The Oral Talmud Episode 53: What’s the Point? (Berakhot 6b)
SHOW NOTES
“You’re really wasting your time, you’re doing the wrong thing if you think that your job is to receive the tradition, protect it, preserve it, and hand it off exactly as you got it.” - Benay Lappe
Welcome to The Oral Talmud, our weekly deep dive chevruta study partnership, discovering how voices of the Talmud from 1500 years ago can help us rethink Judaism today.
What if the point of tradition isn’t preserving it, but changing it? This episode begins with an obscure Talmudic line just three words long: “agra, de shmata, svara” or “The reward for tradition: svara,” and spirals into a radical argument about what Judaism is actually trying to produce. Not perfect obedience. Not perfect memory. But people capable of moral courage, intuition, and transformation.
Along the way, Benay and Dan unpack a series of strange rabbinic aphorisms about weddings, funerals, fasting, and study, each one overturning what you thought the “point” was. The real reward for learning might not be knowledge. The real reward for mourning might not be comfort. And the real reward for engaging tradition might not be preserving it exactly as you received it… but bringing your full self to it so completely that the tradition itself changes in your hands.
This week’s text: Berakhot 6b
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 53: What’s the Point?
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.
What if the point of tradition isn’t preserving it, but changing it? This episode begins with an obscure Talmudic line just three words long: “agra, de shmata, svara” or “The reward for tradition: svara” — and spirals into a radical argument about what Judaism is actually trying to produce. Not perfect obedience. Not perfect memory. But people capable of moral courage, intuition, and transformation.
Along the way, Benay and I unpack a series of strange rabbinic aphorisms about weddings, funerals, fasting, and study, each one overturning what you thought the “point” was. The real reward for learning might not be knowledge. The real reward for mourning might not be comfort. And the real reward for engaging tradition might not be preserving it exactly as you received it — but bringing your full self to it so completely that the tradition itself changes in your hands.
Every episode of The Oral Talmud has a number of resources to support your learning and to share with your own study partners! If you’re using a podcast app to listen, you’ll find these links in our show notes: First, to a Source Sheet on Sefaria, where you can find pretty much any Jewish text in the original and in translation – there we excerpt the core Talmud texts we discuss and share a link to the original video of our learning.
In the show notes of your podcast app, you’ll also find a link to this episode on The Oral Talmud’s website, where we post an edited transcript, and where you can make a donation to keep the show going, if you feel so moved. On both the Sefaria Source Sheet and The Oral Talmud website.
And now, The Oral Talmud…
DAN LIBENSON: Hello, everyone. I'm Dan Liepenston, and I am here, as always, with Benay Lappe for this week's episode of the Oral Talmud. Hey, Benay.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey, Dan. How are you?
DAN LIBENSON: Good. Sorry for the slight delay in starting. We had a few last-minute translation adjustments- ... and then we, uh, and then we, um, had a sl- slight technical, uh, challenge.
But, um, all is well. Uh, good to see you.
BENAY LAPPE: Good. Good to see you, too.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, wait, now I see that we're wearing the same shirt, but, um, but different colors, so I- Yes, yes ... that's why I was, I give my color.
BENAY LAPPE: All of my dark shirts are in the laundry, so now I'm resorting to the light gray shirts.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. I like that. That's a, that's a nice color.
Okay. Like,
BENAY LAPPE: i- it's not as soft. It, it, like- Uh ... these darker ones are, like, s- primo super soft, but...
DAN LIBENSON: All right. Well, um, it's fun to match. Um- So, um, so first of all, um, you know, I, I'll just note for, that, uh, tomorrow, or yeah, tomorrow is, uh, it starts tonight, the holiday of Lag BaOmer, which I guess if we had really been thinking about the, uh, schedule for the Oral Talmud, we could have, you know, done a text relating to Lag BaOmer because it actually is a kind of a minor, you know, not too many people observe it as a holiday, but it actually, uh, has a lot of Talmudic connections, or really its primary, uh, connection is Talmudic.
And actually, I, I heard an interesting take on it yesterday. I was participating in a, in a panel, and somebody talked about h- and I hadn't thought about it this way before, but maybe, maybe this is, you know, the traditional way to think about it, was that the, um, there was this plague of all the students of Rabi- Rabbi Akiva that all were dying, and they stopped dying on the 33rd day of the Omer, the counting between Passover and Shavuot.
But I always kind of thought about that as like, oh, it's kind of a miracle, like, the, the, the dying stopped. But this person presented it as basically like they were all dead. You know, the, the dying stopped because they had all died, and Rabbi Akiva had to kind of rebuild his work with these five rabbis that he ultimately trains.
I think it's five. Uh- Wow. Yeah. And, and so in that regard, it was kind of, it, it hit me much more like the destruction of the temple or the other great destruction of Rabbi Akiva's life, which was the, uh, the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, and, um, that in a way, from a mythic standpoint, the way that we look at a lot of these stories, that there's something there about the- The sort of, there's obviously a part about resilience after destruction, but there's also part of it about, like, I, I was hearing it as, as like it's a remnant.
You know, the new thing comes from a remnant. The, th- and that's a Jewish tradition, the Sheari, to, that there's a ... Y- you know, and, and I, I always talk about this in terms of, like, the implicit goals of Jewish philanthropy is to hold onto all the Jews, is to stop any Jew from assimilating, I put that in quotes, or, you know, whatever bad thing you wanna say that means that they floated away from the Jews.
But that I've been advocating that, like, that's not really been the way that we've, uh, made these transitions in the past. We- there have been some people that came along and some people that didn't, and the people that do come along to the next thing, uh, tend to be a small number, and in fact, they often will be the people who were not really into it the previous time, a- like, and you've said this a million times, you know, and those people kind of get, stay behind because they're what you call option one.
You know, they're the people who don't think that new thing is the, is the right thing. And a lot of times, you know, you hear this talk that Judaism is gonna be preserved for sure by the Orthodox, and maybe some other people will make it, too. And the reverse of that would be that actually it's the other people that are gonna found the next version of Judaism, and maybe some of the, quote, "Orthodox" will, will come along.
And that's not the triumphalist narrative of, of that, you know, the, the most zealous are the ones who hold onto it. That is sometimes true in Jewish history, but in, uh, in other times it's actually quite the opposite. So anyway, that all got me thinking that Lag BaOmer was a little more relevant than I've given it credit for.
