going to be engaging on our page here in a debate and a disagreement about how to distribute funds. So AV Huna opens up and he says, here's my. Recommendation. My policy suggestion is that people who come, um, where's our translation again?
We're only on the first line, right?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So people who, right. People who are asking for food should
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, great.
DAN LIBENSON: Examine.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, good. So the, the what's being distributed is only money, but people are going to come and say, I need money because, or What I need the money for is, and someone who says, I need the money for food.
My family and I are hungry. And by the way, this is substantial money. It's not just for this individual, it's, it's sufficient for the whole family for a week. But he's saying is, I need money to buy food for my family. And Rob Fu is saying, um, give that person money right away.
DAN LIBENSON: He's saying, he's saying that,
BENAY LAPPE: sorry, examine, he's saying, examine, sorry.
He's saying examine that person by which Rashi helps us understand that he, it's not examine that person specifically. It's say to the person, take this form, fill it out. You know, give us your address. Give us three references. Come back next Friday, the next time we distribute funds. In the meantime, we're going to go through an investigation process to decide if you are in fact in need.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Rashi fleshes out what he underst understands Una's concern to be in examining people who come asking for money for food, and that is, he's concerned about imposters. Coming and saying, I'm hungry, but not really being hungry and not really being needy. He's concerned about the rami, the, the cheater.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: The person who's pretending to be hungry. So Una says, you know what? Those people who say I need food, we're gonna put them off. We're not gonna give them anything this week. We're gonna spend a week examining them, and if our investigation determines, they in fact are in need of food, we're gonna give them money for food next week.
Okay?
DAN LIBENSON: Yep, yep.
BENAY LAPPE: Alright.
DAN LIBENSON: And,
BENAY LAPPE: and then Go ahead.
DAN LIBENSON: No, uh, go ahead. I was just gonna say, and, and, but if he comes asking for clothing, we just give it to him.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. Okay. So it's interesting. Money is the only thing that's being given out, but the rationale or the, what the person says they need for UNA is going to determine.
How worried we are that they're reay, that they're an imposter. And I think his, we're gonna find out, we're gonna find out what his rationale is in not being concerned about the person who says, I need clothing.
DAN LIBENSON: It's funny, this reminds me, I was just at a shiva yesterday, a zoom shiva for a doctor who had passed away.
And he had been, uh, you know, in his like later years, he, he wasn't practicing medicine anymore, but he was like testifying in court, uh, you know, in medical malpractice cases, you know, and he was on the, the defense side, usually the doctor side. And, and uh, it was said about him, you know, that he expressed this strong position that always the plaintiff was.
With lying, you know, like it could have been something that was wrong with him, but it wasn't as bad as he was saying, you know? And like he would have video of, you know, the guy coming in his wheelchair, jumping out of his wheelchair to the store, you know, buying stuff, putting in his car, like, you know, jumping back in the wheelchair, you know, whatever.
I mean, the point is, is that, um, but you can kind of see, you know, and then other people who are at the, were saying, oh, he said, no, come on. They're not always lying, you know, he is like, no, always, you know, just like dispute, like okay, we know that sometimes people lie, you know, but, but depending, it was interesting to me that you said Raah was poor.
'cause it's like depending on who you are and what you're,
BENAY LAPPE: that's right.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Know this guy is generally, he is a doctor. It's very sympathetic to doctors and he tends to be on the defense side in these courts, which is his job, you know? And so he, he ends up with this point of view that's highly skeptical of claims of medical malpractice.
Whereas, you know, somebody who themselves may have once been malpracticed upon, you know, would, would tend to say, well, I'd rather err on the side of helping people.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. And, and I made the point of, of saying that he was poor for that reason. That my assumption is that that informs. That that's, it informs this Farrah, it informs what he's bringing to the question.
You might expect someone who was poor to sympathize with everyone who comes asking, or you could say, you know what? I pulled myself up, you know, from my bootstraps, and you could also imagine him being suspicious of everyone who's still poor. I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Or No, I was thinking of it again, like I'm not totally, you know, we'll see how it fits, but I'm, I'm thinking like somebody who grew up poor and may actually be very sympathetic to, you know, says, well, I, I know, you know the people in my community like you.
What do I know about being poor? You know, me personally, I mean, I've never really been poor, you know, like, so, so I don't know. Right? I mean, you have to trust the policy, make you know, and the what you read and whatever, where somebody who grew up poor in a poor community can say, well, look, this is actually something I know in my community, like a lot of people, you know.
Falsify that they need food for whatever reason, or they need money for food. You know, they, they, 'cause I think you, you say, well, you said right, this isn't that we give them a can of, of tuna fish. It's that we give them money. You know, it's so, like you say, well, I know that people tend to go around and they get, collect money for, and then they don't spend it on food.
They spend it on, you know, cigarettes or whatever and, and, um, but, but the people who go around asking for clothes, like I, I, for whatever, I know that that tends to be more truthful or, or something. You know, that, and, and the person who's come from that background, you say, well, they have some level of expertise in it.
So that's interesting. So the fact that he comes from a poor background is interesting to me.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, okay, so, um, so let's, let's go on. Um, okay. So now the. Talmud here, right? The narrator saying, if you wish.
BENAY LAPPE: Right, and it, I'm glad you pointed out the narrator, because Una and Ravi Huda, these are the two, uh, spars, uh, in this debate.
They're am, so they're rabbis from the era between, let's say, two 20 of the common era. It's a five 50 right now, starting with this new line, if you wish. This is Stama. Okay. This is now the editor. We know that for a fact. Um, and we're about to have the editor actually adding rationale and proofs for both of the positions.
