The Oral Talmud Episode 46: Sweet Little Lies (Ketubot 16b-17a)
SHOW NOTES
“ We're meant to be profoundly, deeply, intimately, radically empathic with one another. My understanding should be influenced by what I know is in your mind. I need to get into your head and I need to get into your heart, and I need to understand how this is gonna land for you. And I need to intertwine my consciousness with yours before I know what the right thing to say is.” - 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.
A wedding. A fragile moment. A question no one wants to answer honestly: what do you say when the truth might wound? The rabbis don’t dodge it. They stage a collision between two instincts we all recognize: tell the truth no matter what… or protect someone’s dignity at all costs.
In this episode, Benay and Dan crack open a deceptively simple dilemma that turns explosive fast. Can kindness justify a lie? Can empathy override Torah itself? What emerges isn’t just a ruling, it’s a radical claim: morality isn’t about rigid truth-telling, it’s about learning to feel your way into someone else’s reality. And once you see that, everything changes.
This week’s text: Ketubot 16b-17a
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.
-
DAN LIBENSON: This is The Oral Talmud - Episode 46: Sweet Little Lies.
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.
A wedding. A fragile moment. A question no one wants to answer honestly: what do you say when the truth might wound? The rabbis don’t dodge it—they stage a collision between two instincts we all recognize: tell the truth no matter what… or protect someone’s dignity at all costs.
In this episode, Benay and I crack open a deceptively simple dilemma that turns explosive fast. Can kindness justify a lie? Can empathy override Torah itself? What emerges isn’t just a ruling—it’s a radical claim: morality isn’t about rigid truth-telling, it’s about learning to feel your way into someone else’s reality. And once you see that, everything changes.
DAN LIBENSON: Hello everyone. I'm Dan Levison, and I'm back again, as always with Bene Lapi for this week's episode of the Oral Talmud. Hey Bene.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey, Dan. Sorry about that here. I'm,
DAN LIBENSON: we're having a little, little, little interesting technical stuff today, but we're good. Um, the, um, sorry, I think I also had us on the wrong view anyway. Okay, now we're good. Um, so good. Um, so welcome back everyone. We're here at our, uh, probably temporary new time, or maybe not, who knows?
We'll see. Uh, but at least for a couple of months. We're here at this time, which is 10:00 AM Eastern. But if you, uh, are used to watching us at noon eastern, then you will be able to, because we're on, we'll be on Facebook and we'll be on our website, which is, uh, oral talmud.com. Or you can just go to the Jewish Live, uh, website and, and there, and you can get, get it through there.
Uh, either by clicking on the homepage there, it usually comes up at the top, or, um, or just go to the on demand section of, uh, the Jewish Live website if you're, so, if you're not used to, if you're used to watching us live and, and now you're all discombobulated or to tumult, as my grandmother said, uh, you, you can find us@oraltalmud.com is probably the easiest, uh, anyway.
Um, so Benet, uh. Let's see where, where do we wanna pick up from? We had a great conversation last week. I actually got some really, uh, enthusiastic feedback of that idea that I've been trying to articulate for years. And I still don't think I have it, but at least it got a little closer, which is this idea that it, you know, there's a third Torah at Mount Sinai, you know, being given the Torah of s Farrah and that it actually is only one Torah.
Like it was always just Farrah, you know? But anyway, I think, I think we're getting closer there.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I love the new version of our foundational myth. One of my questions is our myths that most people will never believe are true ever gonna work again. Mm-hmm. Or, or is it believable enough? I, anyway, that's a question that I have.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, I mean, I, I think that, so, so that actually I think is a good segue into our. Um, into our, uh, discussion today and in general, because what I've been trying to articulate also on this show and in general is that, you know, I've said this I think on this show or different ways that, that in the world in which we live now because of our, you know, the general high educational attainment of Jews in the west, uh, and you know, people in the west, that, that the, the amount of just knowledge of the world that your average Jew has today is vastly more than most rabbis have ever had in history, and the access to Jewish knowledge and information through digital tools.
Is also greater than any rabbi, you know, throughout the vast majority. I mean, or actually any, the vast majority of rabbis throughout Jewish history and is only getting more and more. And so there's something still missing. There's some, there's some kind of, you know, like learning that we want to, you know, ideally have people to do.
We talked about Gamina and Verna, you know, the idea that first you would, you would go and get some learning and then you could come and use your safari, your moral intuition, but. But, um, but in the, in the early days of the Talmud, it was more stark. First you went to get your learning and then you could graduate from the learning and come to get your Sava, you know?
But now I think it's much more of a, it's gonna be much more of a, like a spiral. Uh, you get a little bit of learning and then you, but you already have so much savara, you get a little right, and you kind of go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So, um, so the, the point is to me that after the Babylonian exile or during the, you know, there was this idea that they thought that the priesthood, the temple was destroyed and was never coming back.
And there's this, uh, you know, phrase in the Torah. That we are a nation of priests, which is actually likely written after the Babylon in exile. So there's some idea that, well, the priests are gone, so now we're all priests. And I'm thinking along the lines of, okay, so the rabbis are not the rabbis anymore.
They're not gone, you know, we're talking to one of 'em. But, um, the, um, but, but now we're a nation of rabbis. And the question is, the question is, um, how did the myths operate for the actual rabbis in the Talmud? How, you know, how, how did the myths work for them? I don't think, and, and I, we've talked about this, like they didn't actually believe they were true, we think, but they nevertheless thought they were important.
And I don't think it was only because they could tell it to foolish laypeople. You know, I, I think that they thought that there was some value. To having stories or to being able to express these complex ideas as stories even for themselves, is what I'm trying to say, even for themselves. So that was a long windup of saying that I, I think it's actually still valuable to have a new or a new improved myth of, you know, the giving of the Torah, even though not a single one of us believes it's actually literally true.