BENAY LAPPE: That's really interesting. And w- what jumped out at me also is how that story might lay down over a strategy for raising up, you know, the next generation. Do you raise up as many people as possible? It's also a question for, I think, for us as teacher trainers. You know, do you, do you raise up five amazing educators, or do you raise up, you know, thousands of so-so ones?
I, I, or something like that. I, I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. I, I, I, I mean, I think it's, I think it's, it's right on. So there's, there's ... So maybe next year for Lag BaOmer we'll, we'll look at some texts. But I, I think, at least I just wanted to mention it so that maybe, again, people could go into this holiday tomorrow that probably mo- many of the people watching this or listening to this don't really pay much attention to.
Yeah. And maybe it would be a little bit more, you know, of interest
BENAY LAPPE: this year. Yeah. No, that's really interesting. I wanna focus on that going forward on Lag BaOmer
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, so, so this year- so today, uh, the text that we did prepare, actually we did a, we called an audible on this one too because we were-
planning to do the text that we're gonna do next week now. But this week we wanted to do this text that we're gonna do, in, in part because we think it connects to some of those ideas that we were exploring about, um, about the, you know, whether there's a third Torah. And as we approach Shavuot, you know, that which Shavuot is in now, uh, I guess 17 days, um, and um, a little over two weeks.
And as we think about what's going on at Mount Sinai, if Shavuot is kind of the reenactment of Mount Sinai, whatever you think that means, and we've been talking about this, uh, written Torah and then the oral Torah being given at Sinai. Maybe the new legend is that there was a third Torah given at Sinai.
We've talked about it as the Svara Torah, which is not a branding exercise. I- in this case it means- ... the Svara meaning the Torah that's sort of written in, into our own bodies, into our own hearts, and, um, and, and we're, so we're, we're, we've been working on a piece about that and, and this, uh, text is gonna be the anchor for it, so we thought maybe, uh, talking it out on, on today's show will help us get that piece written, and also it, it makes sense in terms of where we've been going.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And I'm also teaching this text to our fellows, and I'm just totally stuck. I'm stuck in it. Is- So I'm, I'm hoping that this conversation will help me get unstuck.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, great. So, uh, I mean, how do you wanna approach this? Do you wanna, uh, give any kind of context, or should we first start with this little story, which is the context, or what?
BENAY LAPPE: Well, I guess the context, I, I would say, is th- this text came to my awareness, uh, because one of my fabulous students, Joseph Eskin, sent me an email after he left Chicago and he left the S&M Beit Midrash that was kind of our, our big original Beit Midrash, a number... Not original, but the big Beit Midrash a number of years ago.
And he sent me an email and he said, "Benay, I just came across this text. I think this is something you would like." And it was the three word, um, piece of this text that has to do with Svara. And, you know, I'm on a mission to really understand what are the contours and the, the personalities and, like, what is Svara, how does it work?
And to really understand that, um, I've been wanting to learn every occurrence of the word Svara in the Talmud. Um, sort of the way you look through a family album if you wanna learn about your, you know, Uncle Dave. Like, I wanna learn about my Uncle Svara. So I'm looking through this old family album and I'm seeing, oh, here's this picture of, uh, Uncle Dave playing soccer.
Oh, okay, Uncle Dave was a soccer player. I never knew that. Ah, here's another picture of Uncle Dave's college gr- oh, he went to college. Interesting. Here's Uncle Dave's first wife. Oh my God, he had a f- oh, wow, he was married twice. Okay. So I'm learning about, you know, Uncle Svara every time I read a passage, and tr- really trying to flesh out who this, this person, who, who this concept of Svara is.
So this is one of those texts that Joseph Eskin brought to my attention, and that's, that's what I'm trying to, to get here.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, great. So then, um, so, so a little more, so this comes from the, the tractate of Berakhot, which people generally study a- as, you know, in the kind of, uh, outside world, you know, the outside Svara world, so to speak, uh, as like the, quote, "The first book of the Talmud."
And so, and this is on page 6B, so even the people who didn't make it too far, you know, when they started studying Talmud, they might have encountered this text. So that's just a little interesting tidbit, including your student. Maybe that was how he encountered it. You know, he kind of- Maybe ... started from the beginning, so to speak.
Um, and, um, but, but it's the kind of thing where probably a lot of people skip it over, especially at that s- at that point, you know, you don't really know that much about the Talmud. It, especially if you're studying it in translation, um, it's gonna... First of all, it often translate, well, Steinsaltz, the most common translation, translates Svara as logical reasoning or reasoning.
Yeah. So, you know, so you, you, it, it, so it doesn't mean a whole lot, you know, it, and whereas, you know, we've said a million times that you, you, uh, it's better to translate it as something like moral intuition or moral reasoning. Uh, again, it's this, it's this kind of, um, we might even call it something like wisdom.
You know, something like that where, where you really are, are... It's, reasoning sounds like it's coming from your head, it's logical deductions, and it, and that is how a more traditional world sees it. Uh, but some- something like moral reasoning is more that it's not logical deductions, it's, it's an orientation towards the world about how things should be, et cetera.
That's right. So, um, so the main, so the main text here, it's actually very, very short, uh, just to kind of flag people to what your student had identified, and then I think we'll, we'll go backwards. Um, but here it's, it's Rava says, and, and of course Rava is the, this very important rabbi in the Talmud, and also very important to Svara the organization.
Uh, a lot- A- and
BENAY LAPPE: Svara the concept.
DAN LIBENSON: And Svara the concept. So Rava is like the Svara guy in, in every sense. And, um, so Rava says, "Reward for tradition, Svara." In, in the Aramaic it is, um, a- Agra deshmata Svara. And, um, sh- shmata, uh, comes from the root of shma, like to hear. So you explained this to me yesterday.
It's basically what we might think of as, like, the received tradition, right, the, the heard tradition.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Yeah. I'm still trying to get a feel for what they meant by that. Um, it seems to be what you understand the tradition to be saying, what you receive as the tradition kind of as a whole, but also what you put out of the tradition once you've messed with it and once you've tried to, you know, upgrade it, fill in the gaps, improve it.
Uh, eh, so it's something like that, or it can, it can be your understanding of the tradition. There's a passage in Bava Metzia that describes a certain rabbi as having very sharp traditions, and that, that might mean that he's very clear or able, maybe able to articulate clearly how he understands the tradition, or he has some sort of large set of clear understandings of what the law should be, something like that.
But it seems to be something different than just learning generally.
DAN LIBENSON: Y- right. So, and the structure of this, uh, the, and again, we're gonna back up in a second, but the structure of this is sort of, it's really, it's three words, right, agra, de shmata, svara. In the original, uh, this, uh, em dash is not there.