I, that's interesting
DAN LIBENSON: because all we really know is that these two great heads of Yeshivas had a dispute. This one said, you examine, we don't know yet what Rabbi Huda says, but I mean, this one, this one says one way. This one says the other way. That that's all we, that's it. That's
BENAY LAPPE: it.
DAN LIBENSON: And, and so then hun few, you know, a few hundred years later comes along the Talmud trying to understand what was really at the nature of this dispute.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. Okay. And this is very, very typical for the Talmud.
DAN LIBENSON: And when they say, if you wish, is that a, is that used in a particular kind of situation?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, it, it's interesting. This phrase we're about to have is a kind of trope and, uh, it appears, thank you David Kramer, who taught me this exactly 14 times,
DAN LIBENSON: huh?
BENAY LAPPE: In the entire corpus of the Talmud and the structure. Without giving away too much, is Sta is saying, if you wanna know where Ra in this case got his position, you could equally find support for it in the Torah, or you could equally find support for it. In S Farah, he could. Equally have been using the Torah.
He could equally have been using S Farah. They're both equally authoritative sources. This structure is setting that up, which is a, a significant learning about s Farah and Torah. Like what, what do these things mean? And, um, that's the structure. It's like we, we, we know it's true. We equally know it's true from Torah.
We equally know it's true from Savara. Mm-hmm. He, una may have presented both, or this could be a fantasy of what he would've believed.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Well, we can, I think we can discuss this more deeply when we get more into it, but I almost feel like as you're describing it, I'm like, look, if you, if you're a Torah guy.
You can, there's a justification for Torah if you're not, if you're not a Torah guy, you know, if you're ass Farra guy, uh, you know, here's the argument from S Farra and it, it actually makes me think a little bit like I actually was thinking a lot. I, I, I do have a connection to Purim because I was thinking this morning about.
This question is often asked about the McGill, which is, you know, is it, is it really like a secular book where God is never mentioned in the McGill and the story of Esther because God was not present there, you know, and like it's a, it's like the first book that's about human agency, or is it actually a book that's all about God?
Because how could all of these, you know, happenstances happen? You know, there there's no such thing as a co. My, one of my kids, uh, had a teacher who once said, there's no such thing as a coincidence. There's only a ka coincide. 'cause ka is another way of saying the name of God. You know? So it's a, so no coincidence is actually God's intervention.
So Esther is actually the, the, you know, one of the most full of God books there is because God is behind all these quizzes. And I was thinking about it this morning and I was like, you know, well actually. Uh, you know, our friend Am Lavy talks a lot about God optional and actually in, in a certain way, it's, it's the best.
BENAY LAPPE: Yes, yes. I love that
DAN LIBENSON: form of literature to say it could work either way. You know, you want it, you're a God guy. It's the full of God. You're not a God guy. God's not there at all. Right? And they're both true. So that, that was kind of, you know, that's gotten me my spinning a little.
BENAY LAPPE: I like that. I like that a lot.
DAN LIBENSON: All right, so, uh, if you wish, say that we know this from reverse, and if you wish, say this, that we know this from Savara, uh, as again, to remind people, Savara is what we, you call a moral intuition. We were just talking yesterday. Could we, is it what, you know, academics might call moral reasoning, but it's something that it is really coming out of, uh, a a sort of, um, a, a a process of, of, uh, you know, sort of p uh, working through a problem, not necessarily like we can point to this authoritative source for
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Decided this already.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. It's, it's an impulse. That drives you to notice a change needs to be made because of an empathic, compassionate understanding of suffering.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: That you want to, to ameliorate. Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So if you wish we, you could find support for this in averse, if you wish you could say find, you could say that it comes from Safara.
Uh, if, and here's how, if you wish, say that we know this from Sava, uh, from our moral intuition. A person, the one who stands before us in rags, is exposed to contempt, whereas the one who is hungry is not exposed to contempt. So you wanna,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah. So RA is saying the person who says I need money for clothing is going to appear.
And Rashi sort of fills in what he thinks or what the tradition understands is in Una's mind. And that is that the person saying, I need money for clothing is coming virtually naked.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: A person who's coming virtually naked is a person who's not faking because no one would subject themselves to shame and contempt that would land on them as a naked person standing in line to get help unless they really needed it.
So by, by virtue of the fact that they're coming virtually naked or in this translation in rags or tattered clothing, that is proof enough for Una, that this person is for real, that they're being honest and they're truly needy. And that's what seems to be driving Una. I don't wanna waste this coupon money.
I wanna be sure everyone I give it to is really deserving. So I'm going to look for evidence of true deservingness. And coming in rags for sure is evidence of deservingness.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: So I'm gonna give that person money right away. And I don't need to spend a week checking out their references.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. 'cause we're not talking here about a person who's saying, you know, I don't have enough clothes, or I only have five pairs of socks and you know, I only do the laundry once a week.
So I've, I need two more pairs of socks. You know, something. It's, which it, it's a person saying it, have not like, the clothes on my back is all that I have. And as you can see, I don't have any, or I, you know, or, or it could be somebody in tatters or naked, or it could be somebody, you know, I was thinking here we're in Chicago in winter, somebody who would show up without a jacket and say they need a, you know, in a freezing cold day and say they need a jacket.
Well, you know, is somebody gonna do that just to get the money again? We're just, uh, you think this is your perspective? I think that they're not handing this person a jacket. They're then gonna hand them money aer money enough to buy a jacket. And so are, do we think that somebody, in order to get the equivalent money of a a jacket would cost?
Are they gonna wait online in a cold day with no jacket? And Una saying, that's not how this operates. No, people aren't gonna subject themselves to that. That kind of, uh, uh, you know, that that kind of, um, you know, he, he's saying that it's about the contempt of society, you know, could also say the, the cold weather, but nobody could subject themselves to that.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I don't think we should conflate the cold and the suffering because it actually, what you're bringing up is, um, an issue that some of the commentaries bring up and they say precisely that they say This situation is for sure not happening in the winter
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh,
BENAY LAPPE: because if it were happening in the winter, someone who came inadequately clothed would be physically suffering.