Uh, that, that's what I'm trying to get at.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I, you know, a, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the myths that I repeat and that I refer to and that are kind of orienting for me the Jewish myths, which, if you would ask me, do you believe those actually happen? I'd say no. Like Mount Sinai, I think, you know, giving of the, to at Mount Sinai, I, I kind of use it, although I don't believe it actually.
Um, I don't believe it in the way the myth brings it down, which is, you know, sort of this personified God who dictates or, um, you know, somehow gives over something. Uh, yeah, you're right, you're right. Okay. I'm a little bit more on the new myth that we, we also know it didn't happen. Uh, team. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Alright, well, we'll continue to pursue it.
Um. So let's, uh, transition to our text.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Um, by the way, we're get, we are, we have a little, you're, we're, we're doing a little bit of, um, technological, uh, Leigh of hand here, uh, uh, and, um, we are getting a little bit of a delay, so I'm just letting folks know that. And also, you know that Ben, I, so we're a little bit on the delay and, and sometimes your audio I think is fine, but a little choppy.
So, um, just, just letting, letting folks know that, uh, you know, we're working out some technical kinks, uh, for how, how, uh, you know, for on, on Bennet's end, so, we'll, uh, we'll, but, but it's good enough. So, anyway, Vene, can you, uh, set up our text a little bit?
BENAY LAPPE: Yes. Great. So we're moving into the track. Tate of Kebas, which by its name you could tell, is about Kebas.
Kebas are, um, marriage documents. They don't effectuate the marriage, but they. Set out the, uh, terms for what in a, a given heteronormative context the woman receives in the event of the end of the marriage, um, either by the husband's death or their divorce. Um, so generally this volume is dealing with marriages and we're entering into a soya, a passage that's dealing with the wedding scene and some of the customs that, um, customs and laws and meets both that happened in the context of a wedding.
And I wanna say from the outset that the reason, uh, we're jumping from where we were last week to this text this week is that last week we saw how Savara and Torah versus as sources of authority and proof. New legislation, uh, were operating explicitly the text named Savara as a source and it named Torah as a source or Tanach, the Hebrew Bible more generally.
Um, but I'd like to make the claim that Sava is operating in the tradition, not only when it is explicitly named, but all the time and everywhere. And what I mean by that is that the more intuition of the rabbis is pushing how we understand the received tradition and what the Torah says all the time. Um, and it, it is what is driving the upgrading of the tradition, even when it isn't being named.
And this is a soya in which we see that happening without being named. But if you sort of put on your SRA glasses, either spar the concept or spar the Yeshiva glasses. Um, I think you can learn to see savara in operation, and I think that's a very important tool to have in your tool belt if you're gonna be a tradition upgrader.
Mm-hmm. Because it gives you more examples of how this thing works and more of a sense of, yeah, this is a legit way to make the tradition better. Okay. So we're, we're, um, yeah, let's just jump right in.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So since we have a slight delay, you know, when you try to jump in, uh, you know, uh, to, to tell us to stop.
It might be a second, but, uh, we'll, you know, again, don't worry about it. Okay. So we, uh,
BENAY LAPPE: sorry. Sorry about that.
DAN LIBENSON: That's okay. So we're starting, uh, here. So. Katu Boat 16 B by the way, I noticed that, uh, Safaria, which we use for the text, has uh, done a little bit of, uh, some kind of slight redesign here. So we now have these boxes with, uh, drop shadows and whatnot.
But anyway, um, okay, so Katu boat 16 B the sage is taught. How does one dance before the bride? What's up here? Like, what does that
BENAY LAPPE: mean? Okay. So yeah, that deserves a lot of unpacking. Um, so it turns out that by the time we get to the rabbis, there's an understanding that there is a new meat SVA in town and that meets VA is helping the bride and groom rejoice, making them happy, bringing joy to them on the day of their wedding.
And it's kind of a general mitzvah to miss some to, to. And there are a number of different ways that happens. If anyone's been to a traditional or a jewishy, a jewy wedding, you've probably seen, uh, nowadays in a more liberal but jewy setting, the bride in the groom, if it's a heteronormative wedding or the two married people sitting in chairs and people dressing up in costumes and dancing and making Mary and acting like jesters and so on in front of them, spoofing things from their past to make them laugh.
And um, that's one of the ways it plays out these days. And I think traditionally it played out with dances and also with compliments and, you know, with a giant sticky on the heteronormative assumptions of the scenario. I think one of them is that people. Particularly men made grooms happy was by saying nice things about the groom's bride.
Okay. Um, and I think that was an expectation that the male guests would approach the groom and say, oh, you know, whatever, whatever they think about the bride. And that brings up a dilemma. And the dilemma is, what do you do when the expectation is for you to say flattering things about the bride? And in fact, she isn't, in your opinion, beautiful.
How, how can you say that she's beautiful to make the groom happy about having this new wife? And by the way, he may have seen her for the first time. On the wedding day. Okay. They may not know each other and, uh, I'm sure he wants to be reassured. So that's the dilemma this text is dealing with. And the question now is the opening question is, well, what do you say, Uhhuh?
And I think it's kind of interesting that the language of what do you say is how do you dance before the bride? Because I don't think they're actually talking, of course, uh, about literally dancing. But I think dance here is used in the Hebrew, just the way it, we use it in English, which is how do you dance around this very delicate subject.
DAN LIBENSON: Oh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. 'cause I, I, I had that question of like, well, why, why is it put in the context of how do we dance? And I was thinking like, is that, is that because there's a quote in the Bible and I actually didn't look it up, like something about dancing before the bride or something like that?
Or like, why, why are they specifically using. This as the entry point, but that, but I, I love the idea of like how the, it gives it the double entendre of like, how do you dance around the issue. I also, I also, it was very helpful what you just said, you know, almost like casually that, um, that they might not have seen each other before, you know, because then you kind of get a little bit into the psychology of, of both of them.
