The Oral Talmud Episode 50: Ultimate Questions (Shabbat 31a)
SHOW NOTES
“You're not going to be judged on how much Torah you know. You're not going to be judged on other elements like how smart you were. You're going to be judged on did you make this a priority? What you're going to be judged on is, did you actually work to live the life that you wanted to live? Or did you just kind of hope for the best?” - Dan Libenson
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.
Fifty episodes in, and Oral Talmud turns the mirror all the way around. Not “What does the text say?” but “How did you live?” This episode opens with a deceptively simple premise: the questions you’ll be asked when it’s all over. Not theology. Not belief. A test. And the rabbis don’t hedge, they hand you the exam in advance. Were you honest when it actually cost you something? Did you make space for what mattered, or just hope you’d get around to it? Did you live like redemption was possible or like nothing really changes?
But the deeper provocation isn’t the questions — it’s the audacity behind them. The rabbis reverse-engineer a good life and then dare you to build it on purpose. This isn’t about getting the right answers someday; it’s about refusing to drift now. Every category cuts closer than it first appears: business becomes character, study becomes priority, hope becomes responsibility, and argument becomes a test of wisdom. By the end, you’re left with something unsettling and clarifying at the same time: you already know what matters — the only question is whether you’re actually living like it.
This week’s text: Shabbat 31a
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 50: Ultimate Questions.
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.
Fifty episodes in, and Oral Talmud turns the mirror all the way around. Not “What does the text say?” but “How did you live?” This episode opens with a deceptively simple premise: the questions you’ll be asked when it’s all over. Not theology. Not belief. A test. And the rabbis don’t hedge — they hand you the exam in advance. Were you honest when it actually cost you something? Did you make space for what mattered, or just hope you’d get around to it? Did you live like redemption was possible — or like nothing really changes?
But the deeper provocation isn’t the questions — it’s the audacity behind them. The rabbis reverse-engineer a good life and then dare you to build it on purpose. This isn’t about getting the right answers someday; it’s about refusing to drift now. Every category cuts closer than it first appears: business becomes character, study becomes priority, hope becomes responsibility, and argument becomes a test of wisdom. By the end, you’re left with something unsettling and clarifying at the same time: you already know what matters — the only question is whether you’re actually living like it.
DAN LIBENSON: Welcome back everyone. I'm Dan Levison, and I am here as always with Bene Lapi. Hey, bene. Hey, Dan for this. Oh, sorry. I, I, we took last week off, so I forgot how I introduced the show. But for, we're here for this week episode of the Oral Talmud. So after a week off for Passover. So, uh, welcome back everyone.
And Heyne.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey. Hey. It feels like it's been a long time.
DAN LIBENSON: It does. It really does. Um, I so it, uh, in, in getting, uh, things ready for today, I realized it's our 50th episode.
BENAY LAPPE: Is that right? Yeah, it's our anniversary.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, well, I guess I anniversary would be 52, although probably, I think, I feel like we took one other week.
So I think it probably is our one year anniversary actually. Wow. Wow. We probably skipped a few weeks. Yeah. Which by the way, I think it's pretty impressive that we only skipped two weeks in a year, so That's good.
BENAY LAPPE: It's, thanks Steve.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, so that, so that's, so it's our, uh, one year anniversary pretty much.
And, um, uh, how was your, so how was your Passover, any, any, any insights from your Passover on the topics relevant here?
BENAY LAPPE: Well, I really took our learning seriously and we went off book from Gold Seders. And what, what I realized was when you tell the story, you actually do hit all the bases. If you start the story early enough and you end the story far enough, you pretty much do all right.
You hit the, you hit the 10 plagues and you hit all the, the symbols. And so that was kind of an interesting realization.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, I mean maybe, maybe, uh, we should save this for next Passover, but, uh, it feels like it's a, it's an interesting sort of Talmudic, uh, period question why the Seder is more, is structured the way that we have it.
With the, that, with that section from Deuteronomy being the way that the story is told, you know, through those four or five verses from Deuteronomy, which are not very good at telling, I mean, they're, they're like a summary. Actually, I, I was reading stuff about, you know, writing good college essays because my son was applying to college and, um, the, and one of the things it, it said like, don't write with abstractions.
You know, don't just say like big concepts, write with detail and that. That, those verses from Deuteronomy are pretty abstract, and so, you know, yeah. The, the Seder's written, the haga is written in such a way that you're supposed to kind of explicate them and give some detail, but it's like, it's, it's kind of poorly done in my opinion.
And, uh, it doesn't, it doesn't capture it. And we, we also, we also read like, I don't know if how much you read, I mean, how you got through, sounds like you got through more than we did. We, we read basically just about the 10th plague we read from the Book of Exodus. Just the sort of whole story of the 10th plague and the, and the Paschal Lamb, the first, you know, the blood on the doorposts and all that stuff.
It was, it was remarkably useful to and valuable to read it just like you're saying. I mean, I think at three of the four of those, uh, you know, and you shall tell your son, you know, the ones that end up as the four sons or the four children, the wise, the wicked that doesn't know to ask the, um, are in that little segment.
And, uh, so it was very, it was also very like provocative and interesting. And you're like, well, this is way better than, you know, reading that junk from the hara.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And then I real, my favorite moment was when, okay, we're off book and we start to do, you know, the parsley and the salt water, and I hand some to Molly, my daughter, and she says, wait a minute, what's this about?
And I thought, that's it. Right? That, that's how it works. And you know, from a pedagogic point of view, if you don't answer questions that people don't yet have,
DAN LIBENSON: right,
BENAY LAPPE: they naturally. Have the question themselves, and it's so much better. And I went, oh my God.
DAN LIBENSON: Right?
BENAY LAPPE: This is it. This is how it works. You go, wait a minute.
What, what is, why are we doing this? It, it was
DAN LIBENSON: right.
BENAY LAPPE: It was really
DAN LIBENSON: cool. One thing, one thing that we did was we, we had been cleaning up our, our dining room, like sort of Passover and found all this like stuff from previous holidays that was lying around. So we had some DRA and stuff for masks and stuff.
And so we put them on the table, you know, and, and everybody was asking like, why, why is this stuff on here? And I was like, exactly, this is how we should start the Seder, right? Like, why question? So that was great. Um, the other thing that, that was really like a classic moment for me, uh, was that on the second night we had everybody, the first night we had another family that we're in a pod with, and the, we were at their house and the second night they were at our house, but we also had.
A lot of family members on Zoom and we projected it on the wall. So it was kinda lifesize people. It was great. It was really, really great. And, um, my sister, who's a doctor in Israel, and she deals with a lot of, you know, anti-vaxxers who tend to be ultra, ultra orthodox. Not that it's necessarily relevant to to this, but uh, well, I think it is in, in many ways.
