The Oral Talmud Episode 51: Reading Between the Lines (Shabbat 31a)
SHOW NOTES
“One of the criteria for a good life is did you understand a thing from within a thing? One way we could translate that is, did you read between the lines? Did you dig deeper? Did you reject the plain meaning? If you only read the surface level meaning, you get no merit for that. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Sometimes it's worthy to do, but don't call that Torah.” - 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.
Something shifts in this episode. The rabbis start with a list of questions about what kind of life is a life well lived… a life of honesty, hope, wisdom, responsibility. But then they introduce one final twist: even if you answered every question correctly, it still might not count. Why? Because maybe the point was never just about being right. Maybe the deeper question is what anchors you when you have the power to reinterpret everything.
From there, our conversation explodes outward. Benay and Dan wrestle with one of the most dangerous and liberating ideas in Jewish tradition: that Torah isn’t static, it grows through radical reinterpretation. Not by abandoning the tradition, but by digging so deeply into it that new possibilities emerge of what the tradition might actually be. Along the way, they touch everything from postmodernism to queer Torah, climate change to accountability, asking a question that feels larger than Judaism itself: How do you change a tradition without losing your connection to the people who carried it before you?
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: This is The Oral Talmud - Episode 51: Reading Between the Lines.
Welcome to the Oral Talmud, a co-production of Judaism Unbound and SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva. I’m Dan Libenson…
BENAY: …and I’m Benay Lappe.
DAN: 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.
Something shifts in this episode. The rabbis start with a list of questions about what kind of life is a life well lived — a life of honesty, hope, wisdom, responsibility — but then they introduce one final twist: even if you answered every question correctly, it still might not count. Why? Because maybe the point was never just about being right. Maybe the deeper question is what anchors you when you have the power to reinterpret everything.
From there, our conversation explodes outward. Benay and I wrestle with one of the most dangerous and liberating ideas in Jewish tradition: that Torah isn’t static — that it grows through radical reinterpretation. Not by abandoning the tradition, but by digging so deeply into it that new possibilities emerge of what the tradition might actually be. Along the way, we touch everything from postmodernism to queer Torah, climate change to accountability, asking a question that feels larger than Judaism itself: How do you change a tradition without losing your connection to the people who carried it before you?
DAN LIBENSON: Hey, Benay.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey, Dan. How are you?
DAN LIBENSON: I'm good. I'm excited to continue our conversation from last week. Like, it was one of those that, like, I felt we were really getting somewhere, and then it was like, wait a second, if we
Sometimes we go long, but, uh, it, it, you know, if we, if we went long, we would actually have to cut it short, so- Yeah ... we'll do it again next week. So I'm excited to jump back into this text with you. Um- Me too. So just as a kind of a reminder, we're, we're looking at this text that comes from the Tractate Shabbat, page 31A, and it's kind of like the, the
You know, it's presented as, like, these are the questions that you're asked in heaven. You said Ron Wolfson wrote a book. I should have researched that between this week and, and next week, or last week and this week.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I, I read through it last night again. Oh, exciting. Okay, great. Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so our citation, your citation was accurate.
Um, uh, so, um ... Like, why did I think it was Mitch Albom? Anyway, um, the ... You know, he, he had something about, like, questions they ask you when you die, I think also. Anyway, um, so these are, these are the Jewish, uh, sort of ... I mean, in the sense, right, the questions that you're asked on Judgment Day, uh, right? And I mean, do they really believe in that, et cetera.
But I mean, if you frame it that way, these are the big questions. These are the critical questions. And, um, just as, as a reminder, and folks can go back n- to our conversation from last week to really get into them so we don't have to get into them again, but just as a reminder of the ones that we covered, uh, they were: Were you honest in your business dealings?
Did you fix times for Torah study? Did you engage in being fruitful and multiplying? I think we had a rich conversation about what that could mean. Uh, did you count on salvation or, or were you kind of, uh, really looking forward to salvation? Uh- Right, or,
BENAY LAPPE: or hopeful about the potential for improvement of ourselves and the world, something like that.
Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, and by the way, I don't remember. I, I probably did say this last week, but I don't really remember, but, uh, but I've been thinking a lot this, this week about ... Because, in part because I, I had to submit a grant proposal, uh, between last week and this week, and a lot of times, you know, when you're writing a grant proposal, like, the advice that you get is, is be optimistic.
You know, be positive. Um, and I tend to be negative in a positive way. You know, like I'm saying, I'm trying to say, like, "Oh, these are all the problems we're facing, you know, and these are all the challenges, and this is why the other approaches aren't quite right," and whatever. You know, but that's, there's a difference between that and, and a very optimistic framing.
And, and I was kind of ... What, what, I don't know what's gonna happen with this grant proposal, but I was pretty proud that I, and maybe sort of influenced by our thinking, that I, I did put it in, in hopeful terms, you know? I, I, I did frame it as, you know, this proposal is about- ending up with a Jewish people that's bigger than it's ever been numerically.
Whereas the typical way of thinking about, uh, Jewish, Jewish, uh, you know, grant proposals, continuity, is like, "Let's not, just let's just not lose any Jews." You know? Right. "Let's try not to lose anyone." But I said, "No, no, what if we were 10 times bigger? Like, what c- what would that look like?" And, and numbers aren't everything, and you know, I said, "And w- and what if it was 10 times more meaningful to people?"
You know? And that, so to me, like, that, that, that's kind of where I, I actually, as I've been mulling on, you know, and, and kind of working through this point, I'm like, so to the extent that this is saying, "Did you, did you approach life with optimism?" I actually think that's a pretty huge, a pretty huge thing, and actually, at least for some people, they really struggle with that.
You know? It's people that have kind of a pessimistic frame of mind.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. You're, you're bringing to mind one of my heroes, Harvey Milk. Mm. Who used to always say, "You gotta give 'em hope."
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You
BENAY LAPPE: gotta give 'em hope. A- and I don't think this item in the kind of life curriculum final exam implies not to be critical, right?
Not to notice problems, identify... I, on the contrary, I think this move toward progress and improvement and growth requires, um, tocha chat, requires n- naming what's wrong.
DAN LIBENSON: Yes. And fixing it. Yeah. It's not about, right, it's not about denying what's wrong, but it's about fundamentally approaching with positivity.