There's no punctuation in the Talmud. So, uh, it's three words, reward for, uh, traditions, svara. Um- Right ... right. And then the
BENAY LAPPE: q- the question is, what's the grammar? Right. How are those three pieces put together?
DAN LIBENSON: Right. So, so is the, would the right way to translate it, the right way to understand the grammar be the reward for learning the tradition is svara, or- And,
BENAY LAPPE: a- and I wanna say, that is the ap- that's the way Hebrew and Aramaic grammar tends to work.
The X of Y Z typically is the X of Y is Z. And that was the way I understood it when Joseph sent me this email with those three words, and for several years I was very excited about that way to connect the pieces because it said something w- to me which matched what my hope and inkling was about the relationship between- At least learning and the development of one's svara.
Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Which, just to explain that, it, it, like, as you understood that originally, it was basically that if you engage in learning, if you engage in, with the tradition and action, that your svara will be cultivated as a reward. You'll become increasingly wise, increasingly capable of moral intuitions that are good, right?
BENAY LAPPE: Right. It's the idea that learning, particularly learning Talmud, is a core spiritual practice primarily designed to shape the learner into a s- a kind of crash-waxed, insightful, cr- morally courageous, svara-dick person. Mm-hmm. So the svara, your, the refinement of your svara, your sensitivity to suffering and your commitment to repairing that using the tradition, isn't, is, is what comes out of this spiritual practice of learning Talmud.
That matched for me with my own experience of learning Talmud, and at the very least, my aspiration that that was true.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: You know, I always worry whe- whether or not it's actually working for me in my life. I don't know, am I better person as far-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh ... I,
BENAY LAPPE: I don't wanna, I don't wanna make that claim, but I, I hope it's the case.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh. And then by the way, just on a sort of a post-modern, uh, you know, or even, like, talk- thinking back to our conversation with Richard Primus about the meaning of the Constitution, I mean, it's not, it's not totally clear to me that just because that may not have been the original intent of the, of Rava in this case, or of the editor, doesn't necessarily mean that that's not A, true, and B, a, a fair way to read it.
So it's just putting it out there. But the other alternative way to read that is that the re- one is rewarded for studying or engaging with the tradition if one does so, or as one does so using their svara. Using- That's right ... like, that, that the reward, so you, you might think, and, and this is, I think, o- often a structure that is used in Talmudic study and also in any kind of study, just to understand when something is being asserted, well, what, what would be the opposite?
What would be the, the thing that you would've thought if you hadn't read this assertion? So you might think that the reward for studying is because you are taking the time to it, to give to it, or you're being diligent, or you're, right?
BENAY LAPPE: Or, or that the reward for being engaged in the tradition is actually practicing the tradition.
You- Mm-hmm ... it's like the, the reward of it, the outcome of it, or what you get, the important part of being engaged in the tradition is the observance of it, or-
DAN LIBENSON: A-
BENAY LAPPE: again, we have to decide what the
DAN LIBENSON: grammar is, but- Well, no, but I mean, like, for, for example, like if, if you say, if you would say that the reward for prayer, you know, reward prayer is intention.
You know, if that was the structure. Reward, prayer, intention. Mm-hmm. Then what that would be telling you under this grammar is that you're not rewarded for praying if you don't- That's right ... have intention. You're, y- if you just come and you say the prayers, you know, three times a day because, and you just say the words, you're actually not rewarded because you're not really praying or you're not doing the thing that's worthy of reward.
If you come with, with the intention to glorify God or to whatever, then you're rewarded, uh, because... And that means that ultimately this exercise is about trying to get you to have intention, not trying to get you to say these words. And so- Right ... structurally, similarly here, you might think that the reward for study or the reward for engaging with the tradition is, uh, you know, yeah, like you said, the, just the act itself.
The, the, it's inherently valuable or something like that. Uh, and you're rewarded the more traditions you follow or the more traditions you study, the more rewarded you are because you're engaged, you're taking the time, you're serious about it, you're committed. No. What you're rewarded for is only if you're, if you're engaging in that with svara, with your, that you're bringing your moral intuition to it.
So we'll get to all that and, and but th- but those are, that's part of what's at stake here is, is just what, what is Rava trying to say here in terms of is svara the reward or is svara the basis for the reward?
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: So I, I think that looking at this, um, earlier story, which is not particularly an important one, but it, it's the, it's the story that leads into the, uh...
at least I don't think it's a very important one, but it leads into this, uh, bunch of aphorisms that are now then given, uh, probably helps us see which one at least the original intent was. Uh- And,
BENAY LAPPE: and I want to raise the possibility that my own havruta, Aquilin, raised last night, which is maybe the grammar for each of the maxims might be different.
Uh-huh. Just because the way we're putting the three components together for one wor- only works if it's the X of Y is only because of Z. Maybe another one might be put together with the X of Y is in fact Z. Uh-huh. So that's a possibility.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It's n- it's less neat, it's less elegant, but it's possible, especially since the editor most likely gathered these aphorisms from different places at different, for sure different eras.
And they legitimately might have been sort of structured differently to say different things, and they're put together here only because of their similarity with the word reward. Okay
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, and there's a lot of that in the Talmud where, where it kind of gets to some point and somebody says something, it could be an aphorism, it could be a little comment about that where it's like an analogy.
You know, he's saying, "Well, I'm making this analogy," and they say, you know, "You just made an analogy to soup. Let's hear all the things people said about soup." You know- ... and then, and then they're like, "And now returning to the original subject," right? Yeah, there's a lot of that. So, um, okay, so the stor- the little story here, so they're actually, what the context here in the, in the tractate of Berakhot is that they're, they're, they're talking about blessings.
That's what it's about, and, and it's kind of about, like, when are you, what's the good way to, to do with blessings, you know? How, and, and so there's all kinds of things relating to that, and this one is saying that, um, Rabbi Hilo said that Rav Huna said, "One who leaves the synagogue should not take large strides."
So it's getting at here, like, you know, you should be wanting to make blessings. Like, you should ... So if you, if you, like, walk quickly away from the synagogue, you know, with li- large strides, that, that might, that might appear as if you are trying to leave the synagogue quickly, and you wouldn't want to appear that way.
That would be wrong. That would be disrespectful. That would be indicating not a seriousness. So you should only walk very slowly away from the synagogue to sort of indicate that you don't want to leave.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And let's remember that at this time they're still in a grand marketing plan for this new-fangled spiritual institution called the synagogue, which I think they were still trying to get people to believe was real, and, like, God was gonna be there with you, and these, you know, new-fangled words you were gonna say was actually gonna conjure God's presence.