But I mean, again, in the patriarchal, heteronormative context that we're talking about, the, the man saying like, you know, how did I do, you know, like, and, and, and his friends coming and saying, Hey, you really, wow, you got lucky here. You know, like you really got an amazing, you know, and that, that actually was, is part of like how nervous people would've been and that there's something kind of, you know, that they are trying to really, uh, deal with a particular anthropological situation, which is that these people are about to be married for life and have never seen each other before.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, I think that's true. So the question is essentially, what do you say to reassure the husband when he's expecting you to say, oh, your, your bride is so beautiful. You got, you did get, when you don't think he did. And again, lots of stickies on this assumption that her appearance is like, how well he did is about her appearance.
That's the assumption of the, the text,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
BENAY LAPPE: With all of the patriarchal, you know, bullshit behind that. But, so let's just name it,
DAN LIBENSON: right? And, and, and not to minimize that at all, but the other piece is that the friends, you know, also don't know that. So that's all they're, that's all they, that's all, that's the data that they have in front of them at this moment.
Uh, you know, that is only. They don't know her personality, you know, they don't know anything about her. I not, it's not to excuse it, but it's just to sort of fully, fully, uh, draw the picture here.
BENAY LAPPE: Great.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. So that's our dilemma, right?
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So that's the dilemma. So, so now we have a classic dispute between the, uh, house of Hillel and the House of Mite.
Again, like these are not the actual people, Hillel and Mite, who were, uh, rabbis who lived, you know, sort of, uh, around the year zero. But, um, the, the, um, this is their school of thought, basically. You know, their, their school of thought. So the, so the School of Shami says The Bright as she is. So
BENAY LAPPE: great.
DAN LIBENSON: Talk about that.
Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. So. Th th these words bright as she is, have been long debated. What exactly did shamai mean when he said, quote unquote bride, as she is, most likely? I think they meant you call it like it's y you, you have to say what you really think, and if she's not attractive, that's what you say. You say what you really think about her appearance.
Now the commentators are jumping up and down. As soon as they hear Sean ma say bride as she is. I think because they wanna redeem shamai, they don't, they don't wanna believe that Shamai really meant that a guest should go up to the groom and say, well, she's homely. I really can't, you know what I mean?
And so they, they twist the words bright as she is into all sorts of pretzels to try to make that be about, oh, uh, the things that they can say that are, um, positive. They say, or they acknowledge the wonderfulness that she's, who she's, or all, all sorts, all sorts of things. But I think the shot, the simple plain meaning, and probably the intention, given the tension between and Chama that we're about to see, is that they really believe you, you call it like, it's, and you say what you see, even if it's denigrating and, um, insulting.
I, I think that's Shamis position.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. I mean, and I, well, we'll see from what comes next that, that, I think that's right. Uh, but I suppose you could also. Even imagine the scenario that if it's the normal case where the friends come up to the groom like, oh wow, she's so beautiful. You know, look how great, you know, you got so lucky.
And then they don't come this, this time by implication. You're, you know, in other words, the failure to say how beautiful she is, is, is in fact a statement that she's not so beautiful.
BENAY LAPPE: Oh, you know what? You just shifted my whole understanding of this malo, this dispute. You know, I always assumed the premise was as I set it up, this is the case where the bride is objectively quote unquote unattractive.
But now I see that that isn't necessarily the, the assumption. The assumption is just generally how do you couch, like what's your approach in characterizing the bride? And maybe be Shama is saying you call it like it is, whether she's beautiful or not, you call it like it is. And, and Shama and be Hill else is going to also fit that.
Okay. I, I think I understand this better. Do you know, understand what I'm saying now?
DAN LIBENSON: That's exactly what I was saying. But now, but I see where you're taking, you know, like, I, like I, I was just trying to kind of, in a sense point to the act omission distinction in a sense. You know, that, that, it's one thing to say a lie, it's another thing to fail to say, uh, the truth.
But if somebody knows what they're talking, you know, if somebody understands the situation, it's not really a difference because they know that the failure to say the truth or, you know, again, the truth as the person sees it is, you know, is the same as having said a falsehood.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. That's one of the debates about what Chama might be saying.
He might be just simply saying. Avoid saying negative things, but again, I, I don't think that's what's going on.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, so be Chama says the brightest she is, and Beit Hillel, the House of School, the School of Hillel says a fair and graceful bride. So the implication there is that Hillel is saying that no matter what she looks like, you should always go up to the groom and say, what a, what a beautiful, wonderful ride.
Right?
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly. Exactly.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, which is gonna present an interesting problem, and we're gonna see the problem that bid Hillel's position presents right now. And, and I think any reader can anticipate it, right? Basically what Bid Hillel is saying is if she's beautiful, obviously say she's beautiful, and if she is not.
Still say she's beautiful. In other words, lie.
DAN LIBENSON: Yep. So
BENAY LAPPE: I'm Hill says, and that should raise, that should,
DAN LIBENSON: no, go ahead.
BENAY LAPPE: I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just saying that bed Hillel's position should raise for the reader the problem of, oh really? I'm supposed to lie.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay, so, so be Shama said to Beit Hillel in a case where the bride was lame or blind, which I take to mean like it's not, again, we are very, this is very ableist.
We don't like it. But you know that they're saying like, I think for them these were like objective. Characteristics that are not beautiful. And so it's not like, it's not, it's my opinion. I, you know, you could, reasonable minds could disagree, but I just wanna tell you that I personally don't think your bride is very beautiful.
You know, it's not that, that's, that you could say that's a kind of more, uh, questionable case. But here, okay, here for sure. If what, what if, for sure she's not beautiful. Uh, then, um, then does one say with regard to her a fair and graceful, a fair and graceful bride, you know, so, so when it's clearly not true, should we still say that she's very beautiful?