I, I, I don't remember if I said this last week, and if I did, I really apologize, but I, I was actually talking about it on, se- on for sort of this totally separate reason on the episode of Judaism Unbound that's gonna come out tomorrow. But there's that scene where Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, comes to visit him, and he, uh, and, and it's famous because he puts out this management advice, like you should appoint captains of tens and captains of 50s, et cetera, which is huge for me.
I think it's really important. But there's a scene before that in the story where Moses t- says, "Oh, you know, we've just been so hard. We got out of Egypt, and it's been so difficult along the way." And Jethro basically says, like, "Oh, oh my God, you, you got out of Egypt? Like, you were slaves and you're free.
Like, what an amazing god you have. Like, what, your god is the best." You know? And he throws a huge party for the elders. And I've always read that as, as, uh, sort of just as much a leadership advice or critique of Moses' leadership as the captains business, that he's saying you, you have to lead from a place of, of optimism and hope and, yeah, like Harvey Milk, you gotta give them hope.
But that, it doesn't mean that you didn't struggle, and of course you have to take care of the people. A- actually, that's one of Moses' downfalls, is that he, he tends to, um, you know, not, not, uh, realize the pain of the people as much. Um, and, um, uh, Benay, you're frozen, so I don't know if you're actually hearing me.
But, um- The, uh, the, so he doesn't, uh, I'm gonna keep talking because our, our listeners are, are, um, are there, and hopefully Benet uh, will re- will rejoin us if she has in fact, uh, had a internet hiccup. But, um, but I'll say that, that, um, Moses often is kind of, uh, someone who isn't paying enough attention to the pain of the people, and who gets mad at them and et cetera.
And so, um, that, uh, critique by Jethro or that, that advice to, to, you know, well, it's not to deny, it's not to deny the problem. So that's what I was saying. It's not to deny the problem, it's not to deny the pain of the people, and actually that would be a fair additional critique of Moses as a leader.
Sometimes he's not as attentive to the people's pain, and he's more critical, and angry, and judgy than he needs to be. So it's not to ignore that, it's to deal with that. But always from leading with, "We're gonna get through this. We're gonna, it's gonna be okay." Right? That, and that's the function of a leader and a person.
I mean, we're all leaders in some f- form of our life. So did, uh, so to me that's a little bit like did you lead with, with hope. So the bottom line is that, um, as I was saying, the, um, that if we think about, um, if we think about leading from hope, that that's actually something that I, I think is ... I mean, it's interesting to think about it here 'cause this isn't like the questions that leaders are asked when they die.
I mean, this is a question that people are asked when they die. So it is true that leading from a place of hope is critical, but, uh, it's interesting to think about what living from a place of hope- Yeah ... means. Yeah. Um, okay. So let's just, uh, let's just look at, at the, the other one before we get to today's, uh, one.
Uh, for anybody that's, uh, actually sat through the last 10 minutes, I mean, you are ... Um, and, um, so the, the last one is, uh, did you debate with wisdom, which we talked about last week. So today we are talking about this last question, and then sort of what comes after that. So the last question is, did you understand a thing from within a thing?
Yeah. So wanna, where, where do you want to start?
BENAY LAPPE: Well, I, I, I love this one, um, because it also resonates for me with a piece of the definition of svara itself. So elsewhere in the Talmud, Rashi defines what it means to Mm-hmm ... svara your svara. And one of the components of it is precisely this wording of Rava's, which is to understand a thing from within a thing.
In other wo- And I think it means, although I'm not sure, something about taking what you, taking what's apparent and digging underneath it to find something That is even more deeply true- Mm-hmm ... that wasn't obvious. Um, and to take what you've got and build something that you don't have. Mm. To take what you have and build a future from it, um, that's completely new or in this, the particular way that you're working on.
And Rashi makes that explicit, that understanding a thing from within a thing is, um, also about, you know, taking, taking this Mishnah, this teaching that you have, and learning out from it something new. And this very text is an example of that, right? Right. Right. We showed that verse in the beginning, and they're learning out a whole new set of values from it.
Um, so this is both one of the questions on the life curriculum and the methodology for creating a future built in. I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, well, I mean, I th- I guess, like, that, that... We showed this last week, but I, I think not completely. So it's, it's useful at this p- at this point to, like, really show that, you know, just to sort of remind that, that these questions that you're asked on Judgment Day are drawn from this verse in Isaiah 33:6, where there's a parallelism, right?
There's, the verse says, "And the faith of your times shall be a strength of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is his treasure." It's a very hard verse to translate, so this could be one translation, and you could translate it in other ways. But the, but the point is that, the point here is that there are these key words in this, in this, uh, verse: faith, times, strength, salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
And those are being understood to be the, the five or six, uh, one, two, three, four, five, six questions that, or six topics that you're really asked to, to, to judge your life on the basis of. And so each of these questions matches to one of those words in order, you know? And then-
BENAY LAPPE: And I would say not only judge your life on the basis of, but live your life
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
Right. Right. Yes, 'cause if you- Or- ... judge your life on the basis of that, then of course you should have lived your life that way. Yeah. And, um, so okay, so, so first of all, that itself is not obvious. You know, that this, this verse doesn't have anything to liv- to do with living your life. Uh, I mean, in the most indirect way you could say the faith of your times shall be...
You know, but I mean, it, it doesn't... I mean, the, the idea that you should be faithful in your business dealings 'cause it says the faith of your times, like that doesn't, that's clearly not, uh, uh, certainly not a simple surface level meaning of this verse. And, and, and most likely, you know, you, you would have to go very many levels of depth to even approach be- being able to draw from that, the use of the word faith here that it means be faithful in your business dealings.
So that itself is a understanding of a thing from within a thing. Right. And then if we look in, at the context of this verse within Isaiah, which we have on the source sheet under i- I have you the, the whole chapter here just so you can kind of see what it's about, right? But Isaiah, particularly this is, uh, First Isaiah, so this is, uh, you know, Isaiah sort of from the late, uh, the late First Temple period.
And, you know, he's kind of saying like, "Be careful," you know, "If you do bad things you're gonna be exiled from the land, and you're gonna, uh, have all this destruction and everything." And, you know, there was a lot of geopolitical stuff going on at that time, and so there was all kinds of geopolitical reasons to be concerned that they might be destroyed.
Uh, all kinds of other people were getting destroyed all the time by the Assyrians. The Northern Kingdom had been destroyed. So there's a lot of, a lot of reason to be concerned. Actually, maybe that's the most significant one is that they have just witnessed the destruction of their brethren in the Northern Kingdom and, and it's like, you know, you don't want that to happen to you.