And I think a lot of people were not quite down with this, this new synagogue thing. It was like they were, they were pitching ashrams for Jews, and Jews are like, "Nah, I'm, I, I'm not buying it. Temple, yeah, no more temple. There's nothing we can do. Bye-bye."
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So, uh, then Abaye says, "That was said only with regard to leaving the synagogue.
However, with regard to entering the synagogue, it is a mitzvah to run." Obvious, makes sense as a, as a counterpoint. Um, but, well, and so, so then there's a, a, um, a line from Hosea that's cited as a proof text for this. Um, as it is said, uh, "Let us know, eagerly strive to know the Lord." So- Mm-hmm ... you know, that, that Hosea says we should be eager to, to meet God, so we should run towards God, and, and of course we should only go slowly when it's time to go away from God.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And now this eagerness is, is really, I think, going to be lifted up as the real core of, you know, what, what's, what's hoped to be cultivated.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: So I think we're, we're seeing the aikido move- From the prayer itself to the e- eagerness Mm-hmm ... eagerness just by itself. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. And so, and so then Rabbi Zeira comments on that.
He says, "Initially, when I saw the sages running to the lecture," to the rabbi's, I guess, it says, that's, that's not in the original, but, "To the lecture on Shabbat, I said, 'These sages are desecrating Shabbat.'" Because you're not supposed to be... You're supposed to be resting on Shabbat. You're not supposed to be going for a jog.
Right. Um, right? So he thought that they were doing something wrong. "Once I heard that which Rabbi Tanchum said that Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi said, which was that one should always run for a matter of Halakha, even on Shabbat," a matter of, say, Jewish practice, uh, even on Shabbat. As it is stated, and here's another line from Hosea, "They shall walk after the Lord who roar like a lion."
Um, in other words, you should be running, running so as fast as, like, if a lion was chasing you. Um, "I too run." So, you know, so he says, uh, right, that, that initially he, he thought you shouldn't be running on Shabbat. He was like, you should be running to the synagogue on a weekday, but not on Shabbat. But then this other, you know, proof text again, kind of not really a well...
You know, that's not really what the proof text meant. Which maybe, by the way, is good, good reason for us to be willing to think a little bit, you know, res- reshape what we think these next lines mean, you know? That obviously the, the proof texts that they're using don't mean what they're saying,
BENAY LAPPE: but- You know what?
You remember that silly example I gave about, you know, what if there were a verse in the Torah about driving, and you said that meant you should have drive? Uh-huh. Th- this is actually exactly that.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, 'cause it's- That's funny ... 'cause it, 'cause it says, like, "They shall walk after the Lord- Right, or the, or, or the-
who will roar like a lion." Like, th- this, this, what they're describing here is that something like, you know, you are following God, and God is the lion, you know? God is the... God is, is... I don't know why, exactly why He's roaring. I, I didn't look at Hosea here to see the complete context, but, but it's not, it's not, uh, at all saying that there's a different lion that's chasing you, and therefore you should run towards the Lord, you know?
I mean, it's- So, yeah. Um, so anyway, he, he's saying even on, even on Shabbat this principle is so important that, that you should always be running to, to do, uh, to do, to do good, to pray, to, to do the commandments, to fulfill Jewish, uh, practices. Uh, and that's, and that's, and, and then, and then comes the next line.
BENAY LAPPE: Uh- Got it. And now I'm seeing the connection between this story, um, where Rabbi Zeira says, "Oh, now I run," and this next piece. So N- Rabbi Zeira's gonna take this running even a step further. Not just you should run and be eager- To pray, but okay, now let's take- Right ... where, where does he go with that? So again, just
DAN LIBENSON: remember that this is the same Rabbi Zeira.
Yeah. So Rabbi Zeira says, Rabbi Zeira said, "Initially when I saw people running on Shabbat, I thought they were desecrating Shabbat, but then it turned out that I realized that they were actually doing a good thing, and now I run as well." And then he goes on to say re- the reward for lecture, running. Yeah.
Right. Agra de shmat- uh, sorry. Agra de pirka rihita. Um, so, so, uh, so, so and then, then, and then comes all these other aphorisms in the same structure. But, but I think, I mean, the way that I would understand this, uh, Bene, is that what he's saying here is that I now believe that the true reward for going to lectures comes not from the learning or the honor being given to the lecturer or whatever.
It comes from the running. It, it comes from your enthusiasm to go. That's, that's the basis for the reward, right? I th- I
BENAY LAPPE: think that's
DAN LIBENSON: right.
BENAY LAPPE: That, that the real ... It's like you, you, you, you're right. All of these have hava minas. All of these have common assumptions which, um, each aphorism is coming to disabuse us of.
You know, you, you might think that you get the reward, the reward that you get for going to a lecture is how much you learn. And the more you learn, the more reward you get, and that's the purpose of going. You go to run. And Rabbi Zeira's saying, "No, no, no. Don't think that." You go- let me see if I, if I've got this.
The ... What you're getting rewarded for isn't what happens when you're there. It's the enthusiasm that you have that brought you there.
DAN LIBENSON: Yes. Yes.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, okay. Now, my students are pushing back at me, and they're saying, "No, no, no. The grammar is the apparent grammar. The reward for going to the learning is the running itself."
And I'm not sure if I can ... I want ... Yeah. The truth is I want that to be the grammar because that's how grammar works in Hebrew. This is a very odd way to read grammar.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Yet from the Rabbi Zeira story, before Rabbi Zeira's apho- aphorism, it does seem ... I don't know. Can you make it work where the reward for going to learn is running?
Or-
DAN LIBENSON: Well, I'm not, I'm not, um, so as much of a grammarian as you are, so I'm not sure that I have a lot to, to massage about the Aramaic grammar per se. It do- it feels to me like just from a m- the mo- I, I look at this in two ways. Like one, just from a straightforward- standpoint is like, well, what would that mean that the reward for the lecture is running?
You know, in other words, that, that, just, you know, I, I could see that you could stretch it to make sense- Yeah ... and you could say that, um, you could say for example that the reward, that if you go to a lecture, let's say, if you go to a lecture and you're paying attention and you're, you're, you're, you're open to it, then you will get so much knowledge from it or so much perspective from it that you will, your enthusiasm will increase and you will be even more- Mm-hmm
motivated to go to the next one and, and you'll run to it. And you're- Okay. I mean, you can make it work, right? Like, there's a way to make it work. And, and, and again, like, I think given the, the misquotes from Hosea here, that that's totally re- so totally legitimate interpretive move. That we, we, we could say, like, if we were writing the third, you know, the next volume of Talmud where, where, which was in- interpreting the Gemara, I, I think a person could fairly say like that, you know?