Uh, and, you know, that then sights here, the Torah, you know, the Torah says, uh, keep from or keep far from a false statement. So, so we'll stop there. So that's in, in the Book of Exodus. We'll look at it, but the, um, the, the Torah specifically says that you shouldn't, uh, say false thing. You know, essentially he's reading this, if I understand this correctly, as if the Torah has a commandment, don't lie.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly, exactly. And I, and I also wanna go back, I can't stress enough, not only the ableist assumption behind this, but really the painful and very problematic nature of the assumption of this text. So we have to name it that someone who has a physical disability in the understanding of the text is understood to be, quote unquote, not attractive.
Not graceful. It's, it's, it's really painful, um, to really wanna name that. And, and, but given that assumption of the rabbis and of their time, that's Bea's challenge. Wait, wait a minute. Someone who is absolutely in everyone's understanding, not attractive, you are going to absolutely lie, explicitly lie.
Mark exclamation point. There's Anang here.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Rabbi Lizzie Heideman taught me what the inter bang is. Right.
DAN LIBENSON: That's a question mark with an exclamation
BENAY LAPPE: point. It's, it's a rhetorical question. That's right. Right. Uttered with an incre and, and, and now is he's, he's pointing to the toll racing Look, it says right here in the Torah, don't lie in black and white.
It says, don't lie. And you're telling me we should lie. You're, how can you say that the Torah says to do otherwise Hillel? How can you advocate violating the Torah?
Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, by the way, like, I don't know if we'll have time to get to it today or, you know, for a future, but I, but this, this text strikes me as, um, a really interesting rabbinic text that would require some of the same, you know.
Active actions, major surgery, whatever, you know, like, uh, functional trumping, uh, you know, that the rabbis were doing to the Torah, like to the whole Ben Sora mo uh, situation that we've just been, you know, looking at recently the, the wayward and rebellious sun, you know, basically what the rabbis are doing is looking at that text and saying, this is absolutely horrifying.
You know, this is, this is, you know, and they're looking at it and they're saying, this is a soci. You know, I, I believe they're, they're saying in their heads, you know, this is a society that didn't, uh, honor human life in an appropriate way. That, that, that didn't. You know, that that where the relationships between parents and children were not the kind of loving relationships we have today.
They were much more transactional or, or something. You know, people were used more used to dying young, and so there was less of a bond. You know, I, I don't know what they would've looked and how sophisticated they might've been, but you look at a text like that and you say, this is just horrific. And they say, well, what are we gonna do with it?
It's, it's in the Torah. We do venerate the Torah. Uh, we don't erase things from the Torah. That's not our tradition. So we're gonna have to, you know, kind of, uh, not, and we're not gonna, we're not gonna just bury this text and never, never mention it, in part because we can't, because it's actually read in the synagogue every week.
So we're gonna have to do something. So, so we, we gotta sort of read it, but read it in a way that that kind of, um, you know, says that, that we're, we're actually actively, and obviously. Reading this out of existence because it's so horrible and I, and I look at a text like this, but, but maybe there's something important in it, you know, that there's still some kind of, you know, lesson to be taken to be applied to less, uh, wrong and horrific circumstances.
So let's not let you know, and if we were to not read it at all, uh, you know, maybe we would miss that. And so let's, is there any way to not throw the baby out with the bath water? And, and I'm not necessarily sure that it's the right decision to, to leave it, you know, and, and maybe in the next year of Judaism, we would be more willing to, you know, actually erase text.
I don't know. But, and, and, and I don't, I don't actually, personally right in this case, have the disabilities in question. And so I don't want to speak for others. So, but all I can look at this and say, I, I find this text ultimate message that we're looking at important and the. The case used horrible. And so the question is kind of what do we do with that?
And is there a way, what would a next Tom would look like using this text? You know, how, how would you write that text in such a way that acknowledged and condemned the failure to see human beings the way they are? And yet, nevertheless, there's another layer of wisdom here that's worthy of, of, you know, studying and preserve.
So it's a really complicated text. I mean, for, for, for me, and I'm sure for, for people who, who do have, you know, disabilities for example.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. It, what you're bringing up for me is the whole question of how we sort of evaluate people and how we. Talk about them. You know, I, I've learned over the years that it's just, it's, it's probably not okay to be commenting on people's appearance, period.
It's like, you know, I struggle with my weight. Mm-hmm. And I used to feel really good when people would say, oh, you look great, you lost weight. And, and I've come to, you know, not actually wanna hear that because it makes me think, oh, you know, before I'd lost these 20 pounds, you didn't think I was looking good.
And, and my friends who have an approach to that kind of thing that I really appreciate, just never comment at all about my appearance with respect to my weight or anything else. Uh, so. No, the whole assumption also that, that the friends of the groom are going to encourage him based on the appearance, you know, of his bride.
That in itself is a, is a, is a problem. Okay. Anyway, so, okay. You brought up something totally different for me as you were talking and that is in the benzo, more the wayward and rebellious sun text. And in many other texts we see a move of basic, out of existence, something in the Torah that we find abhorrent.
This is a much more subtle, um, way of interacting with the Torah. What's going on here is probably, everybody likes the idea of don't lie, nobody is saying. Excavate that from the Torah, excavate that from our sense of what our tradition wants of us, not lying is generally a good thing, but there are times when you wanna live by it and actually there are times when you shouldn't.
So this is a new kind of wears Waldo. It's not what's in the Torah that I should not do. It's what's in the Torah that here I should do it and there I shouldn't do it. That's a whole different kind of nuanced relationship.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, yeah. And, and just to, just to like sort of put one more addendum to what I was trying to say.