And that would add a, a different factor for the other guy, for Ravi Yehuda. So that's that We know that that's not a factor here. So that this is kind of a, in an artificially narrowed sit, you know
DAN LIBENSON: mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Framework. And I think the assumption is we're not, there isn't a, a possibility of, uh, the clo, the ta, the naked person being cold.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. Okay. And, and by the way, I just wanna remind everyone of that thing that I always say, which is the alud is never about what it's about.
DAN LIBENSON: Right?
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, so let's remember that this, this entire passage is really not about distributing funds. Uhhuh. Okay? So that's the surface rhetoric as man fish would call it.
That's the surface content. But let's always remember. What's really going on here? What's really the message of the editor in constructing this piece of text? Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. I mean, the one thing though that I do, I mean it's, I would say that it's mostly not about what it's about. You know, it's mostly not about this, but the case is still has some amount of value to sort of parsing what they're really talking about.
And, and I do wanna point out that there is this assumption that's underlying here. It may be a societal assumption, it may be una's assumption based on his own knowledge, but there's kind of an assumption that nobody would do this. So nobody would be willing to have this amount of societal scorn, uh, or very few people.
'cause I think they could say, well, every once in a while we might make a mistake. And that's how, that's how it is, it's fine. But for the most part, people are not willing to subject themselves to that kind of scorn that would come from being naked. Which would? Which which has implicitly two underlying ideas.
One is that people will score and. People who are in rags or naked, you know, that, that, that somehow they would suffer a lot of scorn. And number two, that they care. You know, and, and I, as I think about this in, in our society today, that both of those might be less true, right? It might be that people walking around with, you know, kind of not that much clothes on society might say, oh, this interesting choice of closing, you know, this person made right.
You know, I mean they, yeah, they don't necessarily have the same. Assumptions that that means that the person must be poor. I mean, there are certain ways that a person might look that you would be more likely to assume that they're poor, but not necessarily because of their lack of clothing. Uh, you know, that, that they're wearing less of it.
And also, there, there are people who might, um, not themselves be ashamed. Now that maybe that's not a good example. I mean, I'm also thinking about things that we assume in society today. 'cause like in the sense that this is about more than it's about too. It's like when, when I think about things in our world today that we assumed, right?
We assumed I'm talking about politics. Like we assumed nobody would ever do X,
BENAY LAPPE: right?
DAN LIBENSON: Because they can never be reelected, you know, whatever. Right? And it turns out that they can, and it turns out that they can be reelected and they don't have any shame and they wanna, right? So all of these assumptions that we had about what just the force of society would be able to, um, control without having to establish laws.
Well, we've recently experienced some cases where that turned out to be wrong. So, you know, just, just something to point out, like as we look at these processes and say, well, what, what might this be about in our world? One, one of the questions that we have to ask is, are there things in our world where, where we really can assume that if we see X, it really means X?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, I love that. Um, and in, in addition to the fact that we have different assumptions, now, we have a different structure in our society that most of us don't live in tiny towns with significant Jewish populations. Um, but the assumption here is that you're gonna know everyone standing in line.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It's not like, oh, it's a stranger. I'll never see them again. Who cares what they think about me? You know, I'm gonna. Go in rags, even though everyone knows you, and this is going to affect your reputation and your standing in the community and how people appraise you generally.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So let's continue.
Um, and the narrator also says, if you wish, you can say that we know this from a reverse,
BENAY LAPPE: right? That, that,
DAN LIBENSON: that we
BENAY LAPPE: should, una thinks we should, um, put off people asking for money for food until we examine them. But we should give immediately to those asking for money for clothes. Oh, maybe he was also relying on Torah.
He could equally have relied on Torah.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Or in this case. Because it's, they're citing something from the prophet Isaiah.
BENAY LAPPE: Great
DAN LIBENSON: as the source text. And this, by the way, is the, is from the one of the chapters in Isaiah that is read traditionally on Yom Kippur, uh, as the Ha Torah. So people might know this chapter.
This is the one where God says, you know, I hate your fasts. And, uh, you know, if you continue to oppress the, the needy and, uh, you know, the what the, the fast that I desire is when you, uh, to care for the poor, you know, et cetera. Right? That amazing, amazing chapter. Um, so that, so here, uh, so, so just to look at it, uh, so here, the, the quote that's, uh, given is, uh, is it not to share?
Is it, is it not what God wants, right? Is it not The fact that I desire to share your bread with the hungry, and the word in Isaiah for it to share is, uh. Or le right? Um,
BENAY LAPPE: right.
DAN LIBENSON: So I mean, just to look.
BENAY LAPPE: Hello Paro, won't you,
DAN LIBENSON: right? Uh, well, Uhhuh, so, uh, you know, here's Isaiah. Um, here it is, right? No, this is the face that I desire to unlock the feathers of wickedness and untie the cords of the yolk to let the oppress go free to break off every yolk.
It is to share your bread with the hungry and to take the wretched pour into your home when you see the naked to clothe him. That'll come back here and not to ignore your own kin. So, so this, uh, verse seven of, of Isaiah, uh, chapter 58 is, is what we're talking about. And, um, yeah, so, so here in, um, right ro um, and so, and just to note here, you can see, 'cause this is, will come in that the word paro has a sin at the end of it, it's, uh, this round letter for this who don't know it has a s sound.
Okay? So
BENAY LAPPE: here it has a samak.
