The Oral Talmud Episode 56: Children of Prophets (Pesachim 66a)
SHOW NOTES
“ There's no question in my mind that retelling, reshaping the contours of the Jewish story is what you do. That's the most Jewish thing of all Jewish things.” - 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.
This episode begins with a surprisingly modern question: are we discovering the truth, or are we making it? We begin with myth, storytelling, and the uneasy feeling that every generation reshapes Judaism even while claiming to preserve it. The rabbis may have left us only a few scattered hints, but those hints point toward a dangerous possibility: perhaps the people themselves carry the wisdom needed to guide the future.
By the end, our conversation gets to an even more radical place. Hillel forgets the law, the experts lose their certainty, and ordinary Jews become “children of prophets.” The future, the Talmud suggests, does not arrive through leaders protecting the past. It arrives through leaders humble enough to notice what the people are already becoming. In a moment when authority feels fragile and communities are changing faster than institutions can respond, this ancient story asks a startling question: what if the people already know what God wants?
This week’s text: Pesachim 66a
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 56: Children of Prophets
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.
This episode begins with a surprisingly modern question: are we discovering the truth, or are we making it? We begin with myth, storytelling, and the uneasy feeling that every generation reshapes Judaism even while claiming to preserve it. The rabbis may have left us only a few scattered hints, but those hints point toward a dangerous possibility: perhaps the people themselves carry the wisdom needed to guide the future.
By the end, our conversation gets to an even more radical place. Hillel forgets the law, the experts lose their certainty, and ordinary Jews become “children of prophets.” The future, the Talmud suggests, does not arrive through leaders protecting the past. It arrives through leaders humble enough to notice what the people are already becoming. In a moment when authority feels fragile and communities are changing faster than institutions can respond, this ancient story asks a startling question: what if the people already know what God wants?
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: Welcome back everyone. I'm Dan Levenson, and I'm here with Benay Lappe for this week's episode of The Oral Talmud. Hey, Benay.
BENAY LAPPE: Hey, Dan. How are you?
DAN LIBENSON: I'm good. Um, so we just, we just, uh, passed Shavuot, and, um, actually, I wanted to start with, with that. We're gonna go right into this next text that's part of our, uh, looking at what we were looking at last week, which is kind of the, the...
Well, wait, th- this is what I want to talk about. It- it's kind of like we're taking it as like, here's a principle that the Talmud is laying down about how to, uh, the wisdom of the common person, and how potentially serious they took that, and how potentially seriously we can take that. What I'm thinking about a little bit in terms of the connection to Shavuot is that we were talking, on Shavuot you and I did a, did a, uh, a session, and we're sort of talking about this idea of, of, uh, sort of expanding the myth of Sinai, and we talked about that on the show of The Oral Talmud.
And I was just sort of thinking, like, there's a certain element which I'm conscious of that when we look at these texts, are we, are we creating a new myth here? You know, in other words, when we say, "Hey, the rabbis have laid down this, uh, this principle of look to the common person," but really there are only a couple of cases in the Talmud where that happens.
And you could, you could narrow those cases to say it's only a very particular case, you know? But I think that you and I, I mean, I'll speak for myself, but I think that you and I both honestly have this feeling like this is what the rabbis intended. So it's not a, it's not a, uh, it's not an untruth, and yet I'm also profoundly conscious that there's a good chance that they didn't, and it's, it's, you know, a story that, that I'm telling, and I feel that I'm in a tradition of storytelling, but there's still something there that I'm trying to tease out of it.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, but, you know, I, I think myths are reshaped. Okay, so we were talking about the myth of Sinai, but what, I think what you're raising is the fact that the way we tell the Jewish story and which aspects we raise up or push down is a kind of broader myth, and I think that is redone in every generation or at every moment of, you know, enormous change.
And I think that's, that's why we're still here, because we've been really good at that, and we've accepted that as a very traditional thing to do. Um, it- And I, I think my, one of my questions is how much do we let on that that's what we're doing? Or how much do we say this is what the tradition says? Um, you know, one of the things I've, I've sort of fought about with, with, um, colleagues, uh, you know, on a different end of the spectrum is that they act as or, or they tell their story as if it's always been this way.
And I object to that because I think you need to make transparent the fact that it's okay to tell a different story, and the story they're telling is a story that they wanna tell. On the other hand, uh, you know, I'm, uh, you've inspired me to listen to, um Sapiens- Yeah ... uh, Harari, right? Uh, so I'm listening to the book on tape, and one of the things he says is, "One of the essential elements of inculcating a new myth is that you act as if you believe it."
Mm-hmm. That this is it. That you're, you don't let on that this is a new story, this is it.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: So I've, I'm kind of torn about how much to tell the story of the story making, and how much to just tell a new story. But there's no question in my mind that retelling, r- reshaping the contours of the Jewish story is what you do.
That- Mm ... that's the most Jewish thing of, of, of all of Jewish things.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Well, it's funny because this show is, is kind of, uh, ex- uh, it's kind of occupying this weird kind of middle ground where for these conversations- Yeah ... we're having them as if everybody who potentially might ever watch this or listen to it is, like, part of the in, in crowd, you know, part of the folks who, who really are able to say things very explicitly because we're all talking to each other.
And we've said that that's what the rabbis were like, and they, they internally, they understood that they were having this kind of meta conversation. Right. And even, they were even writing it down because they knew that nobody else could read, so it wasn't- Yeah ... a problem to even write it down. And we're sort of doing that, too, and at the same time, I think we also are, are thinking about what you're talking about, which is, like, that there's something where you kind of have to talk as if you really believe it.