But anyway, so she, when we were reading the 10th Plague and the whole story there, right, is that, that basically the night or the day before the, the 10th plague, I mean, we don't really learn the story this way, you know, the, the Israelites are given advanced notice that this is gonna happen, and they're told to sacrifice a lamb.
This is the origin of the Paschal Lamb. It's just, it's reenacting this, this moment, but they're told to sacrifice a lamb. And there's all these rules that are in the Talmud. Much of the tractate of, of PE is about the Paschal lamb and the time of the temple. You know, you can't leave any leftovers till the next day and you have to burn them and therefore you have to like split them with another family.
All that. So, but it all refers back to this original moment. Where they're, the reason why they're sacrificing the lamb is not so much to eat it as much as to get the blood to put on the doorpost, uh, to ward off the, the death, the angel of death, the whatever it might be. And, um, and so, so in reading that, my sister says, um, you know, I think that there must have been anti lambers back then.
You know, and, you know, these are the Jews that that thought it was a hoax, right? And, and they didn't wanna put the blood on their doorposts, right? For all these reasons, it's aesthetically not pleasing, you know, whatever. It's, I love that love. If I have a, had, have blood on my doorposts and their firstborn, you know, I mean, in the story and the mythology would've died and, you know, it's really, that's close to home, right?
I mean, it's really on the nose when you, when you think about it that way. And that was just, that was a paradigm shift for me. It was, it was, it was very, uh, you know, because then it, it really kind of, it was like a, a, a part of the story that. I mean, obviously it's dramatic, but we tend to kind of skip it over.
Okay. So they put blood in their door posts, move on, you know, actually becomes like, just by the insight to say, but there probably were some people who didn't and, and what, and they're like, people in our world today. And so this story really is pretty, pretty close to home. And, and then, uh, the question then, then, as I always think about it, you know, there's that in the, the, the four children, the wise, the wicked, right?
The, the wicked one. You know, says, what, what is this? Uh, what is this business to you? And then the haha says, and, and, uh, you know, because he says, uh, to you and not to him, he is removing himself from the community. And,
BENAY LAPPE: and had he been there,
DAN LIBENSON: had he been there, he would not have been redeemed. Right. And I always, you know, have had read that until a few years ago as like, that's harsh.
You know, just because he is, you know, a dissenter, so he's not gonna be redeemed. But,
and
BENAY LAPPE: is it Right, and, and haven't we always read it as sort of a punishment? Yeah. That you pun Right,
DAN LIBENSON: exactly. A punishment for dissenters. Like you're expressing an alternate opinion, you know, not so respectfully. That felt to me, kind of unw, like it didn't feel to me, like within the, the, the sort of way that we think about Jews, you know, and the Talmudic idea of the debate and everything.
And then a couple years ago, I, I kind of started reading it in a different way that would, that said just like, well, he wouldn't have been redeemed because he just wouldn't have come along. You know, like, 'cause he, because he, he didn't feel part of the community. So when the community left, he would've just stayed back because he, he didn't see himself as part of that.
So it's not a punishment, it's just a, a statement effect. And when you kind of add onto it, this element of it, it, it, he might have even not, not just not come along, but not, not essentially put on a mask, you know, not, not put on the blood. Oh,
BENAY LAPPE: wow.
DAN LIBENSON: Wow. He would, it, it wasn't a punishment, it's just. It's just what happens, you know?
And, um, that, that's been very, I mean, I'm still in the process of, of, of fully, uh, uh, working that through because I've, I've often in, in, in reading the Bible have thought about it as, as that these are the, um, what if we read God and we read miracles and we read these other sort of supernatural things as kind of metaphors for the natural consequences of certain behaviors.
And um, and, and, and, and suddenly this one just became incredibly powerful. Read that way.
BENAY LAPPE: Wow. Wow. That's really interesting. I don't think I will ever forget anti lambers.
DAN LIBENSON: It's anti glamorous is like, I I have to say it's my sister's the greatest moment.
BENAY LAPPE: It's so great.
DAN LIBENSON: She's had, she's had many, but, uh, that was a good one.
So, um, so I guess let's, uh, let's shift to, to the Talmud. Um, I, um. So we are in a, uh, so, so we're kind of going back to our big picture, looking at kind of what are the ways in which the rabbis are reconceptualizing, what this whole project is all about of Judaism, how they're, and, and more significantly how they're doing it, you know, what they're, what they're doing with the materials that they've inherited in order to be able to kind of tie this new approach to, to, to everything that had come before.
Yeah. I mean, this is more of a setup.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Well, I think it, in addition, um, you know, thinking back on my crash theory, if I'm right, that every tradition is trying to answer those same basic human questions, um, th. I think this text is about a revisiting of what is important, how should I live my life? What, what's really the most valuable thing?
How should I use my time? This, this is their revisiting those questions and, and I think giving a, a new or a, an updated set of answers that they're going to build a tradition around to help us, um, live out the answers to. So that might be what's going on here. And I, and I think that's part of what happens at every.
You know, post crash era, every option three is gonna be saying, okay, let's look at those questions again. What questions did we not ask that now are questions, right? We have all sorts of questions now that were never questions before. What does it mean to be a gendered human being, right? Mm-hmm. Um, is a question that was never asked because the assumption was everyone was either male or female.
Um, you know, what, what does it mean to live outside of a patriarchal structure? That was a question that was never asked. Um, how do I live out an ethical sexuality? You know, all sorts of a, a different kind. Are, are we happy with the sexuality ethics we had when it was in a a heteronormative context? Well, let's get rid of, okay, so I think there are new questions and that.
The new answers to the old questions and some of the new ones, I think gives us a tweaked version of that ideal human being that the whole enterprise is out to create. And, and I think this text is, is getting at how should this new human being live and what kind of person is this way of life gonna make them?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. And hopefully we'll have time today and certainly in the future to, to get to this question of, you know, yeah. What questions are missing, uh, what are, what would be the new questions and, and so, but to really, but not, not to say that these questions that we're about to look at are not the right questions.
They, I think a lot of them they are, but, but two points about it. One is that these are not necessarily the questions that the rabbis inherited. It seems likely they're not. But it's interesting to see how they're trying to tie it to an inheritance, number one. And number two is to say, um, okay, so, uh, if we, if the questions that we've inherited from them are, are not quite the right questions, they have told us almost explicitly, okay.
So say your questions and then tie it to our, you know, right. Like tie it to ours the way we tied it to there. So, so it'll be interesting to, to ask some of those questions. Uh, I, I'll just, yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: No, I, I really appreciate you always reminding us that their meta message is, this is what we came up with. You play with us.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Because I'm so enamored with what they did.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Vis-a-vis the Torah. I, I think I often go, okay, well this is it now.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And I forget the ways that that's inadequate and that. We have to ask the same questions and do the same, same things.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. No, and, and I just, we, we've been recording a series of episodes for the Judaism Un Bound podcast, uh, with actually quite, quite a few of your students of, from Sava.