DAN LIBENSON: I'm sorry, a Sam. Uh, right, so here it has a Sam and, uh, and, but there's another letter that could also, which is a, a shin here with the dot on the other side that could have the same sound. So that's called the sin. So, um, so what, what they're saying here is that, um, this verse read straight, it says, uh, you know, that you should share your bread with the hungry.
Um, and then they say, but actually we just saw that it has a s at the end, but apparently they had other trans, other, uh, other, uh, versions of the, the text, other, uh, what's, what's the word I'm looking for? Other, uh,
BENAY LAPPE: manuscripts.
DAN LIBENSON: Manuscripts, yeah. Other manuscripts where this word was written with a sin rather than a ps.
Um, and, uh, the sound that would make it would be the same, but they're saying No, no, no. Actually the manuscript that you're looking at for this verse is, is not the. Right manuscript. There's a, a different manuscript where ro right, the word that we translate to share, uh, is actually written with a sin. And it's actually not a sin, it's a shin.
And so you're actually misreading it as, it's not ro it's Roche. And Roche is a completely different word. And that means to examine, it comes from like, uh, par like the word partial, for example. It's, that's different. But it's, it's, you know, it's, it can mean to, um, to, to look into, right. Um, exactly.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly.
And by the way, in English, it, it feels to me like there are words that can be spelled differently or maybe from old English to new English or British English to American English. I, I can't think of this moment of some, but like maybe there's a word that usually we spell with an F, but can be spelled with a PH.
Uh. You know, they're variations. They mean the same thing. We don't usually make much of the variation, but here they say no. Right? God is not a blabber mouth and God never does anything without meaning. The fact that it can be and sometimes is written with a sin, which is that letter, which can also be a shin, is meaningful because that letter specifically makes the word not break your bread, but examine ah, when it comes to giving bread to somebody.
Meaning someone who asked for bread, examine 'em first
DAN LIBENSON: right
BENAY LAPPE: before you give them money.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. This is one where like, I could imagine that we could do an episode of the Oral Talmud. We could find some philologist. You know, we could spend an hour, it probably would be pretty boring for most of our viewers, and we, we shouldn't do it.
Uh, but, you know, like, I, I wonder about this one. Right? You know, like, first of all, were there any situations like, I don't know, I haven't looked into the word perro and whether it could be with a sin. Like, my guess is that it can't be with a sin. Like it doesn't, it wouldn't be, it's not, it's, it's just actually like a misreading.
The question is, is it an intentional misreading or is it a kind of ignorant misreading? I don't mean ignorant, like these are ignoramuses, but I mean, like, these are people who, uh, it's not necessarily right. They're not, they're not necessarily sort of knowledgeable about all the intricacies of the root structure of, of, you know, ancient biblical Hebrew.
I mean, there may, it may be it, it, it's possible, probably unlikely, but it's possible that there's like a good faith. Belief here that since the letters sound the same, you could sometimes write it with one, sometimes with the other, and it's just a, like a, a scribal error kind of thing, as opposed to, there's certain errors that a scribe would never make because they kind of know that the word can't really be written with that letter.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I'm not sure, but here's my feeling. My feeling is that sins and Sams were essentially interchangeable,
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: What I think is, I think here to make us laugh and chuckle is the claim that since it could equally be written with a sin. That we can draw, we can, we can make meaning out of a word, which if you switch the dot over from the left to the right on the shin, you get a completely different meaning that that is really what was intended by the possibility.
Even that you could have a scent, I think. I think the interchangeability of the letters is neither here nor there that happened. I think to claim that that's meaningful and could switch the meaning and that meaning is what is also being kind of imputed here. I think that's the joke.
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh. Well,
BENAY LAPPE: or Yeah.
Right. '
DAN LIBENSON: cause there's an absurdist. I mean, like, just imagine that you're sitting there and Yom Kippur, you know, and uh, yes, you're reading like, you know, do, do you call this day a fast when the Lord is favorable, when you starve your bodies, but you, you oppress the poor. No, this is the fast that I desire to unlock the federative witness wickedness and untie the courts of the yolk to let the oppress go free.
To break off every yolk, to examine those who believe that they need bread and to take the rested pour into your home when you see that, right? I mean, like that, it's just crazy. Like of course it can't possibly, uh, mean that, and yet they're, and yet they're, um, that's why, that's why it's a joke, right? I mean that's, that's why.
BENAY LAPPE: And what I think is going on in all of these 14 cases of this structure being brought, you could say it's. From Torah, you could say it's from S Farrah, is that the Torah? The verse is always laughable. It's always a very forced farfetched reading of the verse. Whereas the s Farrah is very reasonable.
Uhhuh. You may disagree with it, but it's reasonable uhhuh, and I think the meta message is guess where we actually find truth Uhhuh let you know. For those of you who can tolerate this, not the Torah people, but the right, this is sort of the ham ves, the ones who we can really see what's going on. I think this is how our tradition works.
Farra drives the tradition. Savara drives our legislation. It D, it drives our upgrading process. It is not coming from Torah folks. Mm-hmm. But if you need for those of you over are in this side of the room for you need some Torah, see, look, it says Ro and that God really could have been Roche fine, but, but I think the meta message is.
DAN LIBENSON: It's not from the, it's not from the,
BENAY LAPPE: it's, it, it's about spar folks. Okay. Um, and just wait till you see the verse that the other opposite position brings. Okay. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, um. So, so, uh, they read the verses, it, it, it, you know, we can read Roche with the shin and then sounds like Roche. So, um, that means that we should examine and only then we should give, give him, and it says Roche about the, the hungry.
It doesn't say Roche about the naked. So we know that we examine the hungry and we just cloth the naked. Right? When you see the naked you cover, that's what it says next. When you see the naked, you cover him in the same verse. So, uh, so that indicates that when you see him, you should immediately cover him.