So there's this... So Isaiah has a lot of those kind of things in here. What this is about is, is, you know, "You betrayer, what have you done?" You know, "The Lord be gracious to us," you know, "because we've overlooked you." You know, it's this like, like, "We're gonna be in trouble," right? You know, well, like, uh, all these bad things will happen.
And, um, you know, only if faithfulness to your charge is, you know, the, the land, uh, you know, the Lord has filled... So what it's saying here is that the, the God is so great- He filled Zion, the land of Israel, with justice and righteousness. Faithful to, faithfuln- th- this is a different translation, but it's saying, "Faithfulness to your charge was her wealth."
Right, the land's wealth. This is a description of the land, you know, and the land of Israel, and it's so great. And if, but if we, but if we betray you, God, you know, then the land will be desolate and all kinds of terrible things will happen. So, you know, you can kind of, uh, you could kind of say, like, you know, well, okay, you know, so this is saying, like, a really good thing about the land is that, you know, she was faithful.
The land was faithful, and, and the land was full of wisdom and, you know, whatever. Okay, so you could kind of make some leaps to say, well, th- these are, you know, these are good qualities or something, you know. And of course, if they're good qualities, you should live your life that way, and if you don't live your life that way, you're gonna be judged just as, you know, we are judged for not living up to it here in the wa- You can make these kind of, uh, connections, but they're not at all straightforward.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. It looks like a screaming example of eisegesis, right, inserting meaning into something that obviously didn't carry that meaning in the first place. And as you're talking, I'm realizing that it's extra interesting that the editor of the Talmud put the verse in. Sure. They didn't have to do that.
Uh-huh. They didn't have to show just how far from the source this new set of values really is. Mm-hmm. But, you know, as I always think about the Talmud, I think it's, you know, an instruction manual for how to go from here to there based on how they went from there to here. Uh-huh. And they're showing their work.
They're showing a methodology.
DAN LIBENSON: I love that. Well, I mean, it's interesting. So that would be an interesting PhD dissertation if it already hasn't been done, would be to go through, like, all the cases in which the Talmud actually quotes a verse from Torah dire- where the verse is actually included in the text of the Talmud, and to determine is there, is there a difference when it actually quotes the verse in writing versus when it sort of alludes to a verse or doesn't allude directly to a verse or quotes the Mishnah.
You know, are there, are there, is there something going on when it quotes the Torah that is sort of, that you can, you can almost, like, recognize that as a tell or as a sign?
BENAY LAPPE: Well, m- m- my, my s- Not the
DAN LIBENSON: Torah, but the Bible.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. My, my friend, colleague, teacher, student, um, partner in crime, Lainie Solomon, is working on a really interesting theory that they noticed, which is that, that describes what they notice in the Talmud, which is that the only time it seems that an argument quotes a verse and uses its simple, plain meaning, its pshat, um, is when they say that verse is a, a, a kind of distant support, an asmakhta And the only times when the Talmud uses the verse as an actual proof, the verse is being read completely out of its pshat, out of its simple, plain meaning, and only then is the Torah called, is the verse called kra, Torah.
In other words, it, it seems that the rabbis are laying down a methodology of radically re- reading Torah, and only when it's radically reread by us is it actually labeled Torah.
DAN LIBENSON: Huh.
BENAY LAPPE: And when it's not, it's called, uh, asmakta.
DAN LIBENSON: That's fascinating. That's fascinating. I mean, it, it kind of, in a way, I mean, just to go back to the simple, to the point that's being said here, right, which is that one of the criteria for a good life is did you understand a thing from within a thing, meaning, you know, one way we could translate that is did you read between the lines?
Did you, did you, uh, not- Dig deeper maybe ... yeah, dig deeper. Did you not, did you reject the plain meaning? So it's, it's even, it's, so in a way, it's even a step beyond did you sometimes do that? It's like, in other words, like, it's like if you only read the surface level meaning, it's like you get no merit for that.
You know, it's like it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I mean, sometimes, sometimes it's worthy to do, but don't call that Torah. That's right. That's right. You know, like, that don't, don't, yeah, that doesn't have a high status. That's, that's really interesting. That's cool, right? Yeah, because that's, that's like a, a level of, um, yeah, I mean, it would just be interesting to, like, play, you know, what does it, what does it look like to play that out where, you know, again, going, going back to when we think about what the meaning of this is for us, you know, and we talked way back when when we talked about the Oven of Akhnai, and, like, Rabbi Eliezer was actually right, you know, in terms of the, the plain meaning of the law.
You know, he was the verse pointer, "But it says right here," you know? Right. And it's interesting to, to put, "But it says right here," not only in the category of like, yeah, but that's not the end of the story, to like, actually, that's not even part of the story. And that, right? That's
BENAY LAPPE: not even Torah. We're not even gonna call that Torah anymore.
Mm-hmm. That, that's enormous.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. So when Rashi says, so, like, okay, so now I wanna, like, think a little bit about something as, as big as this, like, w- sometimes, you know, sometimes, uh, when the traditional commentators, Rashi and others, uh, explain the meaning of something, you know, you, you in Svara of, you know, you have as one of Svara's catchphrases, Rashi is your friend, you know, and, and, but, like, another piece to think about Rashi is that he comes, I don't know, what, 600, 700 years after the Talmud is closed?
Uh, some- something like that. What, what year is Rashi? S- s- s- What, 12th century?
BENAY LAPPE: Uh, 11th century. 11th
DAN LIBENSON: century. So, okay, so 500 years minimum. Uh, and- Like 500 years, that's a really long time. You know, that, like, we, America hasn't been settled for 500 years by white people, right? Um, I mean, you know, and I say, I say that very, you know, it's like, in other words, of course America was settled.
That's not my point. My point is just, like, the, the history of America that, like, white people think of, like, it hasn't even been 500 years. Right. So the whole, uh, so that, that whole, um, kind of, uh ... That's a long time. And so to imagine, so it's kind of like saying that some guy, you know, a really smart guy, I mean, let's say a law professor right now, like, really knows what the, uh, each word in the Mayflower C- uh, Compact means.
And like, first of all, we, we often think, like, maybe that law professor does know because we've had, you know, however many years since the Mayflower Compact was, you know, 400, I think. I don't know. And, uh, you know, that, that, that, that, um, was, um, that, that, that, uh, we've had written records since then, you know?