You know, we've been looking at kind of the trans experience and, and Judaism, and one of the questions that I've been trying to hunt down a bit, you know, to ask people to, to kind of pursue is like, to the extent that the Judaism that we've inherited was not designed, and there are questions, and maybe it was in certain ways, but was not designed with, for example, uh, a, a gender fluidity or a a a, a non-gender binary in mind.
How can that be? Right. You know, how, what, how can we, what can we do with that if, if we're of a non-binary gender? You know, what, what, what do you, how do you use something that was not designed? With someone like you in mind can do, you have to just reject it? Do you actually find in deep, deep, and this, some people have said extraordinary things that it actually was in, or you can actually argue that it mm-hmm.
It, it did un it did understand us in some certain way. Uh, or, you know, or No, we can, we can we, what we really need to understand about it is that it was designed to be redesigned.
BENAY LAPPE: Yes.
DAN LIBENSON: And so, right. And so at the point at which we realized that there's something that the designers were not conscious of, A, we have permission to redesign it and b, we can actually mine into it and see that actually, like, okay, so maybe it was not top of mind for them, but if they had lived today, they would have done it differently.
It, so it's, it's really tr and, you know, maybe we can think back and maybe we should have other, you know, law professors on to talk about that question. About the Constitution? I don't, I don't, you know, or I don't remember if Richard Prius said anything specific about this, but like, sometimes you, you wonder like, well, if, if Madison was alive today, or Hamilton or Jefferson, you know, would they, would they have, um, you know, would they have written this differently?
I mean, the answer is like, almost, of course they would have, but would they have even almost said like, no, no, but you have to understand that if I wrote that back, then of course, what I meant now was, you know, what the implication that I would've thought for our times is, is this.
BENAY LAPPE: And you know what I, I, I used to really hold tightly onto the idea that if they had lived now, they would've tweaked it the way we would tweak it.
And I realize I don't actually need them to have tweaked it the way we would. But what I believe and, and I don't believe that they necessarily would have. Mm-hmm. I mean, there are people living today who are homophobic and misogynistic, and maybe some of them would still be that today. And they would, they wouldn't be in our like little club.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: But what they would for sure have said is we could not necessarily
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: We will, I will, but we could uhhuh and then the, the conversation would be, should we or shouldn't we, uhhuh, and we've talked about this before, that's always the right conversation. Uhhuh, we can, should we, uh, or shouldn't we not, we can't.
That just never was the conversation. Mm-hmm. And when you, you know what I mean? That's what I feel confident that they would've said, yes we can.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And maybe knowing us and knowing, you know, a bunch of transgender folk and living in our world, and they would've gone. Yeah. Not only can we, but now I realize we should.
Or some of them would've said, no, I don't want to. And you know. We would've had it out.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: And we would've taken a vote.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Yeah. I agree with what you're saying. And, and I totally agree with that, and I think it's a beautiful way to say it. I, I, the other piece that maybe we'll come back around to it, like I, and, 'cause I'm not totally remembering like the context in which I've said this before, not in this show, but I think on Judaism bound, particularly when we've talked about like feminism and women's, uh, equality and Judaism and that kind of thing, it's like, you know, I've said like, look, in a world in which women are not, don't have equal roles to men anywhere.
Right. In a patriarchal world, like. You know, there's certain things that are just kind of like beyond the imagination of even the most progressive person. I mean, I'm sure there are things today that Right. For, I mean, I'm sure there, right? We know. I mean, we already know that there are things today about eating animals, about the, about the environment that we're gonna be condemned for in the future for not having seen, you know, what's obvious, you know?
Right. That and, um, so, so that's just so, so then when you look back and you say, well, I mean the Orthodox Judaism is not egalitarian. It's like, well, okay. But that's because the, the, the moment of its birth was at a time where nothing was egalitarian. So, so the, so that's not quite the right question, you know, and, and by the way, I think in the orthodox world today, that is.
I think being, uh, implicitly at least understood by a huge chunk of the Orthodox world and where there are now kind of women, well, they're not kind of, there are women rabbis in orthodoxy. Uh, so, you know, it's kind of, it's a slow process. But I mean, there's starting to be this, this understanding. I don't know that that's the analysis that's been given exactly.
But I, but I think that there's something where, you know, if, if what you say, if what you mean by quote orthodoxy or, uh, and, and I don't mean like the movement Orthodox, you know, I mean like by like this is the way it's always been. It's like, well, but if you're saying that outside of the context of the society as a whole, it's, it's a little hard to, uh, it is not actually a great argument.
And, um, you know, it's not, it's, it really is a, a kind of a dead hand argument, you know, un unless you believe that, you know, God is so involved in this process, which I don't think, by the way, is the Jewish. Belief, even the most, you know, believing in God, right? I mean, that's what we see when, when the rabbis say, lo bhe maim here.
You know, it's not in the heavens. Or, you know, God, you gave it to us, the Torah 3000 years ago and that's it, you know, now it's our work. So I think even the most kind of, uh, orthodox perspective within Judaism would say it's, it's god's not that involved actually, uh, in this. And, um. And, and so, but unless you believe that God is so involved, that of course, of course anything would've been imaginable because God was involved and God can imagine everything.
Okay, well, that, that, that I, you could say, well then, and so since God didn't say to do it this other, this newfangled way that we're doing it now, you know that there's, that's a real, but I don't, I don't, you know, that's not really the argument that, that most people are making. So anyway, uh, let's jump into this, uh, text and then, and then we'll, we'll kind of, uh, so, okay, so the, the, the, the basic setup of this text, and, and it comes, uh, it's, it's, there's connected to a verse from Isaiah, which, we'll, we'll talk, I think more about the verse later, uh, if at all.
But just in context, there is the quoting of a verse from Isaiah by Ish Laish, who is a earlier, uh, rabbi. Uh, and, uh, he is, um, basically asking what does this particular versus mean? Uh, and then. You know, much later, another Rabbi Uri Peach is in the land of Israel. Ava is in Babylonia many years later. I mean, they're, they're not actually talking directly to each other, but Ava is, uh, saying, uh, well, let me explain to you what this verse means.
The, this, this verse is referring to essentially the questions they ask you when you die. Right. The questions that, that you're asked in and on the, on the door, you know, the doorstep of, or whatever the, the gates of, of heaven or whatever you wanna believe. Exactly
BENAY LAPPE: right?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So that's the, so, okay.
BENAY LAPPE: And we're, and we're in track eight Shabbat, right?
31 a
DAN LIBENSON: Shabbat 31 A. Yep. Okay. And so we'll start, say, Ava said at the time, they bring a person in for judgment. They say to him, and then here they're referring back to the order of that verse. We can talk about it, or you can look at it for yourself.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. But before, before we even go.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: The, the, they, I'm always interested in this.
I'm not, one of the things I'm interested in about this text is who is the they?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Are, are these angels? It feels like they're angels, right? It it at the time that they bring a person into judgment. So I agree with you. This is sort of in the imagination of the rabbis. What happens after you die?