There's no investigation, there's no, apparently there's no letters that could be transposed in order to say, see, I don't know. I should have sat and tried to figure out if I could make the word, you know, see, uh, into something. But anyway, um,
BENAY LAPPE: well, hang on. Rob is gonna do that.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Stay tuned.
DAN LIBENSON: So, um, so Ra Huda says just the,
BENAY LAPPE: but I, I just wanna say that I think what Una is doing to this verse is what's, what's called a du, which means a hyper, hyper, literal read that certainly can't be held by the shot.
The simple plain meaning. Because if you look at the simple, plain meaning of the verse, when you see the naked, it means whenever, whenever in the, in the instance where Right. But Raul is saying no, it means when, at the moment that
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh,
BENAY LAPPE: that, that, that's, that's his read of this verse. Mm-hmm. Which is laughable.
I mean, I think, I think the stomach wants you to laugh at it. So you go, there's no way he's getting
DAN LIBENSON: mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: His policy from this. Mm-hmm. And by the way. There probably are a hundred better verses mm-hmm. In all of Tanach from which to learn out his policy than this one.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And I think that's also part of the agenda.
The agenda isn't to provide a reasonable source in Torah, it's DACA to do the opposite. It's to show how actually unreasonable or not necessary and not, well, what am I trying to say?
DAN LIBENSON: Well,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah,
DAN LIBENSON: yeah. I mean that, that's like another connection to, to Purim where, you know, it's your hypothesis that they could have found all kinds of quotes to use to say that the to was still binding, even though it was made under Dures at Sinai.
But they chose the one from the book of Ster because the book of Esther is satirical. It's the one where God, you know, it's, there's all kinds of reasons you say, well, it's not an accident that we're actually taking it from the book of Esther. It's, it sort of helps show you that it's not really, it's not really where we, where we get this from.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Um. Okay, so Ra you, Ravi Huda, uh, says that Sedah collectors examine one who asks for clothing, but they don't examine one who ask for food. So the opposite of what, uh, RAAH said.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I actually appreciate the translation here. Uh, is this the Koen people?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Oh, uh, Stein, the Steinfels
BENAY LAPPE: steinfels favor for noting that Ravi Huda says the exact opposite.
Okay. Uhhuh Ravi Huda's position is the exact opposite of, of Una. And he says, when someone asks for clothing, tell them to fill out the form and come back next week.
DAN LIBENSON: Right?
BENAY LAPPE: And in the interim, we're gonna really check out whether they're truly needy. But if someone comes saying, I need money for food, you give to that person immediately, right?
That that's the opposite of Una's position.
DAN LIBENSON: So he and he too. Uh, so, so then, then, uh, well here are the translations that he too at uc support, but we're saying that this is hundreds of years later, the narrator saying we can find support for his position as well. In both of these sources, uh, if you wish, you can say that we know this from far, and if you wish you could say this, we know this from reverse, if you wish.
Say that we know this from spar this way. Uh,
BENAY LAPPE: well, I'm sorry to interrupt you. And I think when the, when the TAMA says, you know, we could say that he knew this from s Farra, he knew this from verse. I think what the sta is also suggesting is you, when you are making some new upgrade to the tradition, some new law norm practice, whatever you're doing, you can use Torah or you can use Samsara, right?
Mm-hmm. They're both, they're interchangeable and equally valid. And I. I just wanna spend another minute sitting on the enormity of that statement, right. Because Torah is supposed to be the word of God.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And our sava is, you know, our lived life experience pla refined for sure by being steeped in the text of God or who, whatever.
But basically it's, you know, what our kishke tells us is, is right. And that's being equated to Torah. Mm-hmm. It's, I just think it's an enormous, um, statement.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um,
and I think it, it, for me, it not only sets up an equality, we also know that Savara can trump Torah. We know that, but I think it suggests in a really subtle way that Torah is the product of Savara. Right. It's, it's, it's not like there was some like Right. Or God
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah,
BENAY LAPPE: message and then we use our sword to fix it.
Like what if that thing actually came out of people's, I mean, I, I think that's what it's suggesting.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. I mean, this may be a bigger topic, but like, this is where I, I also think like, you know, I, I think like, part of, part of it is that I, I don't know that we need to retell the story of the giving of the Torah at Sinai, like the rabbis did in part because maybe we're, we as a whole, people are more sophisticated now and don't necessarily need or wouldn't believe that story.
And yet I'm also thinking about, well, it's still valuable to retell that story. We know it's not true, but it's still valuable to sort of have our story. And I'm thinking like, if we did retell the story of the giving of the Torah at Sinai, you know, the way the rabbis retold the story of the giving of the Torah at Sinai was that there was a written Torah.
That's the story of the, to. And then they say, oh no, but actually there was also an oral Torah. And so there was, so we who have learned that story, and particularly who learned that story as children. I think we sort of imagine that story as that they were given two Torahs, you know, God said, here, Moses, write down this one and don't write down this one.
And I remember as a kid always thinking like, that was weird. Why? Why not write down both? Um, like what's the point of that? Right? And, and then as an adult, you, you kind of, uh, grow up and you learn and you realize like, uh, a couple things. Number one, the first thing I think you realize is that the oral Torah, it's, it's more of a myth.
You know, it's, uh, the, the written Torah was, you know, it's more, and, and that's okay. You know, we sort of, it was an oral tradition. It wasn't like an oral Torah was given. The reason it wasn't wasn't written down was because it wasn't. You know, all fully baked. It was like the oral tradition, the oral approach that you know, and, and, and anyway, but then you get even more sophisticated and you're like, oh, you know what?
It was only an oral Torah. Right? It was, it was, um, and we know this also from, you know, archeology and, and, uh, literary analysis and everything was that there's an understanding that what we call the written Torah, there were a lot of oral traditions that eventually got written down, and they were written earlier.