But I, I feel like the middle ground is maybe you actually do really believe it- Mm ... but you also know that it might not be. And, and I, I think I might have told you this story once, or I might have told it on the show, but like, you know, I translated Yochai Brandes' novels, and, uh, she's an Israeli, uh, novelist who's written about the Bible and about the Talmud.
And I s- I have been developing this, this novel idea that I might wanna write one day, and it's about Hillel the Elder, you know, Hille- of Hillel and Shammai fame. And I remember saying to Yochai, like, I had these various, uh, story ideas that came to me, and over time as I was, like, working them through, uh, including, by the way, one that was just in Daf Yomi, the daily Talmud reading this past week, which is that famous story about Hillel going up on the roof of Shammai and Avtalion's house of study, and we're gonna- Read a little bit about Shimon and Natalion today, and they were kind of Hillel's teachers.
And, you know, supposedly he was up there because he was so poor and he couldn't, uh, afford to pay the amount of money to get in.
BENAY LAPPE: So
DAN LIBENSON: he's listening- There were guards at the gates. Yeah, and he had to listen through the skylight, and then it snowed, and he basically, like, you know, passed out in the snow, and they rescued him.
And, um, in my story, like, he's not there because he's poor. He's there because he's spying on them, and there's a whole, you know, element to it. And I said to Yochi, like, "You know, the more I think about this, like, the more I actually feel like it's true. Like, I, I think that, like, I, I, I have this feeling that I actually know what really happened, you know?"
And she said, "Yeah, that's how it always is, you know, when you write a novel." You know, you start to think that your, your story is true. And, and I actually think that's a serious point, you know? Like, I, I, I think that there's some way in which we can actually hold both of those ideas at the same time, and I, and I wonder, it would be interesting to have this conversation with Harari, and maybe we could get him on.
I, I doubt it, but, uh, a- a- you know, and, and to have this, this conversation that says, you know, is it possible in a, in more advanced society, let's say, to know that some of these stories that he writes about, government, money, whatever they are, that they're both fictions and also we act as if they're true, and somehow that, that can work.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Um- Yeah, and it's not that they're not true
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm
BENAY LAPPE: They're just not right. They're just not necessarily factual. Yeah. I, I can't remember who said this, and I just came acr- across this quote the other day. It might have been in Andrew Rayner's book, that someone said, "Art is the lie that tells the truth," or something like that.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. It, right, it's, it's the same thing.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It's, it's not that- Art isn't real
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm
BENAY LAPPE: Right? It's, it's pointing to something bigger. Right. I think myth is work- it works the same way, and you're not lying when you say, "I believe this."
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: You say, "I believe this is a way for us to think about something bigger that's better told in a story-
DAN LIBENSON: Right,
BENAY LAPPE: right
than straightforward."
DAN LIBENSON: Well, for sure it's better told in a story, and that's one piece of it. And the other piece of it is, is the, is the thing that we're gonna focus on from the story, you know, how, h- in what way is it true, I guess is the question. And, and that's what I wanted to, to lay out before we get back into the subject of the common person's wisdom because the quest- 'cause I think I, I would like to take this principle and really blow it out and say, uh, there's so many things changing.
We just had the Pew study. There's all kinds of things that the Pew study of Jewish Americans says that Jews are out there doing, and I wanna really blow that idea up. Say, "Hey, we've got this source. We've got this ancient source in the Talmud that says the wisdom of the common person is actually a significant source of Jewish law and Jewish practice."
And yet I'm also conscious of the fact that, uh, that this principle is not, like, found everywhere in the Talmud, at least not explicitly. It's, it's found in a few places, and you could, you could narrow the cases and say, this is only in a very particular case. So I'm conscious of both, both elements.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I, yeah, but I s- I, I think the fact that something is only found in a few places in the Talmud is just an indication of the sources of the idea, but those ideas, those concepts- Mm-hmm
are pervasive- Uh-huh. Uh-huh ... pervasive in Jewish, Jewi- Jewish jurisprudence. Mm-hmm. That you could just, you see them over and over and over. Uh-huh. So I don't think we're cherry-picking-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh ...
BENAY LAPPE: and saying- Uh-huh ... "Oh, well, the idea of go see what the people are doing only appears here, here, and here."
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: Those are the sources of the concept, but they're all over the place.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, well, maybe that, that's a good transition into the text because last week we, we saw the ... And I don't know if it's the one place in the Talmud, maybe there are two places in the Talmud, I think, where this particular phrase is used, «puk hazei ma ayama davar» you know, which is, which is shortened to puk hazei, which means kind of go and see what the people are doing.
Go and see. And, um, and, and but today we're gonna look at a text that is exactly the same. It just doesn't use the term puk hazei. So that's one version of, you know, and how many texts like that are there where it's explicit but not stated? And then how many other cases are there where it's, it's clear that this is what's driving the decision, but it's not, it's the s- less, it's less explicit in the story?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Um, uh, you know what came up for me as you were talking? The, the idea of legal scholars, sages- Being unsure of what God wants us to do and saying, "Well, let's see what the people are doing." It, it's an expression of such humility. I think stunning humility and stunning trust in people. Um And I think it, it reflects their willingness to have the future be very different and, you know, the unrecognizable future.
It- it's gonna be different from what they think- Mm ... or else they would make it what they do. Right. But they don't make it what they do. Right. They say, "Let's make it what they're doing already." You know, it's sort of like, um, you know, the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed. They're saying, "Let's look at the future that's already here- Mm-hmm
where it is distributed. That is what it's gonna be." I, I just think it's a, it's a stunning w- way to be an option three leader. I think, I think that really names what you need to be able to do-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh ...