There's some kind of judgment moment, like, you die, you get to heaven or some place, and there's some plurality of beings who usher you in. And I, I think these are like angels. I'm not sure, but
DAN LIBENSON: okay. It could be angels, I think. I think by the way, like I think that's, that's an awesome question to ask because we, we can't really see the answer here.
We don't, I don't think we know the answer unless we really know kind of Exactly. Maybe there's somewhere else where the, it's really clear what the rabbis understood to be going on. But if you think of the, they, I mean, right, there's two other possibilities, right? One is that it's kind of a royal we and, and they mean God.
Another possibility is that it's like the other people that are there, you know, the kind of, um, you know, and I kinda like that one, you know, it's like,
BENAY LAPPE: that's neat.
DAN LIBENSON: Did we admit this person into our society up here, or,
BENAY LAPPE: that's cool.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, I mean, I think it's kinda interesting and maybe, maybe as we get to the questions, it'll be useful to sort of see which of those options fits with any given question or with all of them.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Okay. So before we even get to the questions, let's just sit for a minute with the fact that there's a certain audacity in saying we know what we're gonna be asked in heaven,
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh,
BENAY LAPPE: um, and what does it mean or, or what's the impact on our lives to know what the te you know, the questions on the test, right?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It, it actually seems like a good idea. Right? Mm-hmm. You can teach to the test, you can live to the test. Uhhuh Uhhuh. And I think that's ultimately what the question, knowing what the questions are, is saying, okay, you know what the test is gonna be, right. Use your life in a way that you're gonna get an A when you get there, because this is what it means to live a life of, I don't know how to fill in the blank, but a good life,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
BENAY LAPPE: I think this is the definition of a good life,
DAN LIBENSON: right? And, and I'll take that opportunity to say that like, as is often the case in the Talmud, the fact that that there is a source for these questions, but it is extremely poor one, you know, it is not in the context in Isaiah. It is not talking about this at all.
You know, not talking about the questions you ask in heaven. It's actually sort of talking about, as I understand it, like the, the, the nature of the land of Israel itself, you know, and, and so like this is another one of those cases of, uh, they are. They, they have intuited, right? I don't want, I don't wanna just say they're making it up.
I, you know, they may be I, but I'm saying like, this is what they believe fundamentally were the questions. And then I think they went looking for a text to, to, to, to tie it to. But it's not like the book of Isaiah is talking about what happens in heaven.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And I know we'll get back to the verse in Isaiah, but you know, it's, it's as if the directions are, you should drive, drive to the next town, and then the rabbis deduce from that, oh, you should have drive.
Uh, it, it's like, okay, fine.
DAN LIBENSON: Exactly. That's right. That's, that's very good. Okay, so let's look at the first question, which is actually, like, in certain circles, like the, the famous one. Yeah. Uh, I think that like pe if people have ever heard of this text, I think this is the question that they've heard of, which is the first question that you're asked.
I think there was a, I think there was a book by, uh, Mitch Alba called the, the Questions You're Asked In Heaven. Something like that. Right?
BENAY LAPPE: No, it, it was, um, Elliot.
DAN LIBENSON: Elliot Dorf. No,
BENAY LAPPE: not Elliot Dorf. Uh, not Elliot Wolfson. Help me.
DAN LIBENSON: Oh, Ron Wolfson.
BENAY LAPPE: Ron Wolfson. Yes. Ron Wolfson wrote a book called The Questions You're Asked in Heaven.
It's a, it's a wonderful book and I highly recommend it, and it's about this text, Uhhuh, it's a, it's a really short, easy to read and accessible book. Fleshing out these questions as sort of the curriculum for Jewish Life, huh. Which I think is what the text is. Say,
DAN LIBENSON: right. Okay. Ron Wolf. So Ron Wolfen. Great guy.
Yeah. Um, okay, so, um, number one question. Were you honest in your business dealings and I, I put faithful in parentheses here because the, because like you just said, you know, you drive to point A and then they say, do you have the drive? You know, the, the text, the, the quote from Isaiah, something like, and, and the faith of your times shall be, and they say, and so the first question is, were you faithful?
Right. Obviously has, did, did you have faith? But what they mean, what they mean by faith in this context is, is were you honest in your business dealings? And, and I'll just note that I went, heard a, a comedian, uh, named Dana De very funny comedian, a Jewish comedian, you know, he, he does some Jewish, Jewish comedy for like Jewish events, you know, like that kind of thing.
And, um, anyway, he, he said like, it's so Jewish. You know, the first question you're asked when you die is, how's business, right?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I, I love, I love this question. Um, and I, for me that what, what's going on with this question is that it's much more indicative of your honesty to look at where it's actually hardest to be honest and easiest to get away with being dishonest.
Hmm. Right. It, there are so many ways in your business dealings that you can cheat and not get caught. Little ways. From, you know, taking a box of Staples home from the office to, you know, raising the so many ways. And if you were honest and you didn't do those, those things where you really could have easily gotten away with it, that says something about who you are.
So I, I just, I just love this question. And the other day I was looking up this phrase, it's, did you ba basically give and take mm-hmm. Which in the political realm, um, has to do with negotiation
DAN LIBENSON: negotiations. Right,
BENAY LAPPE: right. Maan. Right. I lived in Israel at a time when, I guess it's always, there's always negotiations, but that was in the headlines all the time.
So Maan is really in my head, but I was looking it up in my Tama dictionary because it came up in another text and. The TOMA dictionary says it's not only business, it's any kind of interaction
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: So that made me wonder whether this line is actu or this question is only about business, or is it about any of your social interactions as well?
I, I'm not sure.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, and, and even if it wasn't meant to be about, if it meant was meant to be only about business, but that, but that makes a lot of sense. You know, by, by the way, it's like an interesting, one of these questions that, you know, like, actually I was, I was thinking about it for a, a later question that we were, we'll get to it, but we were asking, there was a translation question that, that you and I had about one of the later questions and the modern Hebrew.
Uh, right. Nowhere of me said, oh, I know what this word means, you know, but then I kind of second guess myself and said, well, I don't really know what it means in Biblical Hebrew, and maybe in Aramaic it means something different. Rabbinic Hebrew means so. And then the question is like, well, so again, back to our conversation with Richard Primus, like, I mean, is that the ultimate, is that the question?
Like the, the, to answer this question, we have to know what, what that meant in, you know, mid, mid rabbinic Hebrew or early mid rabbinic, whatever we're gonna call this layer. Uh, a reasonable answer is yes. You know, like that's what they, that's what they meant. But, but another, but it's interesting to say, well, but this term has actually morphed and grown in modern Hebrew to like negotiations on peace.
So does this mean, for example, that when you know Benjamin Netanyahu goes to heaven, right? That when he's reading this text, he should understand that this means that when he's negotiating with the Palestinians or Iran or whatever, that it's not actually okay for him to, uh, you know, say anything that might not be quite accurate, even if he thinks it's best for Israel.