So they became known as the written Torah and the ones that either came about later or, or just didn't get written down earlier, you know, and it got, wr got written down. They became the oral Torah if we were to retell that story. So, so the point is, is that the story that we're told is that an oral Torah and a written Torah were given at Sinai.
But the truth is. If anything, it was only an oral Torah that was given at Sinai. Now, if we were to retell that story now, right? We might say there are actually three Torahs given at Sinai. There was the written Torah, there was the oral Torah, and there was the Torah of Savara, right? Our own, our, and that we we're creating the image of God.
The, the idea, our own, our own moral intuition is, is it's is another source of, of Torah. And um, I love
BENAY LAPPE: that. I love that.
DAN LIBENSON: Right? And you could, you could go through that, that whole process and then, and so that, that, that's a good story. And I think that might be a good story for us to tell, even though we all kind of know that we don't really believe it.
It's literally true. Right? But that, that's a kind of a cool story, right? That there were three Torahs given at Sinai, but then the even more sophisticated version is to understand that there was only, there's
BENAY LAPPE: not only one Torah,
DAN LIBENSON: that it was Savara was the only Torah given at Sinai. And Savara is what produced the oral Torah that got written down first, which is the written Torah.
And Sava is what produced the oral tour, which got written down second, which was. You know, the, you Sora
BENAY LAPPE: produced the written Torah, which got
DAN LIBENSON: as farro produced, the Oral Torah, which was then written down earlier. Right, right, right. Written Torah. So Farra produced the Oral Torah, which was written down later, which was what we call the Oral Torah or the ud.
Right, right. And as Farrah also produced the third Torah. Right. Or, or whatever we're doing now, you know, and that, that, that and that, that, uh, has the p and what the rabbis were doing back then. It's always been s farra, you know, like that's what we've said. It s far all the way down. Love it. It's always been, I love it, spar.
And so don't, don't get too, so again, if, if you wish, right. If you wish, here's the first for you or here's a piece,
BENAY LAPPE: that's great.
DAN LIBENSON: But if you wish the other way, you should know that your sense that this is just wrong, wrong, wrong, or Right, right, right. You know, that's just as, that's just as value. Not only is it just as valuable or more valuable or trumps the Torah, it's actually the source of the Torah.
BENAY LAPPE: That's Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Like something, something along those lines. And, and, and so, you know, you, it's like one of these things where you can see them, see it in multiple. Levels. They're all more sophisticated, less sophisticated or more clear, like, you know, but they're all the same. It's the same, right? And the rabbis knew it too, right?
It wasn't, the rabbis were telling a, a simpler version of the story, which was that two towers were given, and we have this thing called Savara, right? But, but really, I think they also understood that it was just Sava.
BENAY LAPPE: I love it. I love it. I'm gonna take our transcript, type it out, and that's gonna be my hat off Dish thunder piece in two weeks.
DAN LIBENSON: All right?
BENAY LAPPE: I'll give you credit.
DAN LIBENSON: Alright, so let's keep, uh, going here. So, um, okay, so
BENAY LAPPE: we've got Rob, I think we're
DAN LIBENSON: says, you know, you could, if you want, if you want, you could do it from reverse. If you want, you could do it from Sava.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. If
DAN LIBENSON: you wanna do it through Savara, here's the, here's the reasoning. This one who is hungry is suffering. Whereas that one who's entitled clothing does not suffer, or in the explanation does not suffer in the same way.
I, I just mean like, if you're really hungry, then you're, you know, you're really starving then you're, you're suffering internally, whereas
BENAY LAPPE: physically, physically,
DAN LIBENSON: physically. Right. Whereas if you, again, like you, like you were saying, it's not the dead of winter. If it's just That's right. About sort of being embarrassed or whatever, like that's a different kind of suffering and it's not as serious as, as actual physical danger.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I think that's Ravi Huda's, um, assumption and further, I think what Ra Huna and Ravi Huda share is the understanding that you can't necessarily know the internal physical suffering of someone who says, I'm hungry.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I don't think this is a person who is emaciated from hunger. I think this is merely a person who looks like every other person who is.
Satiated, but is literally hungry. And so when the Talmud presents, Ravi Hood is Sava about the person who asks for money for food being suffering, I think what he's really saying is this person may be suffering.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: We don't know for sure, but he might be. He might actually be suffering from true hunger.
He may be actually in need of food. In which, in which case, if that's true, he is suffering. Now, it's also possible that it's not true because a person could claim that he's hungry and not, and he is not suffering. Ravi Hood is willing to make that bet, and he is willing to take the loss.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: If the person who claims to be hungry isn't really hungry and he's wasted that money, because if he doesn't.
He knows that the person, if they in fact are truly in in need of food, they are gonna suffer. And he doesn't wanna take that chance of them spending that whole week suffering. So he wants to give them money immediately.
DAN LIBENSON: And that could also be the person who doesn't have clothes could also be suffering in a certain way.
But Ravi Huda doesn't think that that suffering rises to the level of emergency.
BENAY LAPPE: I think that's right. Mm-hmm. I think that's right.
DAN LIBENSON: If it's true.
BENAY LAPPE: Yes.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay. So, uh, so that's his savah.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: We know anything about Ravi Huda's family background? Like was he not poor or, we dunno.
BENAY LAPPE: I dunno.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Um. So, uh, and then, and, but if you wish, there's also a, um, text-based approach using the same verse here.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Oh, so that's interesting. Using the exact same verse.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: As soon as you see someone proving the opposite position from the same verse, you have to understand the meta mess. I think the meta messages, the meta message is you can make the Torah say anything. Mm-hmm. You can learn out anything from a single verse.