BENAY LAPPE: to be a leader in a time of shift. Anyway.
DAN LIBENSON: Great. Okay, well let's, let's jump into this text and, and, uh, look at it.
So this is a, a, a relatively long text for two relatively short ideas that we're gonna look at. But, uh, like last week, I wanted to give the, um, context just so that people could understand a little bit more what, what this is all about, at least formally. And also see how the Talmud really, you know, doesn't always, uh, people know it doesn't always sort of stick directly to the topic at hand, but i- it's also not disconnected from the topic at hand, so it's helpful to see it a little bit in, in context.
So we're looking at the tractate called Pesachim, which is about the laws of Pesach, although, you know, the more and more that I study the Talmud, you know, every day, uh, i, i, I realize that a lot of these tractates are, are either not really, uh, so much about the topic that they claim to be about, or they are, but they're very, very, very specific topics.
So this tractate, Pes- Pesachim- ... is basically mostly about burning the chametz, you know, and, um, and the Pascal lamb sacrifice. You know, that's, that's, all, everything else you know about Pesach is either not there at all or very, very, in a very small way is there.
BENAY LAPPE: Um- I know. A- a- I think every tractate really ought to be called Things I Thought, U- uh, Unrelated Things I Thought of While We Were Supposed to Be Talking About, and then the name- Yeah
of the masachit.
DAN LIBENSON: I mean, but the other piece about, about it is that it's like, um, it's like because we spent so much time talking about the things that we thought of while we were- ... thinking about the thing that we were j- right? That we ran out of time, so we're actually not gonna talk about this thing either, you know?
So it ends up being- Right ... like, so we talked about two, two elements of this 5,000 element thing, and, uh, we talked about them at great length, and we talked about a bunch of other things. Now we're moving on to the next topic. Uh, it's kind of like our show. So, um, so- ... the, um, so, so Pesachim 65B, uh, so s- it's building on this Mishnah, as the Talmud always says, which, which I didn't, uh, quote in, in Very large part here, but the question is, uh, these are the matters related to the Pascal lamb sacrifice that overrides Shabbat.
So basically, the question is, like, what if the, the Passover is on Shabbat, uh, can, you know, can you still sacrifice a Pascal lamb, which are var- various, uh, actions that normally you wouldn't be allowed to do on Shabbat. So what can you do on Shabbat with regard to the Pascal lamb if Passover is on Shabbat?
That's fundamentally the question. I didn't, uh, keep what you can do here. Uh, so but the, in the, in the translation, but basically, um, Rabbi Akiva states a principle, this is still in the Mishnah, any prohibited labor required for the offering of the sacrifice that can be performed on the eve of Shabbat does not override Shabbat.
Slaughter, which can be performed on the eve of Shabbat overrides- Can- ... cannot be-
BENAY LAPPE: Which, yeah ...
DAN LIBENSON: which c- slaughter which cannot be performed on the eve of Shabbat overrides Shabbat. Now, the eve of Shabbat, they don't mean Friday night, they mean Friday- ... during the day, right? So the point here- Because,
BENAY LAPPE: of course, Friday night is already Shabbat
is
DAN LIBENSON: Shabbat, right. So the point here is that basically, like, you, you, you have to prepare everything that you can prepare on Friday for the sacrifice, but since you're, you have to make the sacrifice actually on the day of Passover, which by definition here is Shabbat, you, you can sacrifice the animal on Shabbat, you can, uh, you know, burn the animal or c- cook the animal, whatever.
You know, things that you normally wouldn't be able to do on Shabbat, you can do those things on Shabbat, but you can't, uh, like, bring all of your dishes to the temp- Right, you, the things that you could do in advance, you should do in advance. That's the fundamental idea here. Um, so-
BENAY LAPPE: Great ... so the- I love this.
By the way, I'm so excited that you're, you're teaching me through this text because this is a, it's a famous text. I've heard it by ear, but never learned it inside. So I'm excited.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So I mean, we're not doing a lot of the details here, but we're, we're sort of jumping around within the, within this text.
The, the, but this is the basic idea. And so then the, the Gemara comes along, the Talmud, and, and it just starts to tell us a story, and this is actually, I'm just noting now, this is not the main story. This is the, this is the prelude to the main story, what we're about to... But it's still kind of a good story, and that's, and, and so, and partly, it, I, I wanted to keep it here because it's relevant to the later story, but also 'cause it's a good story, uh, about a character that we know and love.
Um, so the sages taught a beraita, so there was a story contemporaneous with the Mishnah, um, right, an earlier story, uh, with regard to the, um, to, to this, to this situation, the L- Passover when it occurs on Shabbat. And it says that the law was forgotten by the sons of Betaira, who were people in charge at that time.
And, um, one time, the 14th of Nisan, that's Passover Eve, uh, occurred on Shabbat, and they forgot and did not know whether the Passov- Pascal lamb overrides Shabbat or not. So they didn't know, so this is not even about the preparations yet at this point. This is like they didn't even know what, what are you supposed to do if Passover is on Shabbat?
Can we even do the Passover lamb sacrifice at all? And they, they said, "Is there anybody who knows whether the Pascal lamb overrides Shabbat or not?" Uh, uh, there's a story w- uh, that, uh, this is making me think of, there's some story where, where now I'm completely blanking on it, where, you know, uh, they ask if, if somebody knows something and, and, uh, that person, like, becomes the king or something like that.