So it's like there's, there's some, like, chain of ... Now, in the case of, of the Talmud, it's more oral. So you got to, uh, imagine that some degree of, like, bandwidth is less. So look, so what I'm saying is that Rashi might know what these things actually mean, but he might not. And so it's helpful, but it's not dispositive.
You can't just say because Rashi says it means this, that's what it means. But, uh, but, but the interesting thing is that if Rashi or one of those traditional commentators thinks that the meaning is actually something very radical, like, in a way that sometimes makes me more trusting of it because it, it's a little bit against his interests as, as a relatively conservative interpreter to interpret that something is so radical.
So if he even says it's, it's a radical meaning, then I'm like, "Well, that, that seems like a really good piece of evidence that it's actually quite radical." So, so all that is a wind-up to asking you kind of, you know, is it an accepted view, is it how you really read Rashi and others, that, that they're really saying, like, it, it really is kind of as radical as we've just put it?
BENAY LAPPE: Well, first of all, before I get to your question, you brought something to mind as you were talking about if Rashi claims it's radical. He doesn't need to. He doesn't need to kind of stick his neck out. And there's actually a, a Talmudic, um, concept called amigo, and it's a conclusion that you could draw based on someone's testimony which, without proof, you believe because they could have made a more favorable, um, testimony for their own benefit.
For example, if a woman goes to a town, nobody knows her in this new town, she came from somewhere else, and she claims to be a divorcee but she has no get to prove it-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm
BENAY LAPPE: You believed her. She has a, well, you say y- she has a migo because she could have made a better claim about herself. She could have said, "I'm a single, unmarried woman."
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, but she didn't. So the fact that she made this less favorable claim is proof that, uh, we can believe her, or evidence that we can believe her. Mm-hmm. So this is sort of a radical migo. I, I like I like that idea. Um, so but now to your question. Your question is
do- It's- Is,
DAN LIBENSON: i- Go ahead. No, it is, like, is Rashi, is Rashi actually saying that this... How radical is Rashi saying this is
BENAY LAPPE: in your read?
I think where Rashi uses this concept to define svara, he's for sure, I mean, he explicitly names this is the way you use what you have to take this Mishnah and learn out from it something new. I mean, he says it. So, um, h- over here Rashi says, "This is what it means to have knowledge." Um-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh. Well, well, and in that case, I mean, that might be just a very simple, he's just pointing you to where in the, which word in the verse this is attaching this to.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, because, you know, again, the verse says it should be a strength of salvation, wisdom and knowledge. So, you know, we had did you count on salvation, did you debate with wisdom- Right ... did you understand a thing from within a thing? It's a, it's a different, uh, it's a different word. Um- Right ... and, um, you know, Rashi is saying, because in, in the verse it's daat and, and in the Talmud- Right
it's, it's havanta, which is, uh, binah. You know, they're slightly different words, so Rashi's just saying, "Oh, that's the, that's where they're at- attaching to the knowledge," uh, to the, you know, the daat word. But, um, but yeah, no, but I mean, if the, if, if back in the other place his concept is, is the radical one, yeah, like, that's, that doesn't, doesn't have to be.
So, so I- But, but you know what? Yeah. I
BENAY LAPPE: think we think it's more radical than they thought. Mm-hmm. I, I think we have an overly pietistic notion of the Torah as fixed- Right ... as the word of God. Right. And I don't think they did. So I think for us it seems, oh, my God, so radical to change the Torah, read it out of its pshat.
I, I don't think they were so precious about Torah- Yeah ... and so reluctant to do that. I think that was, that's what you did. That's, that's what it meant to do Torah.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. It,
BENAY LAPPE: yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: No, and, and what's interesting is that in secular- world, society, whatever, non-Jewish, you know, whatever. We have things today like post-modernism and Derrida.
I don't really know what these things are, you know, Foucault, whatever. But I, I know that they involve reading things very, i- in a, in a kind of free way. And, um, so we have these concepts, and we've labeled them post-modern. And because of that, then we imagine they must be alien to a, quote, "pre-modern society."
And that's not necessarily the case, um, right? I mean, it, it may be that, that to label the, to have a kind of a consciousness about them may be modern or post-modern, but to use them apparently is not post-modern. It's actually pre-modern. And like you say, they, they didn't think it was radical. They didn't think it was post-modern.
They just, that was like, "Oh, that's just, we're just reading." Uh- That's right.
BENAY LAPPE: And, and for them, that was how you do the tradition. That's how you grow a tradition. That's how you take your received tradition and make it better. Um, that's why, you know, the, the words after the colon in our name is a traditionally radical yeshiva.
Right. You know, our hope is to bring back that very traditional, but in our eyes, very radical way of growing Torah.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Making it better.
DAN LIBENSON: You know, um, I was, um, I can't remember, I can't remember who it was. Mike Moskowitz. So, so we were interviewing Mike Moskowitz for an episode of Judaism Unbound, which hasn't aired yet, and, um, so, you know, spoiler alert.
He, he, I, I think this was in our conversation, he was talking about, you know, the famous verse in Leviticus, "A man shouldn't lie with a man. The lying is of a woman." And, and, um, I've heard various interpretations of that before to, to try to, um, say that it doesn't mean what you think it means, which is gay sex is a no-no.
Uh, and, um, the, you know, Steve Greenberg, I remember in his book, talks about, well, no, this is a very specific situation where, uh, you know, f- there, there, it's a people captured in a war, you know, and you're basically raping them or what, you know, whatever. There's all kinds of interpretations you could have, and I think that we on this show talked at an earlier point about, like, you don't even need all that.
Like, you can just, you can just, you know, wipe it out of the Torah as the Talmud wipes out other things from the Torah. They just didn't get to that one, you know, or they, or it wasn't, you know, somehow it didn't, it didn't, it, they didn't, it wasn't, for whatever reason, they didn't care enough or they didn't do it, but that doesn't mean that we can't do it.
We have actually just as much. So I'm, I'm all in that, I'm all in that drain, absolutely. That said, you know, Mike Moskowitz was talking about, uh, this reading that said, "Ah, well, no, actually what this, what this verse is trying to say is something very different." That, uh, people, what it's saying is, "Don't cheat on your spouse."
And, uh, you know, that that's what that sort of section is about. And they're saying, you know, "If you're married to a woman, don't think that you can have sex with a man and that's not cheating." You know, and, um, and I was like, "Oh, I never heard that one before." You know, and, um, w- I bring it up only because I'm like, like, one person could hear that and say, "That doesn't mean that."