I'm using the same verse to prove the opposite point.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. And especially where, where with, I think about what Manam fish said to us last week, that you know that the whole. Kind of idea of the rabbinic project as he understood it was that was not to conclude things. So you know, not to say this is the right answer. So if you show that two great rabbis had completely different and opposite readings of the same verse, then you're kind of showing that we can't really say what this means.
No. You know, I guess by definition you're saying we can't say what this means right. With it. And so what if we can't say that it means, how can it be the source of, of our decision making?
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly. Which is why I think the meta message is clearly neither of them was leaning on Torah.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: They were both being driven by this avara.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And they have different VARs and that's legitimate. And there isn't one. Right. Savara, there are different VARs,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
BENAY LAPPE: Yep.
DAN LIBENSON: So Ravi Huda's position is as justified, uh, based on this reading of the verse. He says, uh. Here in the first part, it is written, is it not to share perros your bread with the hungry, meaning that we're reading at the meaning that we're reading at the straightforward way, which is that, uh, it says share your bread with the hungry.
So as, as soon as you see somebody hungry, give them bread.
BENAY LAPPE: Right?
DAN LIBENSON: Very straightforward. Just like, just like they, they saw when you see the naked cloth them in the previous one. Just, yeah, do X you see X do Y,
BENAY LAPPE: right?
DAN LIBENSON: Um, and, and that doesn't say, uh, investigate first. It just says share it. Um, and, uh, since the word is, is read with thes, uh, hood does not understand it alluding to anything with the shin, you know?
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, and
DAN LIBENSON: there is written and there it is written. And the second part of the verse is written. When you see the naked clothe him. Meaning when it will be clearly apparent to you after you've investigated the matter and found that supplicant is deserving, then you should cover him. So here he's saying CI guess as I understand this, he's, he's understanding C, meaning that you understand you.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. You can't understand it in the English translation because there's a play on the grammatical flexibility of the letter pattern. Tier T hay, if I have that right? Mm-hmm. That letter pattern can be vocalized in different ways. Let's remember the Torah, no vowels, but if you were to put vowels in, you could put a different set of vowels under those exact letters and come out with a slight variation on the word.
See? One is you will see. And the other vowel pattern makes it a future passive when it will be seen to you.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Tara, eh,
BENAY LAPPE: Tara, eh. Exactly. In other words, when it will become apparent to you, Uhhuh after your investigation,
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh,
BENAY LAPPE: when it becomes apparent to you, Uhhuh. So that's an equally laughable, I think, out of context.
You know, forced read
DAN LIBENSON: right
BENAY LAPPE: to
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, because we're in the same, in the same tone, you know, like, this is the best I desire. You know, when you, when you read him, when you see the, this, when, when you see the naked check out to make sure that,
BENAY LAPPE: exactly. Exactly. So here, this crop proof, this Torah IIC proof, you know, how is it that we know that God wants that?
Well, God wanted you to play with the letters and really, okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um. It's interesting that neither one or nobody says, you know, well, it's both, you know, like, like, uh, we should, we should investigate both. Um, because you could, you know, that's, that's seems like a legitimate position based on, I mean, legitimate based on the what, what, but actually like, in, in certain way, the fact that we don't see that absurdist position in which they are both given the absurd meaning, sort of suggests that it's not real in either case.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Yeah. But like you said, I, I a little bit overstate at the, the sound was never about what it's about. You're right. It's just not only about what it's about, and it's not primarily about what it's about, but you can use the, the, the values and the ideas and the principles even for the case for which it's, it, it looks like it's about.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: For sure. And if I were to create the ideal BA dean of three people to distribute charitable funds. I'm actually, I think one of the takeaways is I wanna Ravi Yehuda on that committee and I wanna Una on that committee. I want someone who's really like fiscally responsible and careful
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: And I want someone who's gonna be the bleeding heart.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And I want them both to do, get out about every applicant.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: You don't want a committee of Ravidas or else that really hungry person at the end of the line is not gonna get anything.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. '
BENAY LAPPE: cause the first 20 people are gonna take up all the money.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And you don't want only Ravidas on the committee because a whole bunch of people are gonna be suffering.
Mm-hmm You know, in the solely out of the concern that we not waste the money and we, you know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. And it, it really, it really, again, I mean I'm really like in the mind of, of what Manal Fish was talking about. 'cause, 'cause again, I, I think that particularly I, I'm thinking about me as a younger person, you're like, well, what's the answer?
You know, what do we do? And the answer is like, like I think that you're saying the answer is that you put both those guys on the committee, uh, that there isn't, there isn't an answer. I mean, now here I, you know, there is, there is a, a, a final citation kind of given, but it's not exactly an answer,
BENAY LAPPE: right?
It's not an answer. But I think this next line is really key because students are always asking me, well, if two sages or two people are arguing, they each have different SVA who wins, right? Mm-hmm. We know that s Farah can trump Torah, but which Sahara should trump the other Sahara. That's a very important question, and I think that's, um, what this next line is being brought in to answer.
DAN LIBENSON: So, uh, so the, the final line of this, of this, uh, section is that the Gamara comments, and that's, it is taught in a Brita, again, this is a text from the time of the Mishna. So earlier, so earlier
BENAY LAPPE: than these guys. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, so its taught in a Bria in accordance to the opinion of Ravi Yehuda. If a poor person said, cover me with clothing, they, we didn't change this translation.
The sedaka collectors examine him, but if he said, sustain me with food, they do not examine him. So, yeah, you, if somebody says they're hungry, you give them money for food right away. If they say they need clothes, you check it out that,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah. And I think what this line is doing is saying yes, they both have valid rah.
It's just like the Hillel, Shama, you know, ELU, they're both opinions of, of God. They're both valid. But leaving Hillel and Shama for a minute, we are going to privilege one of them. Over the other, when it's more in line with our deepest, fundamental values.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And that's the answer to how do you know which Savara is right?