That you know, what, what in our time, what text would be written in our time, and I'm not talking about by like racists, you know, for sure we know those bad texts, you know, but like what kind of text might we write that would be. That assuming certain assumptions about the world, that in a hundred years or a thousand years, somebody would read and say, what idiots, you know, what, what horrible values these people had.
Things that we don't even think about. Like we don't even, it doesn't even occur to us, you know? And like you might've said in a previous time, it would be assumptions about a gender binary. And now, now today we, we are kind of, are much more sensitized. Some of us, you know, that, well, we shouldn't really put that, put things in those terms if we, if we realize that we're doing, you know, whatever, we should try to realize that we're doing it.
But like, I'm just thinking about like, you know, I don't know, even like things like eating animals, you know, like a text that's about, you know, slaughtering many of those, you know, and I can easily imagine a time when either for ethical reasons or technological reasons, we, I can imagine a future in which animals are not eaten and.
By anyone. And then, you know, a thousand years later, after not eating animals for a thousand years, you know, the society is like, can you imagine that there's time when they ate animals? You know, and when they just regarded animals as meat to eat, you know, what a horror, you know, and, and, and, and how can I read any of these texts to, for, in any, in any meaningful way?
Because they're all about an activity that I find like absolutely abhorrent and horrifying, you know? And so it's like, what do you, what do you know? So, so, you know, I don't know. Again, I don't, I don't, I'm not meaning to like, excuse it, I'm meaning to say like, it is a challenge to read a text for its values, even like this text where the values are ultimately, I think, positive that we're trying to, that will uncover from Hillel.
And nevertheless, it's the case used. Is bad. And by the way, maybe that's also another reason to really reinforce what you say o often, which is that the talmud's not about what the Talmud seems to be about. Like it's not about the cases, the cases are illustrative, uh, but what it's really about is the underlying value.
And, and I guess what I'm trying to get at here is, although it's hard, maybe we can find good underlying values even applied to a case that's horrific that the authors of the case didn't even realize was horrific.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. You know, I, it's never been such a blocking dynamic for me to recognize the misogyny of the rabbis.
I, I get it. I don't expect them not to be misogynist. I never expect them. I, I don't expect them to be feminist. I don't expect them to be non patriarchal. Of course they were. Mm-hmm. So, you know,
DAN LIBENSON: but I think that is luck for a lot of people.
BENAY LAPPE: I know, I know. This is one of those times when my compartmentalizing brain actually comes in handy.
Right? Because it lets me like say, okay,
DAN LIBENSON: no. And, and, and I think that, and I think that, and I think, and what I would say though, though, in, in a case like, like that, that's prob that's interesting because it, it's, it's a form of translation, you know, which is something that I've thought a lot about. And it, it may be that just as a translator is bringing to the table that they speak the other language and can read the other language and then put it into the language that that can be read by the person who doesn't speak the original language.
Uh, you know, there's a translation function at people who can compartmentalize, are able to read the text, take in what's really, you know, useful in it, and then sort of like assist the people who. Who can't do that on their own, you know, because it, not because they don't understand the words in this case, but because it, it, it's just too the, the, the, the misogyny or in this case, the, you know, what ableism or whatever the right word is, uh, is just too overpowering so people can't even read the next line.
Um, so, so I think, I think, you know, yeah, your compartmentalizing is, is a valuable service to the Jews, so thank you. So, um,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah, you're welcome. But, but, but the central dilemma on top of the problematic assumption is very timely. And who hasn't been in a situation where they're called upon to say something, and if they were truthful, it would hurt someone's feelings, right?
And the question is, do I lie or do I. Always tell the truth. And that's this, that's what the rabbis are dealing with here on a surface level.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: The surface rhetoric of the text is dealing with that. Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: So let's just, uh, real quick, let's
BENAY LAPPE: just, and the
DAN LIBENSON: Go ahead.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And the position of never tell a lie, um, makes a lot of sense.
It's, you know, chamas got Torah to back him up and, you know, we should be on the edge of our seats waiting to hear how Hillel is gonna come back and Trump Torah here, because Shamis got a good point, says so right here, don't lie.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so, so that's a good, just to take a very quick digression, I think yes and no, right, because we easily see the Torah being quoted by the Talmud for leniency.
The Torah being misquoted. Uh, right. We, we've seen that in many, many cases up till now. And we've always, I think we've said it explicitly, I often say it explicitly when I'm teaching, is like, if the Talmud is quoting the Torah, look up the quote, you know, because like, don't ever just accept the quote from the Torah.
Uh, even if you know that quote really well and you think it is actually being quoted properly, it may be quoted properly, but out of context, I mean, look up the quote every time. Look what's on either side of it, you know, even if you really wanna like, look into a little bit of a biblical Hebrew, you know?
In other words, is it really, is it really say what they say it says, and usually that's in a case where the rabbis are quoting the Torah in order to justify a leniency Here, uh, Shama is quoting the Torah to justify a stringency, you know, in other words, uh, uh, something that, that would, you know, he's, he's sort of using it to justify something kind of harsher.
And I would just sort of look at the context here, um, which is, um, so we've got a long quote from the Torah. Um, by the way, it is the same, uh, chapter of the Torah that is that, that in the story of the oven of, you know, I think it was like, uh, episode three or some, something of this, uh, of this show we looked at where, uh, in that story, uh, uh, rabbi Joshua, I, I forget if it's Rabbi Joshua or someone explaining Rabbi Joshua, but he's saying that, um, that the Torah says.
You should, um, uh, follow the majority. It's, it's not Rabbi Joshua, I think it's just the, or someone commenting and the whole thing that, like, that the majority of rabbis believed that the oven, uh, you know, could become impure. And we go by the Torah, which says, follow the majority. And we looked it up at that time and that it actually said, don't follow the majority.