You know, it's not, you know, right? It's, it's very plain what it means. We know what this means, and we should read it out of the Torah because it's bad. And I'm, I, that's my, that's my position. However, another position could be to say like, "Actually, I, I'm gonna now read, uh, Devarim Metoch Devar." You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sort of, uh, dig deep into this, and actually, I'm not even claiming that it's what the original intent was.
You don't have to. Uh, that's not necessarily what this means. This is, I mean, this is where the post-modernism comes in. It's not clear, and it's not clear that it's actually the tradition. It's not clear that it was the pre-modern way to read to say that we go by original intent. And you say like, "As long as I can read it in a way that it doesn't mean the thing that I don't want it to mean, it's a fair reading."
And, and again, like, I think that that's, that's the plain meaning of the, um, you know, of an Av- Avaknai story, for example, or, or other ones. It's like, as long as you can read it this way, then you turn to God, and you say, "Sorry, God. You know, you had your chance to clarify this at Sinai, and you didn't.
Instead, you wrote, you wrote it in a way that allows us to read into it in a way that, you know, maybe not of your original intent. Tough luck. That's you know, that was your fault, and we can go on our happy way." So I, I, I just sort of bring it up as just one example of, of, like, what that kind of looks like, and that, that this is actually, you know, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, albeit a very progressive one, and somebody who's, you know, motivated for all kinds of reasons to, to, to read these particular texts in, in that way.
But fine. It, but at the end of the day, like, you know, this is, this is, this is kosher. Yeah. Maybe. Are you not into it?
BENAY LAPPE: May- I'm not so into it because I, I, I, I feel very much like Rabbi Yonatan, who's screaming, "Wait, what do you mean there's no Ben Sira Moreh? Never was and never will be, this-" Mm. "... wayward rebellion."
I, I, I sat on his grave.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, I think it's really important to show the legislative history of those things which mean exactly, were meant to say exactly what they look like they're saying.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: So that we can show that it's legitimate to say, "Okay, and that no longer meshes with how- Uh-huh ... we understand God in the world."
And those we have to leave as m- sort of monuments to the ability to move forward without them. I don't think that- Davar midvar, to, to learn out a thing from within a thing should be used on those things Uh-huh I think it should be a mechanism used to take, you know, some other verse that has to do with, or that we're going to read out equity or equality or non-binary gen- like, something that has something-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh
BENAY LAPPE: to work from to create the positive view. I think that's how davar midvar works
DAN LIBENSON: rather than- Okay. Well, I just wanna, I just wanna ... Oh, go ahead. I just wanna posit that I might be in better shape than you on Judgment Day. I just wanna- ... say
BENAY LAPPE: because You may. You may.
DAN LIBENSON: You're
BENAY LAPPE: gonna get more, more learn how to think from a thing points.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, I'm gonna get a little, a little extra credit on this one. Uh, thanks, Mike Moskowitz. No, um, but what, what, uh ... Sorry, I cut you off. No,
BENAY LAPPE: I just think, I think learning a thing from a thing is the positive move of taking not the bad thing and making it a good thing, but taking a thing that isn't really about the bad, but it's gonna give you a platform to build the good, right?
It's like this verse is about, um, um, whatever it was. Faithfulness. I forget. You know, my analogy from last week was- Mm-hmm ... it was about driving.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And you're reading out from it, uh, the importance of drive. Drive is a value- Yeah ... that we must have. Yeah. I think that's davar midvar. Yeah. I think that's learning a thing from a thing.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: I, uh, and, and I think that's a tiny bit of a stretch. Yeah. Um, I think what Rashi was talking about when he was saying learning a thing from a thing as part of creating newness was, was really analogizing, um,
or, or growing ... I'm not sure.
DAN LIBENSON: No, but I mean, that's a, that ... Whether it's Rashi or not, I mean, the, the idea is, like, we can actually, we could conceivably, and, you know, wait, I mean, our job on this show, it's not to resolve the question for people, it's to put the question out into the world. So we, we could imagine a, a, a continuum of, of what learn v- a thing from within a thing means.
You wanna- Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. Let me give you an example of what I think an, an example of a thing from within a thing in the tradition is. Okay. Okay. So a number of years ago, there was this Supreme Court case in Israel, and the question was whether these two parents who were divorced, who had a child, could f- force the hospital to do a paternity test on the child, right?
The h- the wife was pregnant when they got divorced, and the w- and the husband claimed that the child wasn't his. And in Israel, um- Uh, it, it's not like here. It's not that the spouse is the presumptive parent re- and has to pay child support regardless of the actual paternity. In Israel, the paternity determines the obligation to pay child support.
So they went to the hospital for a tissue typing test, and the hospital refused to do it because the hospital was interested in protecting the legitimacy, meaning the status of the child, and didn't want to reveal the possibility, right, didn't want the possibility to be revealed that the child had been conceived outside of this marriage union, child of, uh, an adulterous union, as a mamzer and so on.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and one of the arguments was that doing a tissue typing test was a violation of this child's, wh- wh- by this point was seven or eight years old, of that child's privacy. Okay? Because as a minor, the child didn't have say to refuse the test. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. And the analogy they built this argument on was the Talmudic status of a house in a courtyard. And the idea was that a house in a qu- you, you can't have, um, wind-- Let's see if I've got this right. I hope I've got this right. Windows that face a courtyard in a home because it violates the privacy- Mm-hmm
of the inhabitants. Mm-hmm. Okay. Since the window is prohibited in a house, r- right?
DAN LIBENSON: Like, if you're building a house next to a, a house that's already got a courtyard around it, you can't put a window on the side of the house that faces the courtyard. Is that the?
BENAY LAPPE: I think that was it. I think that was it. I, oh, sorry I don't have my details right all in a row.
But the point was, the issue of a house, and a window, and privacy-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: was used to build an analogy- Mm-hmm. I see. Mm-hmm ... about, um, the permissibility of tissue typing a child for that, to determine that child's paternity status, and that it would be prohibited to do so. So obviously the, the Talmud in, in our received tradition never talked about tissue typing or paternity tests.