I, I don't even know if it's a Jewish story, but I feel like this is a, a known story structure, right? Uh-huh. Like, somebody knows, uh, you know, is there somebody out there who, who, you know, has this knowledge, right?
BENAY LAPPE: Uh-huh.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, I don't know. I'm thinking Rumpelstiltskin, but I don't think it's quite Rumpelstiltskin, but it's- It, it,
BENAY LAPPE: it's not the Gordian knot.
DAN LIBENSON: No, it-
BENAY LAPPE: No?
DAN LIBENSON: I don't think so, but maybe it is. I mean, maybe it's like Excalibur. You know, it's this idea of- Uh-huh ... like, there's somebody who can do something. You know, we need something desperately. Our leaders can't do it. You know, some kid is gonna come along who can do it, in the case of, of, uh, Excalibur, Ar- Arthur being able to get it out or, you know, or- Right
whatever it might be, right? I, I feel like there's a better story that this is like that I can't quite put my finger on. Um, so, so they said, "Is there a
BENAY LAPPE: person who know-" It, it, wait a- Yeah ... are you thinking of the, the gem and the flaw?
DAN LIBENSON: I don't know, I don't know. I don't think I know that one
BENAY LAPPE: Uh, the king, the king has this gorgeous gem, and it has a, a flaw in it, like a crack, and he says, "The, the craftsperson who can fix the flaw and restore my gem will be re- rewarded somehow."
And no one can fix the flaw, and then one, you know, uneducated, poor craftsman comes along and carves a fl- I don't know if I'm get- I'm getting it right Uh-huh ... carves a flower at the top of the flaw and a little leaf, and makes it, you know, the stem- Uh-huh ... of a gorgeous flower That's nice And the king...
Whatever. Yeah. Anyway,
DAN LIBENSON: okay. Um, anyway, so, um, so they, so they basically put the, the word out, "Is there anybody who can tell us what the law is?" And they said to them, someone told them, "There's a certain man who came from Babylonia, and Hillel the Babylonian is, is his name." So this is who, the person who we later come to know as Hillel the Elder, um, when he was younger.
And, uh, and at one point he served the two eminent scholars of the generation, Shemaiah and Abtalion. So they were the, the top scholars in the generation before Hillel and Shammai. And so Hillel is the student of Shemaiah and Abtalion, and he certainly knows whether the Pascal lamb overrides Shabbat or not So the sons of Betaira sent messengers who called for him.
They said to him, "Do you know whether the Pascal lamb overrides Shabbat or not?" He said to them, "Have we but one Pascal lamb during the year that overrides Shabbat? Do we not have many more than 200 Pascal lambs during the year that override Shabbat?" So what he's saying here is that we make a sacrifice every Shabbat.
That, that's the, but the priests do, uh, right? That, that the, that there's a daily sacrifice, there's a Shabbat sacrifice. Like, there's this, this, there, you know, we don't think of this now because we think you're not allowed to light fires on Shabbat or you're not, you know, but the priests were making sacrifices on Shabbat.
Uh, so he's saying, you know, fu- functionally, the only difference between the Pascal lamb sacrifice and the, uh, and the every week sacrifice is that e- everybody's supposed to do it or, ri- right, but as, and not just the priests. But basically we know the answer to this. If it's, if it's commanded, then i- you can do it on Shabbat, right?
Uh, that, that's how I read this at least. I mean, I think that's... Uh, so they said to him, "From where do you know this?" He said to them, "It's appointed time is stated with regard to the Pascal lamb, and it's appointed time is stated with regard to the daily offering." So in the Torah, they use the same phrase, uh, it's appointed time for both the idea that you have to bring an offering to God every day, including Shabbat, and, and also they say the Pascal lamb should be brought and it's appointed time.
So that just means that you bring it on the day, no matter what.
BENAY LAPPE: Um- Th- this is, by the way, this, this conversation is so classic Hillel. And y- you know, he, he's so creative with his analogies- Uh-huh ... and learning one thing from something else that seems unrelated. This idea that, uh, the, this phrase, it's appointed time, is taught with respect to X and with Y, it's called the Gezeira Shava.
He makes that a principle of interpretation. It's very Hillel. And from your book, From The Orchard-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh ...
BENAY LAPPE: and the, the, the description of Hillel there, y- you could just feel, you could just feel, I don't know which from which, but I, I'm feeling the resonance from, um, The Orchard's portrayal of Hillel as so, such an out of the box- Uh-huh
kind of creative thinker. And th- this so feels like that. Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. So then he's, he goes on to explain what, basically what I just did. Just as it's appointed time, which is stated with regard to the daily offering, indicates that it overrides Shabbat, so too its appointed time stated with regard to the Pascal lamb indicates that it overrides Shabbat.
And furthermore, it's an a fortiori inference, this is called Kal VaChomer. Uh, if the daily offering, the neglect of which is not punishable by Kareit, overrides Shabbat, is it not right that the Pascal lamb, the neglect of which is punishable by Kareit, should override Shabbat? So Kareit is kind of like a version of the death penalty, uh, imposed by God, and, you know, you don't, you don't get this death penalty, uh, by failing to bring the daily offering, but you do get it for failing to-
BENAY LAPPE: And, and nevertheless, the daily, that daily offering is done on Shabbat.
It's done on Shabbat. It doesn't override Shabbat.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Uh, and, and but you do get, uh, the death penalty, uh, would be imposed again by God, and it's not where people are supposed to kill you, uh, that if you don't bring the Pascal lamb, so of course it must override Shabbat as well
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Um-
BENAY LAPPE: If you override Shabbat for a minor thing, for sure you should override Shabbat for something that is so much bigger.
Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Cool.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay, so now this is a good part of the story. I, I enjoy this part of the story. After Hillel brought these proofs, they immediately seated him at the head and appointed him Nasi over them. Nasi is the top guy. Uh, and he expounded the laws of Passover the entire day. So, you know, again, like, this is where, it's at the tip of my tongue, but there's some story where, you know, the common person, n- you know, and he's not common in this
You know, he's a student of the great rabbis, but he wasn't anyone. He was the Babylonian, by which I think they mean, you know, the immigrant, the, the no- nobody. They didn't, they didn't have a high opinion of Babylonians at that time. Uh, r- remember, this is the time where the temple's still standing. Uh, so this is not
This is, this is a time where clearly the land of Israel Jews are the superior ones, and the Babylonians are, are these, you know, kind of, uh, you know, like, uh, in the exile- Sure ... they're waiting till they come back. Who cares about them? Uh, you know, so they-
BENAY LAPPE: The schlep- the
DAN LIBENSON: schleppers. Right. So, so the idea that, that they'd- Schleppers
you know, appoint a Babylonian, you know, it's, it's as if, I don't know, Israel would all of a sudden elect a, you know, Canadian to, uh, be the prime minister you know? I mean, not, not that there's anything wrong with Canadians, it's just, like, not even, not somebody that they're used to get- you know, contact that much with.
Anyway, so the, um, so all of a sudden they, they, they appoint him the head, and he spends the rest of the day talking about Passover, and in the course of his teaching he began rebuking them with words. Uh, in other words, he, he started to basically ... You know, 'cause a- and again, I think picture the scene. Like, he's this kind of guy from the boondocks, you know, like, that, like, this, this, uh, you know, yokel, right, from Babylonia, and they put him in charge because he, he kind of knew the, this one answer, and then he starts teach- And, and, and either he sees that they actually don't know a lot of things, or he's getting full of himself.
For some reason he's starting to really get into it, and he's, and he's yelling at them and, and telling them, like, "What, what is wrong with you people?" You know, "Why don't, why don't you know these things?" Um-
BENAY LAPPE: Y- you know what I'm feeling as you're saying this? I, I'll, I'll ... Here's a possibility. He was, he was rebuking them not because they didn't know the answer, but because they were too afraid to create a new answer.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: They were, they were too afraid to, um, sort of take a stand using, you know- Something that, that may not necessarily have applied directly to that thing. They, in other words, they, they weren't being creative or I don't know
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh
BENAY LAPPE: Something like that
DAN LIBENSON: Well, and he says, "You know, what, what caused this to happen to you that I should come up to Bab- from Babylonia and become Nasi over you?"
Right? Meaning he's saying, like, "What, what has, what has happened?" Like, how the great have fallen. You know, what, what is going on here? You know, he's like, "I'm happy to be the head guy, but I mean, like, what is wrong with you that you didn't have anybody here that could do it?" You know, it's like, what, what has happened here?
Um, a- you know, and he, he says, "It was the laziness in you that you did not serve the two most eminent scholars of the generation, Shemaiah and Abṭalyon." So s- so, you know, basically, right, I had these great teachers, I learned from them, and then I went back to Babylonia. Uh, you, you've been here the whole time.
You had access to them and you just didn't listen to them. They knew the answers to these things and you don't. Uh, that just means that you didn't try. You didn't... This is a terrible... Right? And whatever, whatever is going on here, you know, he's just sort of stunned and angry that he, uh, has to, you know, has to be in this position because apparently nobody local can do it.
By the way, I also think it's like a good little introduction here. We haven't talked about Shemaiah and Abṭalyon before, so you know, just, uh, just to know those names and that these are Hillel's and Shammai's teachers and, uh, you know, we can see them briefly in Pirkei Avot. I think that when you read a, um, the, uh...
I think when I've read... So I, I didn't read these in preparation for today, but so, but if I'm recalling correctly, at least Abṭalyon and maybe both of them are thought to be converts in the, in, in, like, descriptions of the sages. And, um, and, and that, that also is an interesting little tidbit. I mean, something more to talk about at some point.
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, so- Okay, so they said, so, so he, so he, uh, he, he's rebuking them and angry at them and, and yelling at them. So they said to him, "Our teacher, if one forgot and did not bring a knife on the eve of Shabbat and cannot slaughter h- the Pascal lamb, what is the law?" Okay, so here, this is the situation where we're now back to Hillel, uh, to Akiva's statement that we looked at in the Mishnah, right?
'Cause the, the... what they're talking about here is, okay, so we get it that we can slaughter the lamb on Shaba- on Shabbat, but what if we just don't have a knife because we, we forgot to bring a knife? But bringing a knife is preparation, and H- Akiva says that preparation you're supposed to do before Shabbat, and the only things that you're allowed to do on Shabbat are the actual slaughtering and what has to happen after the slaughtering, like the cooking and, and whatnot.
So you, you, you can't, if you didn't bring a knife, it seems like maybe you're out of luck because you didn't prepare. Uh, that would, that's, that's the case, again, as I understand it, that's being described here. Um, and, um, and Hillel said, you know, just keep in mind, by the way, these people seem to have forgotten all the laws of the Pascal lamb, uh, whether it can even override Shabbat at all, so all the more so they don't know the law of what, well, okay, but what if you, what if it, you forgot to bring the preparatory items.
So Hillel says to them here, after he's just finished haranguing them for, uh, not, not, uh, he, you know, not listening enough to Shema and Avtalion, right, he says, "I once heard this Halakhah from my teachers, but I've forgotten it." Um, right, exactly the situation that he just got angry at them for. Uh, "But leave it to the Jewish people.