It's fine. But from a kind of, uh, plain meaning standpoint, I would probably say it's, it's, it's a stretch to read it that way. And in light of the, the previous story- Okay ... where what he's saying is that I thought running was, was, uh, you know, it was like, I thought running on Shabbat was wrong. But it turns out that running to the lecture on Shabbat is okay.
Not only that, it's actually the running that is the, the most important thing itself. The running is showing your enthusiasm, and so the running is what's rewarded, not the attendance at the lecture per se. Right? That's right. So that makes more sense from a plain meaning standpoint to me.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, yeah. And that's the way it's been traditionally understood.
And Rashi, in fact, from the 11th century explains it this way, that what, what he says is, "Most people are not going to understand the lecture." Mm-hmm. They're gonna, you know, they're gonna go to a class, they're gonna learn Torah, and they're not gonna walk away understanding it so well that they'll even be able to repeat it to somebody else.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: So how could it be that the reward is the learning itself when the learning doesn't really happen for most people?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And so Rashi says, "So for them, th- that's why the, the reward isn't for the learning, the reward is f- you know, for their enthusiasm in going." I, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I don't know if that's really a statement about bad pedagogy- Yeah ... or it's a really low regard that- Yeah ... the rabbis had for the everyday people. I, I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, yes. Uh, although, yeah, uh, that said, I, given, given what we've said a number of times here that- The, um, that this is a text that's, that was never imagined to be read by the common people, that it may be that what they're actually saying is ev- uh, is for the rabbis the reward is still the enthusiasm.
So I don't, I think you could look at this as, in a way that's not- Mm-hmm ... Rashi's low regard for the common people. You could say the, e- everybody, let's take for a given everybody will understand the lecture. Mm-hmm. And everybody will, but, but don't un- misunderstand Judaism here. You know, don't misunderstand Judaism as something that is about your brilliance, and your genius, and your, your brain.
No, no, no. Judaism is, is really trying to cultivate a kind of person who is going to have enthusiasm for the Judaism, you know, whether it's for the learning or, and as we'll see for the other things, for, for other things. Um, and, and so it's a, it's really a, a teaching text for rabbis. It's like, don't, don't get this wrong, rabbis.
Mm-hmm. You know? And I actually think a lot of rabbis that we know today have gotten this wrong, and they do think, for themselves, right? They do think that, that the most important thing is for them to be, uh, you know, sort of intellectually, uh, learning and whatever. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I'm saying the most important thing I would say is, like, how do you care for the other people, and are you doing good- Mm
pastoral care? Are you, are you, uh, sharing your, you know, whatever. So, uh, uh, I think that, I think we can get there without insulting the common people. Yeah. Uh, okay. Maybe if we look at some of the others it'll actually help us, again, sort of like put this into context. So- Okay ... so let's look at the next one, which is, um, Abaye, um, who's often Rava's counterpart, uh, you know, opposite number, says, "The reward for the kala is crow- is for the cr- is," well, "The reward for the kala, crowding."
So now the kala was a semi-annual ev- twice-a-year gathering that, um, that people would, uh, I mean, again, did it really happen? We don't, I don't think we really know, but at least in legend that all the people, all, uh, all the people, right, uh, would, supposed to come to this twice-a-year gathering. The, the rabbis, the students, like, they would be studying, uh, every day, but the common people, they would come twice a year to this big gathering, like Burning Man, basically.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And it was before, uh, before Pesach and before the high holidays. And I think the idea was that here the sages would be transmitting the ways that you should be observing these holidays. And in fact-
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: um, throughout the ages, rabbis, until America and modernity mostly, when we were influenced by Christian, um, ministry, rabbis didn't give sermons.
They, they only gave sermons or talks twice a year- Hmm ... at the challah times, meaning before Pesach, where they were teaching you how to kasher your dishes and how to observe Pesach, and before the high holidays, when they were teaching you the laws of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. Um, and that's what a rabbi did.
And these challahs were, like you said, gigantic, gigantic gatherings.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. And so the, on that structure, so the question, again, would be like, well, does it make sense to say that the crowding is the reward? Now, you could say, right, I mean, there's, it's like there's something cool about being part of a crowd, so that is, that is the reward.
Um, I mean, I would, you know, think a p- a lot of people that go to Burning Man think that, you know, that, that actually, you know, you think- Oh, yeah ... you think the goal of Burning Man is to, you know, uh, just, um, you know, just do, uh, a whatever art project you are there to do, or whatever. No, no, no, the goal of Burning Man is to be part of the crowd.
That's the reward, is to be part of this community. So that, yeah, that could make sense. What, but it seems also ag- again, that it's more like what you were saying just about the lecture. This may be more about the common people, uh, that, don't worry, rabbis, that you necessarily have to make sure everybody understands everything.
N- you know, no, no, no, they're, even if they mess up their Passover dishes, the reward for going to the challah is that you went. You know, it's that you, you participated in the crowd, not that you necessarily
BENAY LAPPE: got it- Yeah. It, and I can, like, I don't like crowds, and I can imagine a lot of people didn't like crowds and still- Hmm
don't like crowds, and were resistant to going because, ew, this is gonna be hot and sweaty and uncomfortable and icky. And maybe this was also a PR campaign-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh ...
BENAY LAPPE: to tell the rabbis, "This is what you should tell people. Remind people that the reward they get is for them tolerating and suffering and dealing with that crowding."
Mm-hmm. That's precisely what they get the reward for. Mm-hmm. Not, you know, the halakhas they're gonna learn about Pesach. Maybe.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. No, I like that. That actually, that actually accords also with, uh, members of my family- ... that, uh, that don't re- that don't like crowds. Um, yeah, so you g- you get a reward for, for being willing to deal with the crowd in order, because again, you're showing enthusiasm for the, the material, the content, by being willing to, um, deal with the crowd So let's skip this, this varah one so we can look at the other ones, and then we'll come back to it.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, so Rav Papa said, "Reward for house of mourning, silence." Yeah. Um, so how do you... So I mean, the, how do you- This one ... the reward for going to a house of mourning, right? For, like, making a shiva
BENAY LAPPE: call. Yeah. Let's, let's, um, raise it up to see the Hebrew, 'cause the Hebrew's really- Okay ... interesting. Uh, a house of mourning is a, a, right, a beit hamya or tamaya.