Um, it said, don't follow the majority to do a bad thing. And you could say by implication, that means you should follow the majority to do a good thing. But it doesn't say that. And actually the quote was effectively dot, dot, dot follow the majority where the dot.dot was. Don't you know where the square brackets was?
Don't you know. So, um, so, so this is exactly the same, uh, area, part of the Torah. And it is really the same. Um, uh, it's uh, it's the same. Um, it's, it's uh, is it the same, uh, verse? Um, uh, not sure, but the, um, I don't think so. So, um. Oh no, it's a, it's a few verses later. So, uh, follow the majority is, um. Uh, here it's a little bit of a different translation, but you shall not side with the mighty.
That means that's also gonna translate the majority to do wrong. So, you know, here's the, the, the, not, you know, the neither anyway, we translated differently last time, but the, um, but a few verses later, we have. Keep far from a false statement. So that's what's being quoted here. Um, and the, this, what we're translating here is statement is, is davar.
Uh, sometimes it's translated as matter, uh, but you know, there's the, as Sarah had deep wrote the 10, what we call the 10 Commandments. But it's really like the 10 statements. So I translate as as statement here. And part of the reason I also translated it as, as a false statement is because the context here is basically in a court.
These are, these are mostly talking about court cases. So, um, you know, you shouldn't side with a, you shouldn't give a false testimony. You shouldn't, um, show deference to a poor man in his dispute. You shouldn't subvert the rights of the needy in their disputes. Keep far from a false statement. Do not bring death onto those who are innocent and in the right.
Right. So these are, you know, these are, um, basically legal. This is in the context of kind of legal proceedings. So, so I thought false statement made sense as a translation there, because that generally gives us a sense of legal proceedings. So all that's to say that, that here we're talking about, you know, how nice should you be to a bride or, you know, a groom on their wedding day?
Uh, and the proof text that you should say, the truth is this quote, you shouldn't give a false statement. You know, it's kind of like quoting the constitution, you know, saying, you know, you have a right to cruel, you know, be free of cruel and unusual punishment. So it's, it would be cruel and unusual to, to tell a bride that she's not beautiful in her wedding.
I was like, that has nothing to do with it. That's about court cases. So anyway, you know, so, and, and that could have been Hillel's response, but it's not
BENAY LAPPE: exactly.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, so let's look at what Hillel's response actually is. So be Hillel said to be Shama. According to your statement, with regard to one who acquired an inferior, an inferior acquisition from the market.
So here's another offensive, uh, analogy. Um, but if somebody
BENAY LAPPE: ab absolutely
DAN LIBENSON: right. So if somebody goes to, to the market to get some stuff, you know, I don't know, maybe like a, a sheep or, you know, probably an animal or something, you know, we got something from the, the market and it's not very good quality. Uh, would you, would you come?
Would you, would you praise it?
BENAY LAPPE: It's a, it's a, it's a garish, it's a garish Hawaiian shirt.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Uh, yeah. So, so somebody is beautiful, you know, they, they're so proud. They love their shirt, their dress, whatever it is. You know, they, they, they got this thing and you think it's just ugly. Should, should we praise it in his eyes or denigrate it in his eyes?
Uh, you must say that. We should praise it in his eyes. So, so the, the, so what Hillel is saying here is that, you know, the analogy, like, and I guess what I, what I would understand this is like even in a. Serious case, like somebody just was buying a new shirt, you wouldn't come up to somebody who was buying a new shirt and tell them, oh, how, what a horrible shirt.
You would, you would say like, oh, that, that looks lovely. You know? Um, and so all the more so if it was a bride, was, is that how you read that?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, I'm not sure if it's an all the more so, I think it's more like Ben Hill saying, come on you. Well, as I do how we all behave, you know, Hillel saying, you know, that this is kind of the way of the world. You do this just as much as we do. If your friend buys something that's really awful, you don't say to that friend, you know, Hawaiian shirt.
It is, by the way, I don't wanna be bagging on Hawaiian shirts. I love Hawaiian shirts. I'm just trying to, you know, e evoke something that someone would, would, would find tractive maybe. I don't know. So, you know, as well as I do that someone buys an Edsel, you don't say, you know. You got so ripped off.
Fantastic. Edsel, drive it in. Good hell. That, that was an old car. It was known to be a lemon. Okay. Uh, metaphor upon metaphor, upon metaphor. In any case, you know hill, this is where you put on your s glasses and you say to yourself, what hillel's argument that Hillel thinks Trump's Torah. And the argument that Hillel brings that he assu, they assume Trump's Torah is this is what we do.
You know that in your, you know what we do, you know what the empathic, sensitive thing to do is? You do it all the time. Just like when your friend buys a ridiculous thing in the market, you say, great. Yeah, you got a great buy. Okay. And that's very powerful. First of all, it's not named as far, but it's far, this is an example of how one's lived.
Life experience is constantly brought to bear on Torah. And it, and it wins. It's understood to be able to Trump Torah. And it does. And in fact, Shamai is silenced and has nothing to say. Shamai is like, yeah, I get it. I get it.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, so before we get there, I mean, like I, I was thinking about, you know, you talk about the different sources of law that we have, that the rabbis have, you know, there's the, the Torah itself, and then there's the, um, customs and there's, uh, legislation and Sava, there's one more, right?
Um,
BENAY LAPPE: precedent.
DAN LIBENSON: Precedent. So I, I kind of precedent feel like this is the invocation of custom in a way. You know, there's this, uh, there's this idea of, um, you know, go out into the streets. Uh, I think we've studied that in different texts and go out and go out and see what the people do. And maybe this isn't really there.
And, and, and, or maybe it's there by implication. Is that what I just showed about the, the quote being taken out of context? We don't see evidence that Hillel is literally saying, Shama, you just took that quote out of context. Um, by the way, it's, uh, parenthetical, it's interesting that, uh, you know, it's interesting that like the, um, lenient people take quotes outta context all the time.