If they are not prophets, uh, they are the sons of prophets." So, so the, the, so this is the, this is the analogy here of that Pu Kaze statement, right? He's saying, uh, look, I, I don't, here's this, here's the case, right? Nobody remembered this particular law. You found me, that I, I did know this, this law, and then you made me the Nasi.
Uh, now we've gotten to another law where you don't remember, I don't remember. Uh, interestingly, he doesn't say maybe there's somebody else out there who remembered. You know, he, I don't know. Like, he doesn't want to give up his job now. You know, because ostensibly, if there was somebody out there, another student that remembers, he would have to make him the Nasi.
So but anyway, putting that to the side, he says, uh, "Since I don't remember, obviously nobody else can possibly remember. So what we should do is go check to see what the people are doing because they are, you know, if, how do you read, like, if they are not prophets, they are sons of prophets. Like, they're, somehow the spirit of prophecy is, is in them.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I, so right now I'm sort of doing the math, and now I'm realizing that this idea that the people, the average everyday person- Is, is like one inch away from being a prophet, is essentially a prophet.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: It's a little bit- 'Cause
DAN LIBENSON: a prophet knows what God wants.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. A prophet knows what God wants, and that's what Hillel's saying.
He's saying, "The people know what God wants." Okay, they're not exactly prophets, but they're prophet adjacent. Like, what is a prophet adjacent? You either are or you aren't. I mean, either, either God talks to you or God doesn't talk to you. But still, he's saying they're as if. Uh-huh. They're as if prophets. Th- that's just an enormous...
It's a beautiful statement, and I think this must be, doing the chronology, this must be the underlying principle-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: which makes Pukha ze reasonable.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Right? You have to believe, first of all, that people are doing the right thing. They're, they're living out God's will as if God had told them directly Before you can imagine that if you go and observe what they're doing, you can trust what they're doing is right,
DAN LIBENSON: right?
So- Right, right. Because just to, just, well, just to explain what you're saying chronologically, this story takes place while the Second Temple is still standing. The story that we looked at last week where one of the people says, "Pukha ze," you know, go out and see what the people are doing, that is sort of, like, probably 300 years later, something like that.
BENAY LAPPE: That... Exactly. So I, I never, you know, did the chronology math.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: And now I see that this idea, the, i- if they're not prophets, they're children of prophets, that's the ground on which Pukha ze stands.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: That's interesting.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It, and, yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, and, and this idea that they're... I mean, it's interesting because the more famous line is Pukha ze, but- Yeah
in a sense the more powerful line i- is that they are sons of, children of prophets. You know, so in a sense, like- Yeah ... maybe that's even more dangerous. You know, that's, that there's a way in which that line has been suppressed, uh, by... I- it's suppressed in a, in an interesting way, right? It's, it's suppressed by saying, "We're gonna, we're gonna develop an analogous concept, but we're gonna make it a little weaker, and we're gonna give it a sexier name, you know, that you can remember in two words."
You know, I mean, but, um, but we're gonna, we're, so we're gonna soften this, as opposed to if we rejected it out completely, then you would say, "No. I mean, like, we have this principle. You, you can't just take this power away from the people." Whereas this is a move that sort of allows you to, you know, give a nod to this power, but limit it.
And, and what we were talking about last week, that arguably, or people would argue that Pukha ze is limited to a very particular case where we don't know what the law is and et cetera, et cetera. So, but the idea that the people are children of prophets and know what God wants is a much more, is a much stronger form of that idea.
BENAY LAPPE: For sure. For sure. And I still think that, "Go out and see what the people are doing," operates in all sorts of categories, not just when there's a disagreement about the law.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, yeah. No.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, yeah. I,
DAN LIBENSON: I mean, I, I do too. I just, I- Yeah ... think, I'm just articulating the, the pre, the, the, the other side that would- Yeah, yeah
try to limit this. Um, but it's interesting to think about that whether even in its initial use the term Pukha ze was- And attempts to replace this principle- Mm ... of the people are- Mm-hmm ... if they're not prophets, they're children of prophets, with a softer version that at least gives you- Mm ... a little bit more, uh, leeway in terms of, you know, if you, if you're an authority figure, you wanna...
Y- you know, that's a very dangerous idea that, that the people know best, right? Um-
BENAY LAPPE: Y- you know what else just occurred to me? You know, we learn the, uh, Oven of Achnai story.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Which, which is the snapshot, in my understanding, of the moment when the rabbis say once and for all prophecy is over. Uh-huh.
We're, we're not running our society by, you know, waiting to see who woke up and said, "God talked to me in a dream, and this is what we should do."
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: And I wonder if the concept of pukaze, which I think s- stands on this principle that if we're not prophets, we're all children of prophets, so we're prophet-lite.
Uh-huh. Prophets-lite. Um, w- was also because the, the rabbis really, post-temple, they really wanted to do away with- Not prophecy, but our obligation to follow prophecy. Uh-huh. Sure. It's, it's not the case that prophecy was over. They said, "We're just not gonna listen to it."
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: We're not going to make our rules based on prophecy.
So could be that this idea that articulates something about prophets and portrays people as prophets-like-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: um, w- was just s- s- too dangerous. I think that's, this sounds like what you're saying.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Or, or, yeah, it's, it's confusing because, uh, it could be that, that the idea of prophecy's too, too dangerous.