You know? Right. I mean, that, that's like, you know, because that's, that's what we mean by maa Matan these days. Right? Right. Whereas business dealings, we have other words for that.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And in your, you, that question also brings up to me audience, the question of audience. Who's the audience for this text and who's imagined to be asked these questions?
Hmm. And my assu, obviously the audience of the Talmud is the rabbis, but I think the assumption is this is every person who dies. Every person is gonna be asked this, which tells, which also suggests to me that this may not only be business because not every person is doing business. Uhhuh, right?
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: But everyone is doing human interaction. So I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Well, for any text, it's interesting to think about there's at least, I don't know, three or four possibilities in terms when we're thinking about audience, right? There's, there's like, these are the rules for the rabbis themselves, and a lot of them actually were in business.
That, that, you know, one of the things that I think about a lot today is that, you know, can we, can you really make a living doing newfangled Judaism? And maybe the answer is that you should, you know, it's, it's not what it's for. Like it should or, you know, right. It, so, um, so, so that actually it should be done by non-professionals, and that means that they have other jobs.
And, and just by definition, I mean, this is problematic. There's been things written about it recently. I forget if it, I've just read something. Uh, uh, oh. You know, there was an article about how like professors in universities, uh, a huge percentage of them are the children of professors and or wealthy people.
I think. And like the idea is like, this is something that you can't really afford to go into this life 'cause it doesn't pay that much, and it's very likely that you're not gonna actually end up with a job as a professor. So it's a very risky kinda life to take and really only the most privileged in society can take it.
And, and obviously that's problematic, but it also might be just a problematic reality that in a time of, of, uh, of, of great upheaval and transition, that the people who are gonna be able to do this kind of cutting edge work are gonna have to be people that in some way are able to sustain themselves not through this work directly.
And that means that. A lot of them are going to be in, in business and, and maybe there's all kinds of problematics that come to that. Like maybe I'm cheating in my business affairs so that I can only afford to work three days a week so that I can mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Be a rabbi the other two days. Right. And, and then I justify that and I say, well, I was doing it for the good of, you know.
Right. And there are all kinds of ways that you could, so one is like that, that, that some of these may be actually of particular relevance to the rabbis themselves. Mm-hmm. Sometimes it's like, it's that end. Especially one like this strikes me, this is a very simple text. This is very straightforward, very, very, uh, it's not a lot of, you know, pill, pool, and, you know, all kinds of, you know, machinations.
So this seems like the kind of text that a rabbi could just sit down and read to a person and say, well, let me tell you. Uh, you know, these are the, and so, so it actually is meant for the public. Mm-hmm. And it's meant to be told to the public, uh, you know, and then, and then there's, um, there's, there's all kinds of, uh, points in between, uh, potentially, but, but it's, uh, this one strikes me as kind of both, you know?
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
I like to think of it as for everybody, and I'll tell you why when we get to another one. But, but let's see. Okay. Let's see what the pieces are.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So let's go on to the next one. Uh, did you, did you fix times for Torah?
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: And in, uh, and so, and again, um, I think that the, oh, so then the, the, um, just to connect it to the verse, the, the verse says, and something like, it's very hard to translate this verse, but it says, and the faith of your times shall be a strength of salvation, whatever that means.
Exactly. They're, they're pulling out the word times and saying, question number two, did you fix times for Torah? Did you, did you specify? And you wanna think about like, did you really like put it in your calendar for a specific time each day? Right. Like, it's not just did you study Torah? Did you make a commitment to study Torah at a particular time?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I think that's, I think that's really interesting because the, the emphasis isn't on, like the, the stuff you learned.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It, it's not, did you learn a lot of Torah? Could have been that?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It isn't even, did you learn Torah? Like you could probably answer yes to this if you learn nothing, but you actually did set the times, although I don't think that was the intention.
I think the intention is did you prioritize it in your life?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, I, I remember when I used to work at Claw and, um, Irwin Kula had us all look at our checkbooks as we were doing kind of a HB bone, uh, you know, a pre-high holiday looking at our priorities. Okay, where did you write, where do, where are the checks, you know, that you wrote?
Mm-hmm. And this is looking at your calendar and saying, okay, what, what, what were your fixed commitments? Well, it was probably yoga and it was probably, I. I don't know what, but was there, was there something in there as important to you as yoga that you, or whatever, that you put in every day and di was one of those Torah, so mm-hmm.
I think it's about priority and so something like that. I dunno, what are you getting?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, well, I mean, I will tell you that, that I, in a way, right? Like, not to, like, one of the, one of the things that, um, you know, I'm thinking about if, 'cause we skipped our show last week was like, wow, this really is my fixed time for Torah.
Like, I mean, I, I sometimes, you know, we'll study other things, other times of the week things come up. But like, you know, this time for the last year has been very fixed on my schedule and you know, I mean, it's been hugely important to me. And, um. So it's very, you know, it, it's, and, and it, it makes me think about, uh, there's this famous quote by Hillel where, where he says, Hillel the Elder, where he says, um, don't say, I will study Torah when I have free time, because you may never have free time.
And so that's obviously the same basic point here. It's like, no, no, if this is something that you're gonna say is important, the only way to really make sure of that is to, is to fix it on your schedules. Say, I always do this Thursdays, you know, nine in this case. But, um,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: And then, you know, I would also abstract further than that and say, well, like, like maybe Irwin Kula was saying there, it's like, it's not even just about Torah.
It's if, if we understand Torah more broadly, it's fixed times for things that you prioritize or that should be prioritized. So don't just say, I. Wanna do this or I support this, but, but actually make sure like, this is actually like a life lesson. You know, make sure you gotta put that in calendar and be serious about it.
Otherwise you're probably not gonna do it.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And yeah, and also I think as a general rule, anything they say, any teaching comes to disabuse you of what you would've thought had that teaching not come up.
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh, Uhhuh,
BENAY LAPPE: n nothing is recorded in the Talmud. That is obvious and that everybody does because it would be no need for anyone to say it or for them to record it.
Mm-hmm. So there's always a hava Amina, there's always a, the assumption that is either wrong or that we now wanna tell you is wrong. Yesterday was right, right. And now it's wrong. And so I always ask myself, okay, what's the Hava Mina for this? What would I have thought had they not said fixed times? And I think it's that idea that how much, you know.
Is the measure Mm. Of y your relationship to Torah. Mm-hmm. If you know a lot, that's the, you know, you, you've done Torah. Right. And if you know a little, you haven't done it. Right. And this is saying no, it's not about a lot. It's not about a little
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It's about a, the, it's fixed place in your life.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: However much you, you learn or whatever happens in that half hour a week or whatever it is. It's that regular presence in your life. Something like that.