Mm-hmm. But to use the analogy of a window in a courtyard to build a case for preserving the child's privacy, I think is an example of Of divre
DAN LIBENSON: kabbalah. To learn it doesn't
BENAY LAPPE: come with anything.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. So okay, so, so, and I-- So at the end of the day though, where, where I would just sort of leave it at, and, and I'm sure this is something that we'll return to as we come up with examples, but like, that, that if we look at a, a continuum, we can imagine that in a way the, the most-- Like, just reasoning by analogy is a kind of low, uh, and I don't mean this as, like, as a judgment, but I mean it's a low level of radical, uh, interpretation of devar mitoch devar, of a thing from within a thing.
Reason by analogy. Okay. You know, that's ... And, and the, the, the, so a middle point I think is something like, um, what is done here with the verse, which is sort of taking, taking a verse that doesn't have anything to do with this on its surface, and saying, "We're gonna learn from it something completely different.
We're gonna attach some different thing." And even if we're, it's clear that we're doing that by, either we've made something up, you could even say there's a certain virtue in nevertheless attaching it to something from Torah that it clearly doesn't mean, that it's virtuous because it's saying that you're still connected to the tradition.
I think, I feel like that might come to the next point that we're about to, to, to read. Um, others could say it's a betrayal. I mean, what do you mean you're, you're connecting it to some verse that doesn't mean anything like that at all? You're perverting the Torah. You know, and you say, and, but another point of view is to say, "No, no, we actually approve of that because it shows that connection."
It's, and it's like the story of Moses in Rabbi Akiva's yeshiva, you know, where he doesn't understand anything that Rabbi Akiva is saying. And we study this, right, and the, and the, then when it says, "Oh, but it's Torah from Moses at Sinai," he's, like, assured that, "Well, at least the connection to me is still there even though it's not what I meant.
It's not what I..." Right? And then the most radical version, or not necessarily the most radical, but a even more radical version, is to say that we are going to read the Torah verse to be the opposite of what it actually seems to mean. And, and I agree with you that that introduces the problematic of R- Rabbi Yonatan, you know, in saying, "Well, if, but if we're gonna do that, we then also have to acknowledge the thousands of years of when this verse was read the more straightforward way."
And we can't just kind of say, "Whoop, sorry." You know, we have to, we would have to then really sit with the pain of the Rabbi Yonatan who's sitting on, on the grave. But, but, and I don't know, I don't know that any of us can know what the answer is. I don't think there is an answer. I, I mean, I think that, but ultimately the question is, like, what, where do, where do you, where are you most drawn, I think.
And, uh, but it seems to me like at least a, a smart person could interpret it in any of those ways.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Okay, let's, so let's take a look at this last sort of postscript to the, the six main questions.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: And, and see how this ties in.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So, um, so did you, uh, did you understand a thing from within a thing?
And even so, and even if so, if the fear of God is his treasure, which by the way, I'm not totally sure that exactly the right translation here, even if so, even so. But, uh, but even if so, if the fear of God is his treasure, yes. If not, no
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. I think even if so means, and even if you got 100 on this test-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh
BENAY LAPPE: right, even if you can answer yes to all of these six questions, there's still one more, it's not a que- it's a condition. Even if you answered yes, if the following condition isn't met, those yeses aren't the kind of yeses that really matter, and we can't really tr- even trust the yeses I th- or something like that.
So even if you said yes, h- here's something that's gonna cancel out all the yeses if your answer is no to it. And what is it? It's a, it's a difficult concept, I think, for us. It, i- if you, if you had a fear of, of God or, or awe about God. Okay. So-
DAN LIBENSON: By the way, just to note that that comes from the verse. So in other words, that, that verse ends with something about the fear of God, and so they're saying- Mm-hmm
that's where this is coming from. I mean, or at least- Mm-hmm ... coming from. I don't, you know, but I mean, this is where there is a connection to the verse, just to note that.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm. I don't, I don't know. You wanna- Well, for- What, what do you think? I mean, there's another translation
DAN LIBENSON: thing, which is that, that the fear of the Lord is yirat Hashem, yirat Adonai, and like yirah can mean fear, it can be awe, can be reverence.
You know, so I mean, like-
BENAY LAPPE: Or, or a, or a sense of constant awareness.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Or a sense that maybe even a, you could say humility, right? That, that, that it's not your ... You're not, you're not going around ... I mean, one way to think about it is you're not going around saying like, "I'm so smart. I can interpret anything out of anything."
You know, which people can do. I mean, um, uh, and, and, and so I'm living a virtuous life because, you know, I can just kind of reason my way a- to any conclusion that I want. You know, they're saying no, no, it, there has to be a certain something that's anchoring you that's not just your ... Right? So, so it's- Right
it could be ethics, could be, could be God, you know, but it could be, that, that could ... Again, if we want to learn a thing from within a thing there, you know, we might say it's not exactly God th- that, as you're thinking. It's not, it's not saying that you just have to pray a lot, you know. It's, it's saying that you have to feel like you're doing God's work or you're, you're somehow, you're, you're doing all this but out of a sense of something, out of a sense.
Uh, we could debate what that sense is. Is the sense of, of duty, a sense of obligation, a sense of fear, a sense of ... But, but that you, there's something lim-- I, I guess I would read it as there's something limiting you. Uh, and, and I, and I would, um, I mean, I'm just thinking about the questions. I mean, like what, what I was gonna say is like I, I think of it as, as like, um, you know, we, we were talking about the, these questions as sort of pointing us in the direction of what kind of person are the rabbis trying to form.
And right, a person who's ethical in their business dealings, a person who, uh, makes sure that they study, a person who's, um, uh, you know, positive, all those things. But so you would think that one way to read this could be, and these are the things that form character. These are the things that- Mm ... form values.
But this add-on sort of says, but all this only if you're driven by values, you know, if you're driven by character or sense of humility. I, I don't know. I mean, I think there's some interplay between those two halves.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. O- o- one thing that occurs to me is that this, this yirat Hashem brings up
other ideas in rabbinic literature where there's a status ... Oh, gosh, how can I say this? Um, there are certain transgressions that are acknowledged to be things that no one can actually know but you and God. And I don't know if my theology matches this kind of a God, but in the im- in this, in the imagination of those who, who did, it's the idea that, you know, y- you can
For example, if you're a shop- if you're a, a customer in a shop, and you go and you ask the price of an item you have no intention of buying, right? The rabbis say that's forbidden. And it's one of those things that you're not going to be punished for because you can e- easily say, "Oh, but I intended." Only you know what your intent w- I intended to buy it maybe.
Um, but that's one of those things that they say God knows inside of your heart. And if you have a sense that God knows, like God's watching, God, there's ... That you can't get away with something that you actually could get away with, but in some bigger sense you won't, it is likely to lead you to not try to get away with something because you know you can't.