I was thinking of, um, of Nevaknai in a different way, which is that, which is more the majority rules, uh, idea. Mm-hmm. Where, where they say, you know, basically, uh, the majori- the rabbis or the majority of the rabbis thought one way and Rabbi Eliezer thought a different way, and go with the majority, which is a misquotation of the Torah as we covered in that.
But here, if you say that the people are children of prophets, and if you go out and you see that the majority of people are doing it one way and the majority of rabbis are saying a different way, ar- arguably, you go with the majority of people, right? Uh, uh- And that's a very dangerous and scary idea for the rabbis, for, for those in power.
And the question is whether they're kind of affirming that with this story and saying, "Yeah, actually, you would go with the majority of the people if they were conducting themselves in a way that wasn't in accord with what we think." Uh, and there, and I think I mentioned it last week, there are other, there are other phrases in the Talmud like you shouldn't, uh, enact a law upon the people that they can't or won't stand up to, won't, won't observe.
So, you know, there, there are, there is evidence to say that, that the rabbis might have been sympathetic to this idea that at the end of the day, what the people do is definitional of what you're supposed to do. Uh, but that's also obviously a, a, a perspective that would diminish their power.
BENAY LAPPE: For sure. I think that's what's so stunning about it.
They, they are willing to diminish their power.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: Because I think they recognize... And I'm, I'm just read- thinking about today, thinking about my students, I'm thinking about the things that they're clued into that I'm not clued into.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And, you know, how I have to listen to them and, you know, th- they're saying things I wouldn't say.
They're creating a world that I never imagined.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And, you know?
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. S- I, um, so the, um- And, and, and the point that, you know, I, I know that I'm a little bit of a broken record on this point, but to the extent that the rabbis in writing the Talmud, they knew that the people weren't ever gonna read the Talmud.
In their, in their minds, the people were never gonna read the Talmud.
So if you had a concept that you should go and see what the people are doing, that would be a relatively easy concept to use selectively because, you know, when it helps you, then you say, "Oh, we have this, uh, source that says look and see what the people are doing." When it doesn't help you, we have other sources that say, you know, the rabbi's authority, it governs.
Once you get to a situation like we are in now, where the people can read the Talmud, then it's an interesting conundrum because on the one hand you could say, "Uh-oh, you know, the people got the secret knowledge. We can't control them anymore. That's bad." Or you could say, you know, that, at the point at which that happens, that is itself part of the definitional reason why it's a new era of Judaism.
And once the people are capable of reading the Talmud and understanding it and having the wisdom to think about it and wanna study and want to, uh, think about it, et cetera, then you say, well, now that people have actually transcended their, you know, riffraffness, you know, the sort of a lowly sense of the people as just the, you know, ugh, the people, you know.
And now the people are basically all rabbis. And so, so if it was true, so now another kal v'chomer, a fortiori kind of inference, you know. If the people, if, if in the time when the people were just, you know, country bumpkins, uh, that we still have this principle that we go out and look to see what the people are doing, and that's what the law is.
All the more so when the people are not country bumpkins, but if they're not rabbis, they're the children of rabbis, right? And so they're, in other words, they're rabbi-like. And, um, and that, that becomes ... So, so, so then even if you didn't take the position that puk hazi is, throughout the Talmud, an important principle, you could still say that in our time, you know, puk hazi kind of, uh, evolves into this new idea that it really is the majority.
So therefore, especially if it's, like, a lot of Svara students who are already demonstrating that they care and that they're engaged and that they're learning, et cetera, and if they have practices or points of view that are different from, from ours, we better take that very, very, very seriously.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
You're, you're raising for me the question of whether- Access and en- enfranchisement and, and the folks on the margins, you know, being at the table makes their minhag, makes their behaviors even more reliable Probably so. As opposed to, uh, you know the stor- y- it's, it's not a story. Wh- when, um, well, I heard it as a story.
The idea that when there is an uncertainty about what a letter is in a scroll or, right, on a, on a text, what do, what do they do? They ask a child- Hmm ... who can't understand the text but knows- Uh-huh ... their aleph bet- Mm-hmm ... what the letter is, because this child isn't going to be, um, you know, influenced- Weighed, mm-hmm
by the meaning, but only ab- about the, the actual shape of the imperfect letter, whatever. Um, so is that sort of ignorant person the most reliable person? Mm-hmm. Are the people who don't have access more reliable because... Or are the people who kind of are in the game and know the rules of the game and are really stakeholders in some deeper way and feel that they've been trusted and g- I don't know.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: M- maybe their, their minhag is even more reliable.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, I, I, just to put that more starkly, I, I think that there's an interesting question. When you, when you look at a concept like pukaze or, uh, the people are children of prophets, and you apply it to today, there are at least two possibilities, right?
One is to say the people of today are, uh, acting in a certain way, and they're still children of prophets, and they're still, right, and we should look to what they're doing and treat it as the almost that wisdom of the common person, that wisdom of the less educated person. And just say, like, "Yeah, they don't have to be making a claim that they're any kind of Jewish scholar.
That's not the point here. The point here is that somehow- Mm-hmm ... there is some kind of wisdom of, of a child, they're, they're less educated," whatever it might be, right? That's one version. Another version is to say that the people have kind of transcended their people-ness, uh, you know, common people-ness.
That, that they're actually, uh, it, it, again, instead of saying they're children of prophets, say they're children of rabbis. You know, they're like rabbis- Mm-hmm ... you know, and they're- And so it's not just like the common sense, you know, or, or again, I, there I feel like there's some, like, sort of, um, damning with faint praise kind of, you know, uh, the, the wisdom of the ignorant, you know, whatever.