DAN LIBENSON: I love that. I, and it connects to what I was thinking about, which was like this question of like, okay, wait a second. We're losing, we're losing the, the track a little bit of where, where we are, which is, these are the questions you're asked when you die as part of the judgment, whatever that means Exactly.
Of how you lived.
BENAY LAPPE: That's
DAN LIBENSON: right. So it's like, it, it really, it, it's like doubling down on what you said. It's, it's the, you're not going to be judged on how much Torah, you know? Right. You're not gonna be judged on. Other elements of it, how smart you were, you're, you're gonna be judged on did you make this a priority?
And did, and, and, and I would say, even abstracting what I said, not that that Torah may be not the most important word there, but the fixing is, that's right. The most important word, right, that it says like, well, you're gonna be judged is on like, did you actually work to live the life that you wanted to live?
Or did you just kind of hope for the best? And if you didn't work, meaning prioritize, put it on a make sure, if you say I wanted work for social justice, you put that on your calendar. You know, you said, I wanna study Torah. You put that on your ca, you really made sure that you did it. If you didn't do that, then probably, and maybe certainly you didn't actually do enough, you know, and you're gonna be judged for that.
You know? I mean, and again, I don't believe, you know, God's there judging you, you know, like, but meaning like you're gonna look at your life and say, you know. I didn't do, I didn't do everything I could have done. Yeah. And it's not, and it's not because I like, had a more, more important priorities. It's because I didn't do the work.
And I think that's hugely
BENAY LAPPE: Yep. And I love that you're opening up Torah. It, the, the question is, what was most of important to you? Did you fix times for that?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. Like so many of us are, you know, waking up to values that, you know, weren't priorities for us. You know, a, you know, bunch of white folks are going, oh my God, anti-racism is, wasn't on my radar screen.
And now is, and now I'm reading lots of books and I'm in a book group and I'm thinking about it. But Yeah. Right. What
DAN LIBENSON: would anti-racism.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And not to think about it. Not to talk about it. But what would you do in that, you know, one hour a week or a half an hour a week?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: That, yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Hopefully a little more. Okay. Um, so, um, so the third question is, um, did you engage in being fruitful in multiplying? And by the way, to tie that to the, to the verse, that's the one that's the least straightforward that I think they're tying. They're, they're connecting that to the word hoen, which is strength.
And I guess they're saying like that that strength is about being fruitful and multiplying. Right? Like that somehow that indicates one strength, like, I guess
BENAY LAPPE: like,
DAN LIBENSON: uh, vigor.
BENAY LAPPE: I guess so,
DAN LIBENSON: yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: So two things jump out at me about this. One is, it doesn't say, did you have children? Mm-hmm. It doesn't say. I don't know, maybe I'm making too much of the asta.
Did you engage in
DAN LIBENSON: mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Doesn't actually say were you act, were you successful in procreating? It, it, did you engage yourself in this
DAN LIBENSON: uhhuh
BENAY LAPPE: field of pro of, for the rabbis, it was more than just procreating, right? Mm-hmm. They say elsewhere that you can fulfill your obligation to be quote unquote fruitful in multiplying, um, by teaching kids, by, by contributing to children's growth.
Sorry about my dog barking. Um, so I, and it, it always just bothers me a little bit. For people who can't or choose not to have children, are they gonna fail this test? I don't think so. I think the rabbis understood that there are more ways than. Raising children, having children to contribute to. So I'm not sure what, what are you getting?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Well, okay. A few things come to mind. I mean, one is that, uh, I love that, right? I mean, one is to like, look, this is kind of like right in the law thinking kind of world. You say like, let's look at the legislative history. You know, let's look at what, what if there are other things that were said by these legislators, you know, that help us understand what they meant.
BENAY LAPPE: Oh, I love, I love that idea. I didn't know that was a thing. Legislative history.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So like the, so the fact that the rabbis elsewhere said that, uh, that fruitful and multiply includes, um, teaching children, I didn't know that. So that's super helpful information. And, and so that blows it open to me, right?
And, and, um, so that, you know, and, and then, and I was actually thinking just on the, on the more surface level of saying, well, you know, does that necessarily mean human fruitful and multiply? Like, maybe that means somebody who, uh. Was raising animals, you know, a farmer for sure. They're involved in that. So they're good.
You know, even if they don't have any children, they're totally, we're engaged in fruitful and multiply, you know, or mm-hmm. Or maybe it's people that are, um, working towards, uh, policies that help children, you know, or that help the world be more safe or that, right. There's so many ways to say, like anybody engaged kind of in, in work that is for the betterment of, of, uh, of, of sort of the society that, so that people will be healthier.
Doctors, every doctor. Right. You know, and there's ways to really sort of blow this open. Mm-hmm. And, and to say now, you know, to say something like, everybody who worked for the good of humanity has, has accomplished this one. That's one possibility in terms of a reading of, of what the rabbis or what we might mean directly here.
But this is one of those ones where another possibility is to say, um. Okay. This may be a good example of what the next Talmud would, would be dealing with. Just as this Talmud was dealing with the book of Isaiah and saying, how could we interpret this verse in a, in, in a certain way? You know, this one, we might look here and to say, okay, well let's think about the questions that you're asked when you die.
Or maybe we would use a different metaphor 'cause we don't believe in that in the same way today. But we'd say, these are the questions about whether you lived a good life and fruitful. Where it says fruitful and multiply will, will sort of make a, a turn, you know, a hard turn here and, and say, well, what we mean by fruits is the fruits of your labors.
And what we mean by multiply is that you worked for others, not just for yourself. Right, right, right. And, okay, then we're good. Then we have some great, uh, stuff to work with here. And that's just as, that's just as accurate sort of to the text. As the text itself was accurate to the word sen in. In the book of Isaiah, which doesn't have anything to do with fruitful and multiplying,
BENAY LAPPE: right, by the way, is as your talk, and I also glanced down at Rashi, and Rashi makes a comment about being fruitful and multiplying.
And he says, yeah, that, that one refers to Hoen the strength.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, okay,
BENAY LAPPE: so, so there's a history of people going, what, what? Where's the connection between this verse and being fruitful? Multiplying. Okay, so Rashi agrees with you
DAN LIBENSON: and, and, and if you think this is a legitimate Talmud, like if you think this, what the Talmud is doing here is legitimate, which I would say like definitionally it is because like Judaism is from the Talmud.
That's so, you know, so anything it is in the Talmud by, by definition is like the way we do it in Judaism. Then you kind of have to say, well, you know, they did this, this bizarre, uh, interpretive thing on, on the book of Isaiah with and, and taking it in this direction and. We certainly are free to make a bizarre, uh, understanding of what, what they were doing.
And, uh, and I don't even think it's that bizarre. And, and to say that like, um, you know, okay, so we're taking something that, you know, arguably is saying. And again, right, it's like the heteronormative context, right? And what I was saying earlier about, but what, what about in a world that's not heteronormative in a world that's gender fluid and all these kind of things that basically, you know, a, a verse that seems to say something like, when you die, your as in heaven, did you have a lot of, you know, opposite sex?