And what's interesting about the root tamaya is that it comes from not tamei, impure, but taam, reason.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And there's a lot of debate about why exactly a, a house of mourning is called a house of reason, or could it be something else. Um, but one possibility, and Jastrow brings this down, is that, the dictionary, is that a house of reason is the name for a shiva house because one of the things that happens when someone dies is you're looking for a reason.
Why did this happen?
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And, um, and I think the hava meaning here, the thing that you might have thought is the way to be a good comforter, the way to make a good shiva call is, you know, to, to make comforting explanations of why this happened and why it's for the best. You know, "He's out of pain now," or, "He's in a better place," or, you know, whatever.
And, and actually, that's not consoling. And, and I think this aphorism of Rav Papa's comes to say explaining why it happened, even though that's what a shiva house is called, the house of explaining why- Uh-huh ... is, is really not what you should be doing.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh, uh-huh. And,
BENAY LAPPE: and you don't get reward for giving the best answer for why it's, it's really right, you know- Hmm
that your beloved person died, but rather shetikuta, silence.
DAN LIBENSON: That's, uh, that's great. That's really interesting. I mean, I, another thing that it makes me think of, but I don't know if this is right, but, um, that if you say, "I don't really like to go to a shiva house because, like, I never really know what to say, y- you know?
And, um, I don't know the person so well and I make awkward jokes or whatever, you know, and, like, I, I just, you know, I know that's not the right thing, so I, I just go there and I just sit silently, and then I leave and if I really done anything." And you can kind of say, well, this is saying, yeah, not only have you really done anything, but your willingness to kind of sit through that awkward silence, that you're, that is the reward.
So in the, the, I, I say it that way in the sense that, um, similar to the crowds at the Qala- That your reward is coming because you're doing something uncomfortable. In one case, dealing with a crowd, in another case, dealing with silence, and that actually is uncomfortable. Your reward comes because you embrace the discomfort, and you did the right thing anyway.
The right thing in one case being to visit a mourner, and in another case to attend the Kallah. You would have thought that your reward is gonna come 'cause you actually got learning from the Kallah or because you actually comforted the mourner with your words. No, your, your war- your, your, um, reward is coming for showing up, and, uh, despite the obstacle.
Something like that.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, I think that's right.
DAN LIBENSON: So I wonder, because now I hadn't really sort of thought about it in terms of that, so now I wonder if, if this is gonna help us, you know, or even maybe depressingly make us think that Svara issue is something else. But let's keep going, let's keep going. Yeah, yeah.
Um, so the reward for fasting, charity. And, uh, you explained this one to me. Yeah, that you wanna explain that one?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. So I'm still fleshing it out, and the commentators say somewhat different things about what this could mean, from Rashi to the Maharsha. So one understanding is that a fast, you misunderstand a fast if you think the fast is about, uh, an ascetic self, um, punishing-
DAN LIBENSON: Oh, yeah.
Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: activity-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: for your own spiritual growth. You've completely missed the point if you think that's what it's about. A fast is actually a... You know, there's, there's a, a tradition, and the Halakha is that you give Tzedakah after a fast.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I have to confess that I didn't know that.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. I
BENAY LAPPE: didn't know that that was always tied to, that mitzvah was always tied to a fast.
Turns out it is. And I think the message here is that you're wrong to think the fast is about the fast. The fast is about the Tzedakah at the end of the fast.
DAN LIBENSON: And- And the Tzedakah, and the Tzedakah comes from the, I mean, the money that you would have spent on the food.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly. So you, you know, you might say, "Hey, I didn't eat or drink this whole day.
I saved the money I would have spent at Starbucks. I saved my grocery bills. Like, actually, I benefited by about $100 today that's now growing my bank account." That's great. But no, you shouldn't think that. You should take that money that you actually saved by doing the fast, and that's the money you have to give to Tzedakah, meaning to poor people who were also fasting-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm
BENAY LAPPE: and they started the fast hungry, and that fast was an even more, um, sort of painful experience for them. Y- y- you should- Th- that's what the fast was really about. It's, it's a little bit of a wealth redistribution-
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah ...
BENAY LAPPE: technology. Not so much... I, I think what I used to think was that the fast was about an empathy exercise.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna fast, so I'm gonna know what it feels like to be hungry so that I will be moved to relieve the hunger of others. Um, but, but it may not be that. It, it may be, uh, just wealth redistribution. You're gonna spend a day not spending money you would've spent so that you can now share that with other people.
You're not any worse off financially than you would've been if you had spent that $100 on food, and now those people who had no money now have $100. That's pretty smart.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Yeah, by the way, I think you may be, you're spending a little too much at Starbucks. But, but, uh, we'll talk about that after. I am.
So the, um, yeah. So, so, um, and you know, and the structure of, of what we're trying to tease out here, the reward for fasting, you would've thought that the reward for fasting was because you were focused on your prayers, you were more, you know, you, you, you, yeah, either you empathized or you somehow caused your body to suffer, and therefore you did something good.
No, no, no. It's, you only get the reward if you end up giving that money that you saved to charity or something. And, and, um, now does this, uh, accord with that structure that says maybe that you, um, only are rewarded if you do, like, the hard thing that's uncomfortable? Like, the, it's a little not quite as close, but I mean, I do think a lot of people don't, you know, that's, it is a, they don't give charity.
It's not what they really wanna do. They also don't wanna fast, but, you know, I don't know. There's, it's maybe- I, yeah ... that's a little harder.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, I'm not sure if the thing that was har- it's, was hard to do, I'm not sure if that's so much the through line.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, for this one makes me feel like it's not exactly.
Yeah. So, yeah. It, it
BENAY LAPPE: might just be the, the thing that you thought was incidental-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh, uh-huh ...
BENAY LAPPE: is actually central.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: And like Rashi says, the ikar, the essence.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, the essence- Or if- Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: I mean, or if we, well, if we think, if we think of the house of mourning, we could say, like, look, you know, you, you think that the person who goes in and always knows the right thing to say or has, like, funny stories about the person who died, like you think that's the really person who's doing it right, and you're just sitting there silently.
But, like, it's okay, actually. That's what the reward comes from. Everybody, it's, it's from the thing that everybody, you know, can do, every, the, the thing that everybody can do maybe is, is... Actually, that, that could be interesting. Yeah. Um, okay, so next one. Uh, Rav Sheshet said, "The reward for eulogy- Lightning
BENAY LAPPE: Oh, oh, actually, oh, that's funny.