Maybe, maybe they don't, maybe they don't wanna like be explicit as to say like, oh, you took that quote outta context. That's a no-no, because they do it all the time. So that, that would be dangerous. So instead they, they maybe do it quietly by implication, but, but part of the way that I read this here is Hillel is saying like, that can't be what.
That statement in the Torah means, it can't mean, don't ever say anything false because, you know, you know, just go out into the street and see everybody everywhere is constantly saying, you know, uh, what a, there's a word for that. I think like a, you know, a, a, you know, a nice, uh, like a, a a like a white lie, you know, like kind of a, you know, where that, that's part of the nature of human discourse is to say these little kind of white lies all the time about, you know, that's what kind of makes it possible to live.
And so it, it does say, don't make a false statement, but that can't mean, never, ever, ever say anything that is not, you know, uh, true with a, you know, in a factual right. Or however we would say that can't be. So in a sense, he's using custom or the actual behavior of people as an interpretive device to limit the meaning of the word in the Torah.
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely. I really appreciate you raising the possibility that this is really minho or custom rather than s far because over the years I've come to realize that Minho custom is actually what drives s Farah. Minho is like the unofficial spa people, which because they're not learned, can't actually be named Spar and brought to bear to Trump Tower.
But the rabbis can. The rabbis can. Mm-hmm. Um, but it's really the behavior of the people, um, out of their sort of human sra, even if uneducated sra, which is extraordinarily powerful and probably is the source of the source of Sah.
DAN LIBENSON: You know, there's a, there's a statement in the Talmud, I believe that, that, um, you should not legislate a, a piece of legislation that the people can't live up to, uh, you know, in
sibo, right? Uh, something like that. And, um, mm-hmm. The, the, so it feels like, on the one hand, we don't believe that everything that the people do is,
BENAY LAPPE: you know what? I think I lost your sound, Dan.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, I think that, oh,
BENAY LAPPE: now you're back. Now you're back. Sorry.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, okay. So I, I was saying that that, um, that, I'm not sure which part, what, what, what you heard up to, but I, but I was saying that, um, that, that it's not, it can't be the case that. That whatever the people do is right, you know, that it shows this, like the deepest of s Farrah, you know, the people.
What, which I sort of believe, I mean, I think that there's something to be said about the idea. I mean, I'm not sure exactly how to define this rule, but there's something to be said about the fact that if something is a widespread custom, the way that people just live in the world, that that's showing some deep sava, it's almost like an evolutionary, uh, you know, selection of Sava, right?
It says like, this is how we've learned to live in the world. Like you, when somebody has an ugly shirt, unless it's your, you know, child and you're trying to, you're still like teacher, you know, you're done with, oh, what a nice shirt. You know, like this is like something that since that is so common, that must be like what we've learned evolutionarily as the way to live in human society.
Otherwise you would have so much friction that it would explode, right? And yet of course that has some limitation at some point. Um, but all things being equal, it's a very relevant. Input to this question of like, what does our moral intuition or moral reasoning lead us to believe is, is right. That at the very least we should be cognizant of what the people are doing.
And, and by the way, I, I've said another times that I, I think that, um, you know, sort of rabbis today, even rabbis in liberal denominations would do well to see the people's behavior as, uh, showing Sava, you know, and, and not always assume that when the people are not doing what the rabbi would prefer or thinks that Judaism requires, that, that somehow, that shows ignorance on behalf of the people or, or, or that they don't care or, or whatever.
And, um, what would that look like if we had sort of a richer sense today that the people's behavior, even if it's contrary to the law as we understand it, is actually a source, at least a source, at least an input into understanding what maybe s Farra is calling on us to do.
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely. Absolutely. O one thing I wanna bring in before we move on to the Postscript, sort of the punchline of this Suya, is that the medieval commentators the, to bring in an interesting point, and they say that
basically Hillel and Shama agree the only thing they disagree about is not what you should do in that sticky situation. But whether it should be legislated, whether the behavior that comes from that sort of empathic sensitivity that should rightly lead you to lie, to give a white lie, should be made the law.
And Hillel says, yes it should. And the medieval commentators say that Chaite merely thinks we shouldn't. Um, put it down into the law, which I think is an interesting meta debate here.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Should, should, should it be, so, should it be the, like explicitly stated that you should lie or should it just not be explicitly stated that you shouldn't?
Something like that.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Or it shouldn't tell the truth, but I'm
BENAY LAPPE: kind of on the bait hill side
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh that it should be legislated. Yeah. That, that, yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: I'm on the, on the, I'm on. Yes. Yes. That the, what should be legislated is when you're in a situation where,
you know, there aren't high stakes involved in you not telling the truth. It's, it's an emotional equation. It's about the white lie that won't hurt someone's feelings. I think that should be legislated. Because even today we hear people say, oh, you know, don't tell a lie. And I never lie. And there's, you know, when you do tell a white lie, you don't feel quite as confident that you've done the right thing.
And I think there still can be some like moral bullying going on and unclarity about really how empathic we are called on to be, um, when it isn't legislated.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. And, and just to clarify that what it would be legislated would mean would be that it's not that you may lie, it's that you must lie. Right.
It's that it's that everybody who shows up.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: That's right. Everybody who shows up at a wedding must go up to the bride or the groom and say, you know, how beautiful she is. Uh, and how graceful she is. That's just, that's every you must, you, you, you. And, and, and that would actually lead to an interesting world in which no one could say that they're, that they never lie.
You know? Like that, that, and, and, and would that be a good world? You know, in other words, that, that, that somehow, that, that, um, you know, high, high and mighty. You know, I, I hold myself to a higher standard. I never lie, you know, is that, is it good for people to cultivate this like holier than thou, uh, you know, kind of persona that they, you know, that they're, um, uh, like a more strict, and by the way, it's all not only about lying.