Sex? Like, that's basic. You know, you can interpret it that way. Did you have a lot of sex? You know, that's what it's like. And we take it in a completely different direction. We say, no, no, no. Actually what that's gonna mean from now on is did you work for the betterment of others? Like, that's a huge leap, but it's totally, it's, it's less of a leap than what they were doing to Isaiah.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: That's right. So,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah. I love that. I love that.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Next question.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, great.
DAN LIBENSON: So next question. Uh, did you count on salvation? This was the one that we struggled over the translation a little bit. Mm-hmm. Um, because in the, uh, Hebrew, it's safta. Lehua. So Yeshua is, is it's, you know, salvation.
The, the, the redemption, uh, the, you know, essentially the Messiah. Uh, see, pita is, um, you, you could, you could say, like, you could translate it as did you await, did you, uh, did you hope? Hope.
BENAY LAPPE: Hope.
DAN LIBENSON: Hope. For hope. For hope. I like hope. Modern Hebrew, my modern Hebrew insertion was like, now it didn't, at least in modern Hebrew, when you say sip pita for to something you, you basically mean, um, did you expect it?
Like, in other words, did you, it's more than hope. Like you were sure that it was coming and, and I guess count on gets at that also. So, so, but at some, at some kind of question that suggests like, did you, were you. Were you kind of more than just hoping that the redemption would come? Like, were you, were you sure?
Were you, so how do you read that? I,
BENAY LAPPE: for me, it's, it brings Yitz Greenberg to mind and his idea that we're actually moving closer and closer and closer to a redeemed world. Not, not closer and closer to the Messiah coming, but we are building a world where the barriers to, you know, full dignity and freedom and opportunity for everyone are being, we're lowering those barriers and, you know, we are curing diseases so people aren't dying as much.
There's less oppress, hi. His is a very hopeful belief mm-hmm. That we are as a, as a. As humanity, we're getting better. We're learning. It's, it's the idea that chuva is possible. Humanity progresses, improves, the world improves, um, and that we're getting closer and closer because we're making a, a more and more perfected world.
Mm-hmm. And, um, so for me, this is, did you count on that idea such that you were contributing to making it happen?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It, for me, this isn't a passive, did you believe the Messiah would come and, and save us all it, it's a more naturalistic, you know, yian idea that Yeah, I think this is the way the world works.
Mm-hmm. We make the world better, we make ourselves better, and. If I believe that that's possible, I'm working to make it happen. I don't
DAN LIBENSON: know. Mm-hmm. No, I I love that. I, I I don't, it's except one of those ones where, right. I, I'm not sure what they thought it meant.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Maybe this is what I'm, the jump I'm wanting it to make from there to here,
DAN LIBENSON: but I think it's a great jump if it is, or it might be what they meant.
And um, and I think, I think it's one that actually is, is very relevant in our times because I think there's a lot of people, particularly, particularly among our people, you know, the kind of more progressive, kind of like, you can get very cynical. You could get very nihilistic.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: And you wouldn't be wrong.
Like, you know, in other words, like, you know that Martin Luther King, you know, it is always quoted as, you know, the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Totally clear that it does. Right. Um, but if you don't think that it does, then it definitely won't. You know, in other words, if you don't work as if it, as if it does or as if it could, let's say as if it could, if you, if you don't work as if it could, if you give up, then it won't, you know?
And I don't wanna criticize anybody who is thinking a different way because I would actually like to talk with them. 'cause honestly, I think they might be right. Uh, and yet there's this part of me that says, I, I think we have to live as if Perfectability is possible, as if a redemption is possible. And again, I don't mean a Messiah, you know, like, um, I think that, that, I think that that's a, you know, that we, if you give up hope,
BENAY LAPPE: you
DAN LIBENSON: know what, what are you doing?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. If you think it's, and I dunno if it's perfectability, I think it's like asymptotically approaching, but never really getting there.
DAN LIBENSON: Even, not even not asymptotic, you know, not just, just a little bit better
BENAY LAPPE: incrementally approaching.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. If you. Like I, I could feel in my body the, the like depression and the change in orientation to imagine that actually the world can't get better.
Yeah. Because if you believe that it can't For sure. You give up.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Because, oh my God, it's such a pain in the ass to work to make the world better. Yeah. So, so much easier to just be, you know, go for pleasure, benefit for yourself. And that's what we would do if we, if we didn't think we could make the world better or the world could get better.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Then you're right. For sure wouldn't. So I think there's something in that
DAN LIBENSON: I, I wanna sit, it's like, this is one of these ones, like, I feel like I wanna sit with it. Like, I almost like this one in particular. I'm thinking like, wow, all of a sudden it hit me like, we should do, I don't know, like a, a think tank.
I mean, this, this would be like, this would be like this one that I, that almost feel like it's worth. Working on this part, this chunk, this, this, this little chunk of Talmud to say, well, what would this look like if we were to rewrite this as part of the next Talmud? Because it would be very provocative.
And I, and I think that there's really, I, I, I can just picture the people in my mind that I know and love who would say, this is delusion. You know, this is, the things are bad. You know, people are bad. And I'm like, I don't disagree, you know? And yet I, I kind of feel like we have to somehow find a way to build a society that doesn't believe, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, not that it doesn't believe it, it might believe it, that it's bad.
It might believe it, but it's said we can't live that way. Right. And that's again, why this strikes me as, as powerful as one of these questions that's really asking, how did you live? It's not saying, what did you believe? It's saying How did you behave? How did you live? Right? And, and I lived as if. Better was possible even if I didn't believe it.
Something like that. I think it's,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Like that's what we want.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I love that. I, I, I, it, it, it's a kind of collective delusional
DAN LIBENSON: mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Fiction
mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: That it's saying regardless of whether mm-hmm. It's true or not.
Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I think that's the, one of the Jewish geniuses. It's, we're, we're gonna live as if mm-hmm.
That we're gonna mm-hmm. Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: That's so interesting because it makes me feel like, actually, like, I, it kinda gives me this sense of like, uh, a, a like Messiah or Messianic age that I actually can believe in. It's like for the first time I'm kind of having this feeling like, oh, so this means that it's good to live as if this new age is coming.
It's just, it's probably never coming. Like meaning. It's, and, and realistically, the Jews didn't really believe it was ever, they didn't, I mean, I, I think, I believe this is now maybe I'm gonna say, you know, I just sort of believe that the Jews never actually believed in a Messiah. This is part of one of the issues with Christianity.
It's like the Christianity, Christianity believed there is actually, we, we really serious about this. And like, there was one, you know, and, and good. I mean, they're good on them. Like that's a path. Uh, you know, another path is to say, you know, you know, it's not, it's a metaphor, you know, but, and we don't really believe that it's actually ever gonna come, but we, you have to live as if it's gonna come.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: It's actually really helpful to me.