I s- now see the way you typed lightning. I didn't mean lightning as in thunder- Oh ... and lightning. I meant lightening.
DAN LIBENSON: Oh, I'll f- I'll fix that. Uh- Oh, that's funny ... sure. Yeah. That's why I didn't- No wonder you didn't think- ... quite understand when you said it. Okay. Okay. Great. Right. Um, so, uh, yeah, that's why I was confused, because in the original translation, Steinsaltz has it as, uh, raising the cry, that when you give a eulogy, the reward comes from or is, uh, that people, the people hearing the eulogy cry, raise their voices and cry.
Um-
BENAY LAPPE: And, and I think that's, that, that is ultimately true, but I kind of en- enjoyed seeing the root of the- Mm ... word that's actually used, which means to lighten, because I think it speaks to the psychological, um, dynamic that the eulogizer is supposed to key into, which is the eulogizer is supposed to be sort of crying and showing pain in order to stimulate the mourners to actually cry.
I m- and, and by the way, I have to give credit to my teachers at JTS for teaching us that. Mm. Um, Eddie Feinstein taught us that, that your job as a rabbi when you give it the eulogy is to help those mourners who are doing their best to hold their shit together, right? They are doing their best to kind of steel themselves to not cry, to, you know, hold it together.
And he said, "No, your job is to, to kind of break them down so that they do cry, because that, the crying is healing, and the, the, the ability to mourn is something you have to stimulate." And I think the, the root meaning lightening speaks to the fact that the crying of the mourners lightens their, the burden as, as they're mourning, that actually lightens their heart, not what you would have thought, which is, "Oh, God, I didn't mean to make you cry.
I didn't mean to make you cry."
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, and, and that's why when you were talk- said it, the, the- ... root means lightening, I said- ... "Oh, shouldn't it be thunder?" You know, because I was thinking that- ... it, it w- had to do with the crying itself. So, um, the, the sound of the crying. But yeah, so now on this one, though, it feels a little bit like what's the hava amina, like, what's the alternative?
'Cause that, this one actually kind of makes sense to me that if you're giving a eulogy that the reward does come from the fact that you lightened the burden on the mourners. Mm-hmm. So what, like, what's the, what else are you saying? I think, I think
BENAY LAPPE: if we, if we read this with the same grammar of the reward of X is only because of Y-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm
BENAY LAPPE: then it's- It's like you've done a good eulogy only to the extent to which- Um ... you lighten the-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh. So not if you just did a nice, beautiful oration where you said all kinds of wonderful things about the person and how their life was, but it didn't lead to that release. You t- you didn't get to the emotional core.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Um- So
BENAY LAPPE: the, all of these are lining up to, to really read outside of the normal grammar- Mm ... and, okay. Now- The- Go ahead.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, the last one before the svara is the Rava. She says that the reward for wedding, words. So that this is, this is basically that, um, what you say to the bride and groom is, is really gonna be the determining- Yeah, I
BENAY LAPPE: think so.
I think this speaks to that text, um, that we learned a few months ago- Yeah ... about how do you dance before the bride. And, you know, the mitzvah is to „misameach chatan vekalah.“ It's to, it's to make the bride and groom happy. And if you y- you know, the reward for the wedding, the re- reward you get for, for being present at a wedding isn't for actually having your body in the seat or showing up.
It's to the extent to which you used words to reassure, gladden, because right- Yeah ... th- these people are nervous and anxious. They may have just met- Yeah ... under the chuppah- Oh, right ... possibly.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And, you know, have you, have you lightened their hearts and... Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, al- also it's interesting to contrast that with the, with the house of mourning where the reward is for the silence.
And- Yeah ... so, um, 'cause, and you would have thought, right, that to go to a wedding, "Oh, I'm rewarded 'cause I'm just, I'm there. I, I came." You know, I- I brought
BENAY LAPPE: a present. I brought a- Maybe you think the reward is a- Right ... yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. You know, uh, but no, it's li- it's like basically saying if you come to a wedding and you don't say anything to the bride and groom to, like, make them lift their spirits, then you actually haven't done what you're supposed to do.
And if you come to a mour- a house of mourning and you don't say anything, actually that's okay. That's what you're supposed to... You know, like if you... And you can say words, of course. It's nice to also comfort them with words, but you've, you've done, just by being there, you've actually done what is needed for a mourner, but just by being there is actually not sufficient for a wedding- Mm-hmm
kind of thing.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You're also helping me understand or feel a little bit more calm about the word reward. The word reward is really vexing me also theologically- Mm-hmm ... because I'm trying to figure out... It, it's, typically the reward means what God gives you if you do this
DAN LIBENSON: thing.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm. You know, I don't know.
The whole gold star thing just doesn't inspire me. Maybe that was how they belie- they believed that God was going to reward them if they did something. But the way we're talking about these, now it feels like m- for at least most of them, reward could be swapped out with the right way to do X. Like, what's really at stake or what- what's really important when you do X is the following.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So
BENAY LAPPE: that helps me be a little calmer about the word reward. Like, is it benefit? Is it the outgrowth of? No, it seems more to be the essential part of. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So now we'll go, now we'll go to the real goal of all this. Yeah. The, this line that says, where Rava says, "Reward for tradition, svara."
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Mm. Okay. So if we follow the structure that seems like all the, all these others have, which is the right way to do tradition is svara, or the real important part of being engaged in, in the tradition is svara. It, it seems like it might be saying, you know, you're really wasting your time, you're doing the wrong thing if you think that your job is to receive the tradition, protect it, preserve it, and hand it off exactly as you got it.
You know? When you think of that scene in the synagogue, you know, it, in the classic or modern 21st century or late 20th century B mitzvah scenario, where the rabbi takes the Torah out of the ark, hands it to the grandpa, and the grandpa hands it to the grandma who, right? Right. Who hands it to the parents, who hand it to the kid.
And, and the message is, your job is to receive this tradition, to hold it really carefully. Like, everyone's worried about dropping it, right? Uh-huh. Y- you don't drop it, and you don't mess with it. You hand it over really carefully, and you've done your job when you have handed it over exactly as you received it.
It, and I think that's the havamina here. The havamina is you think your job is to receive the traditions that you were taught and to hand it, them down identically. But no, only to the extent to which you use your svara to mess with, upgrade, change, have you done the tradition right. Mm-hmm. That works.
DAN LIBENSON: I like that.
That works. I, because it's like, it's, it's actually a, it connects to the root of shmata. Again, like it's, I don't really understand it from a fully grammatical standpoint, but to the extent that it has the root of shma in it- And so it's about hearing. So that, that accords with what you're saying. You, you think the, the hearing, the tradition, is, is you're a passive participant in it.