You know, does that make sense?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: So it, it could be that this, this awareness that, you know, you really can't cheat ultimately-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm ...
BENAY LAPPE: is also part of the exam. It- Mm-hmm ... or part of what is likely to lead you to ... I don't know. I'm not, I'm not sure.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, one question or one way to cut at this feels to me like, let's talk a little bit about that question if we were in, in the position of the rabbis today.
If we were, if we were trying to declare- Mm ... here are the five or six or seven principles- For what a good life looks like, and, you know, tho- that's what you're gonna be judged on, so to speak. So we don't believe in judgment in the same way, let's say, and so we wouldn't put it in quite those terms. Uh, and so we really would probably put it in the terms of, like, these are the seven principles of, of a good life, and we're gonna anchor it in a verse.
And now, i- in this, it could be a verse from the Bible, could be a verse from the Talmud, it could be this verse. Let's play with this verse right now just for the sake of it's easier and we don't, we're not prepared with a different verse. But I think we could easily come, and with the, the analogous situation would be for us not to use this verse, but to use a different verse that has seven principles, you know, or seven words in it, right?
And to say, "And we're gonna, we're gonna take that to be our seven principles." And I actually think we probably should, should, should do that at a future time, because why be limited? And I don't think they were limited. I think they ha- my, my feeling is they had their seven principles or s- you know, maybe it was five, maybe it was six, you know, and they kind of shoved in a seventh 'cause of the verse.
But they ha- they already knew the principles. Yeah. And they looked for a verse to, to attach it to that seemed to have these ideas in it, right? So that, that would be a lot of work. We don't have time for that right now. If we were looking at this one, I would say, like, for example, right, um, one of the things that's on my mind a lot these days is climate change.
And, uh, right, you, so you might look at this verse and say, or, you know, this verse from the Talmud, and say, well, right, the, the Bible verse actually said it should be a strength
BENAY LAPPE: for you,
DAN LIBENSON: right? Um, they, they interpreted that to be being fruitful and multiplying, which is, like, pr- uh, peru u'revu, right, um, pri ah'vei riviah.
So, you know, that's fruitful and multiplying. Those are the words that are used in, in Genesis. We talked all about that. But what if we said, well, pria, uh, is the same root as, as fruit, and, um, you know, riviah maybe is the same root as rav, like wisdom. So it's like, did you apply your wisdom to fruits? You know, meaning did you, did you really care for the land?
You know what I mean? Uh-huh. That, that would be analogous to what they're doing here. That's interesting. And it sounds a little silly when we're doing it, because obviously it doesn't mean that, but obviously it also didn't, it didn't mean, it didn't mean fruitful and multiplying based on, on the verse from, from Isaiah.
So, so the, um, so the question is, so the question ... If, so if we're doing things like that, right, at, at the point is we start doing things like that, and we would come up with a list that's quite different from these that says, uh, you know, basically, um, you know, we, we could interpret each one. Uh, we could spend time on each one.
But let's say it was on, on the order of, like, taking care of the Earth, uh, being the, the, the, uh, the value that flows from the be fruitful and multiplying. Then we say, okay, then we get to this last one, "And even so if the fear of God is his treasure, yes if fear, if not, no." W- I, it feels to me like there's some kind of limiting, either there's a limiting- Yeah
statement there, or we have to interpret what do we mean by the fear of God is his treasure in our time, which would be something like- You know, again, I've ... This is another thing of the ones that where, like, I'm sort of fixated on this idea that these days human beings have a lot of the powers that we used to imagine to be the powers of God.
And so if we want to talk about the fear of God, that, that means the careful, uh, the careful use of our power. You know, something like that, that we have to act like God now, and, and not in the way that we lord it over other people. Th- what I mean by act like God is to have the responsibility of God. So all of these things that we just reinterpreted, yes, but only if we have done so with the mindset that we have the responsibility of God, and we're not doing this to enhance our own power.
We're only doing this to enhance our own responsibility. Something like that. You know, that ... I don't know if that's helpful to you, and-
BENAY LAPPE: Uh, okay. I, I think this might be an add-on to yours, but what comes up for me is accountability. Mm-hmm. That this seventh thing is fine for all this, but if you're not accountable-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: to a community, meaning a group of people who from whom you are open to critique and challenge, right, tochecha,
DAN LIBENSON: it,
BENAY LAPPE: it's, it's, it, it's go- you're gonna go off the rails.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: But if you're accountable, if you do all this and you remain accountable to a community, you'll stay on track. You'll ... It, it's a more, um
We can be more confident that it is actually gonna play out for you in a sustainable way, and a way that isn't going to go off. So I, I think it's some, for me it's something about accountable. But if you're accountable to a community, and if you're accountable to a community, great. But if you're not, none of this is really gonna matter, 'cause it actually is inevitably going to fail.
You're living those six things out or whatever our six things are gonna be, is going to fail or go off the rails.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. I like that. I- I'm, I'm on board with that. I, when I look at something like this and I think, "Okay, so what's the relevance for us?" And also, like, what are we seeing here about the methodologies that the rabbis are using?
I'm, I'm thinking, like, okay, what, what we see in terms of the methodology is that they do quote the verse from Isaiah. They didn't have to. They, they, but they, but it's not like the Benser or Amora text where there's, like, pages and pages of trying to get here. Like, they get here very quickly. So it feels to me like, again, but I floated that hypothesis that the more justifications you find in the Talmud- The more likely they think people are not gonna accept this.
You know, so they're trying to arm the rabbis with multiple explanations for people. And the more likely that that is gonna happen is when the people know the opposite, either from that they come to synagogue every week and hear the Torah read, so, and they know that this isn't in the Torah, or that they, um, that they just know from, like, folk wisdom.
They have superstitions, they have other reasons for being skeptical of this principle. So I kinda feel like we don't see that here. So it suggests to me that what we're looking at here is something where the expectation is that the rabbis are gonna tell the regular people, "Hey, these are the seven principles that you're judged on."
Mm-hmm. And the people are gonna basically say, "Oh, okay." Okay. You know, yeah. Mm-hmm. It's like, fine. And, and, um, they're quoting the verse to get... You know, the verse is not actually something that they're gonna tell the people, but the fact that the verse is quoting, quoted here is kind of a, a more overt wink.