BENAY LAPPE: And I, yeah, I, I love it. And you reminded me of the story in the Talmud about, you know, if you hear the Messiah is in fact coming while you are planting a tree, keep planting your tree.
DAN LIBENSON: Right? Or, or just this idea that, that like, that, that, you know, various, I think Maimonides, various people say right, like that if somebody, if somebody says they're in the Messiah, they're definitely not the Messiah.
Right. You know, in other words,
BENAY LAPPE: if you meet the Messiah on the road, kill him.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. You know, like the bottom line is like there is no actual Messiah. The point here is to always live as if the Messiah's coming and if the Messiah came, that would actually be a problem because then everybody would stop trying to live better.
You know, like, so it's actually better to not come. Anyway. There's a lot there. There's a lot there to unpack. Okay, let's, uh, let's keep going now. I'm gonna run outta time. Um, okay. So the next question, did you debate with wisdom?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Now this was hard to translate.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Because the, the originals Alta, and I'm not sure u usually you think of that in the context of arguing over text.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Peel pool. Right. The, the very detailed, highly precise analytical debate over nuance of meaning. And I'm not sure if that's only in the context of learning. It seems probably not, if this really is a general test for everybody. Not everybody was learning.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Like that. So.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I don't know.
What are you getting out of it?
DAN LIBENSON: Well, one thing that I, I wonder like, and I, I doubt you know this, but maybe you do like that, you know, the, the word for a a pepper is, uh, yeah, yeah. Is that like, is that 'cause it's somehow. Is, is there something about a pepper that's, you know,
BENAY LAPPE: I think the idea is that it's sharp.
DAN LIBENSON: Uhhuh. Uhhuh.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. I don't know. May May, right.
DAN LIBENSON: Anyway, I never thought of it before, but that's a somewhat irrelevant point.
BENAY LAPPE: Oh yeah. No, no, no. They're, they're all, where is it? It's, um, uh, anyway, I forget the text at the moment, but they bring out, this guy was so sharp, he was like, you know, a basket full of peppers be better, A basket full of peppers than whatever.
Anyway.
DAN LIBENSON: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There is that
BENAY LAPPE: right?
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: I think that's over. Yeah. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: So, I don't know, we're, I don't know if this is every day argumentation, if this is, but the seems to counteract what tends to happen when you're engaged in really intricate argumentation, which is. You lose your focus.
You think that something small is really important? This is like, did you keep your perspective and did you have kindness? I, I'm not sure.
DAN LIBENSON: No. What, I'm not sure what you just said was, what I was thinking was that maybe the way to really think about this is not like where, where, where the real, what they're really trying to say is like, not just like, did you debate a lot?
Like, like did you debate when it was, when, when Wisdom suggested that you should, like, I always think about this, this, um, this, this story in the Talmud that, it's kind of a funny story, but it, it's like, and I don't remember where exactly where it is, but there's this question about like, if a bird is on your property, does it belong to you or does it belong?
To the public, and it's like, well, if it's within this amount of space from your house and it belongs to you, and if it's from further than that, it belongs to the wild, you know, to the public. Anyone can take it, whatever. And, and one of the rabbis, uh, asked or one of the students, well, what if he had one foot on one side and one foot on the other side?
And the Talmud says he, he was thrown out of the yeshiva for this question. And that struck me as like thrown out. Like all the, all the Talmud questions are like that. Like why, why, what was so wrong with that question? Like, it was just, you know, and like part of me feels like, you know, it wasn't a, it wasn't really like such a wise question because the fact of the matter is, it's a bird.
A bird never stands in one place for. For very long. So it's just a little, it's just a kind of a Gotcha. It's not actually a good question. It's not because it just, it would never, so the answer is you wait and see, does it go to one side or the other? You know, he'll be somewhere else in a second. You know?
So like, it's just not a good question. It seems like a good question, but it's not a good question. And you need a certain degree of judgment, of wisdom to kind of know when it's just making trouble and when it's actually worth engaging. You know? And there's something, again, back to this is just, I keep reminding myself like, okay, these questions are about how did you live your life?
How did you live a worthy life? And it feels to me like it is a reasonable, important question to say, did you make trouble just for the sake of making trouble? Or did you only make trouble when wisdom called on you to, you know, really, really debate something. Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I love that, that it's bringing to mind all of the.
You know, hundred comment threads on Facebook, Uhhuh over, right over certain questions, and I'm like, really? I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yes. I think that's a great, that's a great modern example of like a lot of people, you know, again, I don't wanna be too, uh, critical of people, but, but I would, I would say we should all, including, including us, we should ask ourselves if some of our engagement on social media would stand this test.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Okay. So last, uh, question. Uh, and I don't know if, if you wanna, if we wanna have a lot more, uh, after we could come back to it next week, but 'cause, but, uh, but let's at least kind of mention the last question.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, did you understand a thing from within a thing? Uh, this
BENAY LAPPE: is my favorite one,
DAN LIBENSON: Ivan Devar.
So what do you wanna do? You wanna, do you wanna come back to that next week?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, maybe we should, because the postscript on this text that, that's right here is also a, a big question.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay,
BENAY LAPPE: great. Okay. May, maybe we'll leave the cliffhanger on this question.
DAN LIBENSON: Let's, let's leave the cliffhanger in this question.
And also I think that's great because I think one of the things that it'll give us time to do next week is to really have that, that larger conversation about like, what would we, what might we, what might our questions be that we should add? So let's all think about that. And listeners or watchers, if you want to put in the Facebook comments or email us, you know, your thoughts on those questions, like this might be a good opportunity for viewer engagement.
So please send those along.
BENAY LAPPE: I love, I love that project of what might our questions be. That's great.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, great. So we'll pick that up next week.
BENAY LAPPE: Fun. All right. Thanks then. See
DAN LIBENSON: you then. Bye, Ben.
BENAY LAPPE: Bye.
DAN LIBENSON: Thanks so much for joining our chevruta today! We hope you’ve enjoyed learning with us… and with the Talmud. You can find links to the source sheets for all episodes in the show notes and on our website at oraltalmud.com. Your support helps keep Oral Talmud going. You can find a link on the website to contribute. We’d also love to hear from you! Email us with any questions, comments, or thoughts at hello@oraltalmud.com. Please, share your Oral Talmud with us – we’re so excited to learn from you. The Oral Talmud is a joint project of SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva and Judaism Unbound, two organizations that are dedicated to making Jewish texts and ideas more accessible for everyone. We are especially grateful to Sefaria for an incredible platform that makes the Talmud available to everyone. It’s free at sefaria.org. And we are grateful to SVARA-nik Ezra Furman for composing and performing The Oral Talmud’s musical theme. The Oral Talmud is produced by Joey Taylor, with help from Olivia Devorah Tucker, and with financial support from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. Thanks so much for listening–and with that, this has been the Oral Talmud. See ya next time.
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