In other words, you should be actively studying, but the goal of your active study is to hear what there has been and then pass it along. Um, and sh- savara, even in the most, um, you know, conservative interpretation of what it means, it, as logical reasoning, is an active participation in that process. It's not just hearing it.
It's, it's, it's, uh, using your mind to work through what it means. That's the more conservative version. And the more, you know, correct version is to bring your moral intuition to it, to bring your own self to it. That can't help but change it or, you know, then it becomes like a game of telephone where it, you, you pass it along that chain and it does change.
And in the game of telephone, we see that as a failure of the game. Right. That it, that it doesn't... You know, but here we're saying, no, that's actually a success. That, and not only is it a success, it's the only way to get a reward for it, is to put yourself into it.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: It- That's good.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, that works. I'm liking that, I'm liking that now.
This is as opposed to what I thought this text meant when it sat in my inbox a- after Joseph sent it to me, where I thought it meant the outcome of dealing with the tradition is that you come out with more savara.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: That's the other read. And now I'm kind of liking this read better.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. And, um, the other, the other thing that I just w- also want to put on the table is that it's, it's also, it's possible that it's both.
Wow. I mean, I don't think that from an originalist standpoint all the other ones are, are both, right? It's, you're not saying that the reward for going to a house of mourning is that you become more silent. Although, maybe. Yeah. That you become more comfortable with silence.
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely. Right? Yeah. You know,
DAN LIBENSON: and the reward for going to a wedding where you're always, once you know that you're supposed to, um, say something to the bride and groom, you, you become better at words.
You know, you become be- So there's something there.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I think. Absolutely. But- Yeah, what, what, what if the way, like the spiritual practice of going to a wedding is actually there not for the benefit of the bride and groom, but for the guests who have the opportunity to cultivate their ability to, and attentiveness to, and sensitivity to the need to use words to bring happiness.
Mm-hmm. That's cool.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so if we, if we go- Yeah, right, and I mean, like, you could even say going to the kallah, um, if you don't like crowds, you know, one of the rewards is that you're gonna feel more comfortable with crowds, right? I mean, so these can work in that regard. And then what you're saying is that it's, it's both, that, that you're only rewarded for your engagement with the tradition if you do so not passively, not as an object of it, uh, or I don't know if that's the right word, but somebody who just thinks that they're supposed to do what the rule book says.
You're only rewarded if you engage with it on a deeper svara level. And as you do so, your svara will be cultivated and will grow, and you'll be a more svara dikka person, like you say.
BENAY LAPPE: I like that a lot.
DAN LIBENSON: I think it works. It does. Is there anything missing from your original sort of perspective once we get there?
BENAY LAPPE: Um,
I, I'm just feeling like it's hard for me to, to have something mean two d- two different things. Uh-huh. It's like I wanna use it, I wanna teach it to my students with a message, and I'm not sure what the message i- They're two very different messages, and I'm just not sure how to live with both of them-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm
BENAY LAPPE: or if I should just settle on one. I'm not
DAN LIBENSON: sure. I, okay, so I wanna, I wanna just try to contribute to you now, and then maybe we'll leave it and let folks think about it. But, like, I, I don't know that it's two different messages, actually. Like, when you- Uh-huh ... when you think about it that way. I think it's saying that- Uh-huh
there's this kind of virtuous cycle. There's a feedback loop. Yes. And even if you have no svara, meaning let's say that you're a child. I mean, I don't think a child has no svara. But, like, let's say that you're the youngest child. Like, you, you would be thought that you're a person who doesn't, that, what do you really, what do you know morally, whatever?
But if you're taught from day one the way to approach a Jewish text is to bring your, your own sense of right and wrong to it, your own sense of, of moral intuition to it, then even when you don't have that much yet, uh, arguably, you, you learn to do that from the very beginning. Mm-hmm. And that in itself cultivates your, your moral intuition, right?
And then over the course of your life, that... And so it, it is what you were saying. It is the way that we cultivate svara, but it's also that we say to somebody, you know, and it goes to that thing about, like, if you, if you only know aleph and bet, you teach aleph. You know, like, that, that you- Bet. Uh, t- you teach bet?
BENAY LAPPE: If you know al- only aleph and bet If you only know Aleph, you teach Aleph. You know Aleph and Bet, you teach Aleph and Bet, right?
DAN LIBENSON: Oh, okay. I thought you had to stay a chapter ahead of the class. But, um- But, um, no. But, you know, so, so that idea that, that we actually throw you into the deep water immediately, that, that there's not some sense that you have to wait around until you have svara before you're authorized to be a full learner, a full participant in this.
And, and by the way, I say this with full consciousness that this may be our, our third era gloss on this text, which I, again, feel empowered to do all the time, but especially here where they've just done that to Hosea. So, you know, I, I don't, I'm not saying for sure that's what Rava meant, but I think it's a very fair reading.
BENAY LAPPE: I love that. I love that. So now it's not two disparate things, it's the feedback loop. That really helps me.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay, good. Yeah. We got somewhere.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, we did.
DAN LIBENSON: All right, now let's write it up.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. All right. Okay. So we'll see- That was fun.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. So we'll see everybody next week, where we'll, we'll go to the text that we were planning to do this week, which is very related, so it's all, it's all related.
It is. See you then. All right, thanks. Happy Lag BaOmer, everyone. Bye.
BENAY LAPPE: Bye.
DAN LIBENSON: Thanks so much for joining our chevruta today! We hope you’ve enjoyed learning with us… and with the Talmud. You can find links to the source sheets for all episodes in the show notes and on our website at oraltalmud.com. Your support helps keep Oral Talmud going. You can find a link on the website to contribute. We’d also love to hear from you! Email us with any questions, comments, or thoughts at hello@oraltalmud.com. Please, share your Oral Talmud with us – we’re so excited to learn from you. The Oral Talmud is a joint project of SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva and Judaism Unbound, two organizations that are dedicated to making Jewish texts and ideas more accessible for everyone. We are especially grateful to Sefaria for an incredible platform that makes the Talmud available to everyone. It’s free at sefaria.org. And we are grateful to SVARA-nik Ezra Furman for composing and performing The Oral Talmud’s musical theme. The Oral Talmud is produced by Joey Taylor, with help from Olivia Devorah Tucker, and with financial support from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. Thanks so much for listening–and with that, this has been the Oral Talmud. See ya next time.
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