So it's kind of, it's part, more part of the rabbinic training program than about the interaction with the people here. Right. Right. And whe- when, and so when we look at all that, I, I don't know if all that's sort of necessary to my question, but ultimately, like, it makes me look at something like this and say, okay, two questions.
One, are these seven principles still good ones? Like, are these, are these good? Like, uh, should we just, like, keep going with these? Or should, would, would we, would part of our project today be to declare seven different principles or, or a mixture of those, or maybe both? Like, these are good, these are fine, no objections, but, like, what about climate change?
What about, uh, you know, uh, anti-racism? What about, uh, you know, homophobia, transphobia? It's, and all, all kinds of other things that we care about passionately today that are just not here, and of course, they're not here. They were not top of mind for these people. So we should add, supplement. And all of that is, is, uh, in the context of this other question, which is, like, right, the predicate of our show, I think, is that if not now, then in the near future, the tradition will be entirely transparent.
And so there is at least the possibility that your average Jew will see all the winks, you know, and will, and, and so it'll be more like the Ben Sorer Umoreh story where they do find out about it in the weekly Torah reading. So, so here they, they would find out about... So in, in a, in a world in which they would find out about it- How storifying do we do?
In other words, how much do we say, "Oh, these are the seven principles, and they're actually flowing from this Talmud," wink, wink, you know, or the Torah, wink, wink. Or do we just say, "Oh, these are the seven principles because, of course, we- we're a com- we're a society that cares passionately about, uh, you know, anti-racism and, and, uh, anti-homophobia and climate change, you know, right?
So, like, we don't have to justify that in a verse.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I see even among the very radical community that allows me to hang with them still, um, there is- To hang with ... Oh,
DAN LIBENSON: oh, I see This radical
BENAY LAPPE: community. The radical community lets you
DAN LIBENSON: hang with them.
BENAY LAPPE: Yes, exactly. Yeah. The, the, there is so much power in anchoring- I agree I- Sorry, say, say what you were gonna say.
I, I- Yes. There's so much power in anchoring our moves to the tradition- Yeah ... and seeing even the seeds of what we're gonna make plants being in the tradition. I, I ... For me, that's, that's, uh, a non-negotiable, just be- be- because it's so powerful.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh- I, I 100% agree. It, that's my experience. It's like, it's, it's so
It's, it's about our, our, you know, and I mean this with honor, you know, it's about our animal nature. It's, there's so- you know, I mean, this is what Yuval Noah Harari writes about and others, you know, that, that story. We are ... At the end of the day, we are still not fully rational beings that are only governed by thoughts, right?
We, we are, we are what we are physically, and human beings, as a fact, respond to stories more powerfully. And, and, and it, and, and whenever I talk about things that I talk about, and not when I'm ... Like, when I'm doing, like, again, a grant proposal or I'm talking about a vision that I have for what we're, where we are in, in Jewish history or whatever, if I, if I anchor it to a story, I often talk about the wandering in the wilderness.
If I say like, "This is just like ..." You know, it moves people. People are like, "Oh my God, I just got chills when you said that." Whereas when I just say like, "Well, let's look, I mean, let's look at the business theories, uh, you know, this is obvious that we need to do this in a different way," it might be actually more accurate and actually from a debating standpoint a better argument, but it's not nearly as, as persuasive.
But I, but I, but I, I, I say that word cautiously because I'm not trying to persuade and fool people. I'm trying to, I'm trying to invite people into a, into a community, you know, into, into a chance to really be part of something. And, and what I find is that what they want is the story.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. They want to feel that their life is connected to those who came before them.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: We really don't wanna feel like we're making this shit up.
DAN LIBENSON: We,
BENAY LAPPE: we wanna feel like we're standing on the shoulders of someone else who stood on the shoulders of someone else, and to know that someday someone will stand on our shoulders, and we are connected to a long tradition of, it- That's very meaningful, and I think that's part of what, that's the takeaway when you do devar mitoch devar.
Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Like,
BENAY LAPPE: you take the little seed and you say, "Th- this, this move we're making to make the world better had early, early, early roots, even if tiny, in-"
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, and, yeah, and I wanna just, like, in closing, I just wanna, like, share this, like, just one more time just to see that ... So, so I think, and this is kind of where I'm driving at, that the rabbis who are reading the Talmud, th- there is a, there is another sentence or two between these two, but it, but it was, it's right next to, so it's clearly that this is drawn from that.
That's not at all being masked in the Talmud. I just wanted to say it's, I, we did skip a little bit here. But the rabbis that are reading this, like, they saw the verse here. They knew that it was being misquoted, you know, quoted out of context, and that the words, that's not really what it was trying, it wasn't trying to be about the seven questions you're asked on Judgment Day.
They knew that, and nevertheless, I think they were moved to see this connection. Right? They w- they found it moving. So what, what I'm saying, what I'm trying to say here is that nobody was being fooled, and yet they found it worthwhile to put the story in. And yes, it's a wink, but it's not a wink because they're gonna go up to some average Jew and say, "Oh, how do we know these seven, uh, principles are Judgment Day?
We, we get it from the Book of Isaiah." I don't think anybody was telling them that. Um, I, I think that this was for their own internal conversations, and they found it moving to attach it to this verse from Isaiah even though they knew that it wasn't really from there. Mm-hmm. And that's what I'm trying to get at here in terms of imagining a, a sort of future in which every Jew is effectively a rabbi.
It wouldn't be a future in which we would stop telling these stories and we would stop making these, these winks. These weren't winks to say, "Hey, we all know what the real truth is, but now you go th- tell the people without the wink." Th- they, they, the wink was for them. That's what I ... You know, the wink was for them because they, because otherwise it would feel too detached, and they didn't want that.
They didn't want a, just a new system, even if it would be a really good system. They wanted that sense of connection even if they knew that it was, like, a false connection, and I think so do we. And so, you know, that shouldn't be left behind in our moving forward, I think.
BENAY LAPPE: I love that. I, I love your emphasis on what the rabbis needed for themselves.
That, that feels very true to me. Mm-hmm. Um- Right Yeah
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Well, um, we went a little long 'cause of the technical. We'll chop out the technical problem and we'll, uh, and, and it'll be well, um, and people will just wonder why your background changed. Um, but, uh, we'll be back, uh, this, this time next week, and, uh, look forward to seeing you then.
BENAY LAPPE: too.
DAN LIBENSON: Thanks, Dan. Okay. Bye, Dané.
BENAY LAPPE: Bye-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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