I mean, I think about it in terms of other, other, um. You know, actually, you know, it reminds me of is the story of, uh, that I don't think that we studied here. That where about, uh, there's this famous story where, where, uh, there's a dispute over what day Yom Kippur is going to be on the calendar, and Rabbi Gamliel makes Rabbi Joshua come and violate Yom Kippur the day that he thinks it's Yom Kippur.
And it's kind of like, it's not only that you, we have a dispute and, and you don't have to, you don't have to observe my Yom Kippur. It's like, no, no, you have to observe my yo, you know, so, so I'm gonna force you to violate, you know, so you can't hold yourself and say, I'm, you know, okay, they could do it, but I'm better.
You know, like, it's, no, no, we're gonna, it's like an equalizing force. So,
um, okay. So,
BENAY LAPPE: all right. Should we, should we go to the last line?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So let's go to the last line. Um. So the, the addendum here, the tal the narrator says From here, the sage has said, you know, based on this, right, a person's mind should be intertwined with others. We had a little bit of translation question on this.
Uh, so just for those who do know the Aramaic or Hebrew, it's uh, Han.
So, um, so that, so just to be clear where that is. So from here said, the stages forever, always, uh, will be the mind of a man, uh, intermixed or intermingled or mixed up with the, with the, the brio, which could be with creation, with others, with, with other creatures. There's, so we, we, we translated it as a person's mind should be intertwined with others.
And there was some question I think of there should be others apostrophe.
BENAY LAPPE: This is, yeah. I think this is such a beautiful line. Um, and I think the rabbis are bringing it in here because it, it was probably a saying mm-hmm. That was common at the time, and they're bringing it in to say, this is what we mean.
This is the kind of situation where we're supposed to invoke that, that saying, that idea that
we're meant to be profoundly, deeply, intimately, radically empathic with one another. My understanding should. Be influenced by what I know is in your mind. What's in my mind to do what I think is either the right thing to do or what my estimation of a bride or someone is before I open my mouth. I need to get into your head and I need to get into your heart and I need to understand how this is gonna land for you.
And I need to like intertwine my consciousness with yours before I know what the right thing to say is. And it's not just whatever. I think that's the right thing to say. Um, so I just think it's a beautiful idea of,
you know, the, this is what you need to be like before you can know what's right to do. You have to really be empathically connected to other people. Then, then when you know where they are, what they need and how something is going to sit with them, then you can decide how it's right to speak with them and, and that, and then we, you can know when it's right to point to a verse and say, this is what I'm gonna do and this is the part of God's directive that is right for me to live out now.
And this is the part that's not.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, the, you know, it's interesting, there's something that you said at the very beginning that, that was fascinating to me that I in some ways strengthens your point, which is that you, you surmised that, or you hypothesized that this was a saying that existed. You know, I, I'm trying, like, now I'm like blanking on, you know, what's a very analogous saying in our time, but that everybody kind of, you know, it's almost like it's, it is like sacrosanct.
It's so commonly said. Uh, you know, and there's, it's like
BENAY LAPPE: it. Sorry. It's like, it's like the Latin expression, um, which I've taught to my daughter and she repeats it when it's like the right moment,
right? Which comes to us in English, as you know, you can't argue over taste. Everyone gets to decide what, you know, what they think is appealing. And you, you can't say, oh, no, it's not. Oh, that's what they find appealing. So that's like a slogan that's out in the world,
DAN LIBENSON: right? So, I mean, for us, non-Latin speakers, I've heard that one as different strokes for different folks, you know, but, uh, you know, yeah.
Um,
BENAY LAPPE: right.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so, um, yeah, so like that, there's this statement that's been around for so long, everybody's, you know, probably in this case, you know, mother said it, you know? Right. And, and, um, you know, it's, it's just, it's just so cl it's like you can't, you can't anything that violates that feels like you know that, and that's much more powerful than the Torah.
And so you're, you're telling me that, that because of some, you know, misreading of something in the Torah, we're gonna violate the Augusta boost, you know, whatever. Um, and, um, it's like that doesn't, that doesn't jive, you know? And so, um, so the, so, so, you know, and, and, and, and what I see in what you're saying is that there, this is like a, uh, this is like one of those just so stories from the Bible, you know, how did the, why does the snake slither on its belly, you know?
Well, it's because of the Adam and Eves, you know? Right. So why, why do we have the statement, you know, a person's mind should be intertwined with others. Well, it actually comes from this. Hello and sha my dispute over dancing with the bride. But actually probably it's exactly the opposite. It's that the, the statement, the, the deep SVA of people was that, you know, you should be empathetic with people.
And of course you shouldn't tell a groom that is bright as ugly. I mean, of course, like everybody knows that there, that cannot, that could never be the rule, you know? We all know that. So Shama, if Shama you, you, you know, you wanna quote the Torah to say that you should tell a husband that is bright as you know, it's like that, that's not, you know, but instead, but we, we can't do, we can't officially do it that way.
So we have to kind of do it in a kind of roundabout way.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And one, one final point, you know, the Talmud is not at the end of the day interested in telling you what to do in terms of. Normative behavior. It's not a code and we don't get codes for a thousand years after the Talmud. But it's, it's interesting to note what eventually got codified and outta this passage.
Two things got codified into law. One is that at a wedding you say beautiful and graceful bride, no matter what the bride looks like. And number two, MBBA says it's now gonna be a law that a person's mind should be intertwined with those of everyone else that becomes a halaka. And I think that's just gorgeous.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. Really gorgeous. All right, well that's a good place to stop and, uh, we will be back at the, uh, the same new time, uh, 10 Eastern next week. So we'll see you then.
BENAY LAPPE: Thanks Dan.
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.
Watch on Video (original unedited stream)