The, the one that plays out what you believe are your, like bigger, more important values. And by the way, that's fuzzy because that also is determined by previous generation Farrah or maybe your own if you change it. And, and I think the value that's being privileged here is relieving suffering. It's not fiscal responsibility, it's not caution, it's not never making a mistake in giving to an undeserving person.
Right. Those are values, but making sure someone who's suffering isn't suffering. Even if it's gonna cost us more money than it, that's, that's a more fundamental value, and that's the spar that wins.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. Yeah. So I, I, I'm of two minds, you know, like part of me feels like this is one of those add-ons that some, you know, we've talked about that previous weeks, that like somebody who, right, when, you know, like the, the previous weeks when we were talking about how, uh, it ends with, um, uh, you know, um, um, that this is here for Joshua Cabell star, you know, that you should just, that, that, that it's, this is kind of like scary idea that there's things in the Torah that are there only so that you can, uh, you know, interpret them away and, and then they kind of say, but in the end, like, this never actually happened.
You know, they're kind of like something that takes away. Some of the, the harm for the past of having gotten it right, meaning that somebody's a little bit uncomfortable with that place where it really ends and they add a piece onto it that says, well, but we are gonna decide this one. So, or, or, it's what you say, which is that like, no, no.
Sometimes we do have to have a conclusion. And in this case, uh, we actually think that the suffering that might come from hunger is worse than the suffering that might come from embarrassment at not having clothes. You could wait for that for a week. You can't wait for the hunger. And that, that makes a lot of sense to me.
Like actually, when you look at the Sava, when you look at the, the two Sava arguments here from Una and Yehuda, I, I'm more persuaded by Ravi who is, you know, it just feels to me like hunger is a worse kind of suffering than shame and having, you know. Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: And I think, I think intuitively we. Think we kind of agree with Ravi Huda, but that's only because for the last 2000 years we've elevated the, the, the amelioration of suffering.
Mm-hmm. Over other values.
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh, uhhuh, Uhhuh. Right,
BENAY LAPPE: right. It's like we're the
DAN LIBENSON: physical suffering.
BENAY LAPPE: Physical suffering.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. We're inheritors of 2000 years of, of course you uhhuh make sure someone's not suffering. But I don't think that wasn't an of course for them
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh
BENAY LAPPE: it, this made it the, of course it's like,
DAN LIBENSON: right.
BENAY LAPPE: It's like, um, um, affirmative action.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. You people are still making the case that we shouldn't do affirmative action. Every applicant to college should be evaluated on their own merit, and I should have e equal chance based on what? Right. And others say, no, we have a, a racially unjust bias system and we actually need to limit your individual freedom to restore this uhhuh.
And we're now in the midst of this shift, and we're still not even there.
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh,
BENAY LAPPE: right? To say no, the more important value is actually racial equality.
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh,
BENAY LAPPE: that's more important than your autonomy, uh, and your ability to do what you quote unquote earned.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. Through the privilege that you're not even recognizing you had because of the racial injustice.
Mm-hmm. So that, that's this moment that I think this sya is talking about. It's, it's where we decide what's more important than what Hmm. Even though both spars can be made.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. That's powerful. That's great. Like I, because I, I actually have been reading a bunch or listening to some podcasts about like the Bible recently and some of the things like, we've been really interesting like explaining.
That the reason why the characters acted this way was because in the ancient world, you know, if you are, if you are, um, you know, sister people were responsible for their sister. And so when you're looking at these stories about David and his children and that they, you know, and that they're killing one another because of the rape of, uh, of Tamar.
That is that, is that the, the daughter of David? Dina? Dina? No, the, the daughter of David. Is it? I think Tamar. Anyway, uh, anyway, whatever the, the, we should know her name, but the, um, but the, the, that one of David's sons. Slept with the daughter, AB Shalom killed him. But anyway, but the point of it all is, is that they're saying like, you can only understand this story based on understanding, like that in the ancient world, like a brother was responsible for his sister, and it would, if the brother hadn't protected her honor, then he would've violated his honor and he would have to be killed.
And this whole kind of thing that, and you're kinda like, well, that's not the social norms that we know today. And, and so, you know, and, and, and like you say, well, part of the reason why that's not the social norms that we know today is because, because of this kind of thing we're saying like, no, no, there's actually much more important things than duals, you know, or, or whatever it might be.
So, so that's, that's very fascinating.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. So that's why, you know, on, in our project, I'm looking at my whiteboard here and our project deciding what should the fundamental foundational values be of Judaism moving forward? You gotta know those first.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And you gotta know which ones. That you've inherited, you wanna actually suppress and which ones you wanna either create or lift up.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So I think in closing, uh, what, what we ought to be thinking about, uh, what I hope people watching this listening to this are, are thinking about is like, in our world today, you give an example of affirmative action versus privilege or, or you know, what are the things that, like we hope that in a thousand years somebody would be reading this and would be saying, well, of course the way that we all expect Judaism does things today.
Of course, that couldn't be right. Of course, the other argument is, right, that's for racial justice or anti homophobia, or whatever it might be. Of course, like, how, how's that even close? You know, like, well, well back then it was close.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: That's very
DAN LIBENSON: true. Yeah. That's, that's fascinating to think about what, what those values should be.
All right, well we will, uh, continue, continue to explore this stuff. Thanks so much for, for this conversation. It was so great.
BENAY LAPPE: It was fun. Thanks Dan. Alright.
DAN LIBENSON: Talk to you soon. Talk to you next week. Bye. And remind reminding people we'll be on two hours earlier next week, so, uh, starting at 10 Eastern time.
Bye. Bye.
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