It's not that at all. It's actually that they're, that they're, uh, so, so, uh, the opposite of ignorant that we have to take them very seriously now almost as rabbis.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: And, um, and, and if it turns out that... And, and, and either way, if, you know, for example, I'm thinking about the Pew study and showing, you know, for example, how many people, younger people are intermarrying.
And you say, well, does that, you know, is, are we living in a world where intermarriage is wrong and the majority of people are doing it? Or are we living in a world that might say the majority of people are doing it, so therefore it can't be wrong? And we have to re-understand various concepts in order to make it right or to understand what it, you know, right?
It's things like that. And so I feel like a, a demographic study like the Pew study, as flawed as it may be and the k- you know, i- if it's... I, I mean, the truth is that the Pew study is designed, uh, not to show the most radical things. So if the Pew study shows certain radical things, of course, we should understand that that really is the practice of the people in the marketplace, and we should take that very seriously.
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely. And y- y- you're reminding me that There is The, the rabbis of the Talmud are the most radical, right? The, the Talmud is, is this record of th- this most radical read of, of how we should figure out what God wants of us. And as the years go on, you start seeing in Jewish law the, the fears of, you know, if we...
Oh, my God, i- if we act that radically, if we, if we empower the people and really, like, take their behavior as what God wants, w- oh, my God, what's gonna happen? And so you see in post-Talmudic jurisprudence a new idea come about, and that's the idea of Minhag HaArucha, which means a, a misguided and ignorant custom, a custom that we shouldn't follow.
We've gone out and we've pukcha, we've gone out to see what the people are doing, and we don't like it. And, and there's this idea that some of these customs that they're doing, we should label as bad, and we should say, "No, we disqualify that data."
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And, and what's really interesting is to look back on what the post-Talmudic rabbis identified as a Minhag HaArucha, like a, a horrible custom that they really wanted to stamp out.
One, one famous example is Tashlich.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Right? Right. So Tashlich is, you know, the i- the, the custom that the people came up with that, uh, there is a ritual somewhere between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur where you physically enact a symbolic ridding oneself of one's sins by tossing bread into a moving body of water.
And the rabbis hated this custom, because for the rabbis, this was a kind of easy way out. They were afraid that people were not gonna do teshuvah and were not gonna really get serious about changing, but go, "Okay, well, I can just toss my Wonder Bread in, in the canal, and I'll be good to go, and I won't really have to do the hard work."
And I don't think that's happened.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I, I don't think people misuse Tashlich that way. In, on the contrary, it's become, you know, one of the highlights... I, I think it's a gorgeous custom. Yeah. Another, another
DAN LIBENSON: famous- And, and just as a great... And, and just to complete the thought, it's a great custom that turned into basically people think it's the law, you know, or it's the...
it's, it's what, what we do. And, and it is what we do now. Yes. Absolutely. And it, and, and the rabbis re- resisted it, and it... and, and it was a case where actually they could have said, "Oh, pukcha, let's see what the people are doing. Oh, they're doing this Tashlich thing. Let's, let's accept that." That's actually what it seems the Talmud is telling them to do.
BENAY LAPPE: That's
DAN LIBENSON: right. But instead they said, "No, the people are doing this bad custom. We're not gonna give it any credence," and nevertheless it won. You know, it won out.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly. And another famous example of one of these customs? Kaddish.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm.
BENAY LAPPE: The rabbis hated Kaddish. The people invented Kaddish- Mm ... as a kind of, um, magical-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm
BENAY LAPPE: way to lift up the soul of their, their beloved person who died. Sure. To ensure that, you know, my father, my mother, my s- my child has a, an aliyah to heaven, that, that these words are gonna help that person's soul, um, while they're in this 12-month period of, you know, sort of purgatory or no- not sure where their soul's gonna go.
And- The rabbis hated that- Mm ... because the rabbis were like, "No, there's nothing you can do to affect the destiny of someone who lived their life as a, as a mom, like a no-goodnick. If they lived their life as a no-goodnick, right, dot, dot, dot."
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And yet, look, look at Kaddish made it. Mm-hmm. And Kaddish, it turns out, you know, is, um...
It's PS, it's still a minhag, it's still a custom, it's not a Halakha. But there isn't a rabbi who will tell you that, because the rabbis now realize this is a really powerful tradition that brings, you know, children back into community and, you know, which honors the dead, and so on and so forth. Right. So, so the, the, the labeling of, "Oh, this, this custom is awful," has a- al- also a very checkered history.
DAN LIBENSON: It's interesting, 'cause I also felt like, for me, a year ago when COVID started, I, I, where I knew that the conservative movement wasn't gonna be able to hold the line on not having Zoom services was, was... Or not having it, quote, "count" as a minyan, you know, was because I knew there was no way that the people would accept that they can't say Kaddish for a year.
Uh, and they d- they just wouldn't get it. They just would say, "What are you talking about?" Like, I, th- this is not- ... you know, there, I didn't know there were any rules. Like, this is for me. This is- Right ... you know, I have to say this to mour- You're telling me I can't say Kaddish? And that was not gonna fly. And sure enough, you know, I, I don't think that there are too many s- uh, synagogues that don't say the Kaddish on Zoom.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, even though technically you're not, you know, it's not a minyan because they're not there in person. Right. Um, anyway, so okay. So, um, so yeah, so I, so I think there... And so just, just to close the loop there, it's not only within the Talmud but post-Talmud, we see a lot of cases where functionally what's going on is that the people's wisdom is what's determining the law, even if it's not officially called the law, but it's, uh-
BENAY LAPPE: Still it is
DAN LIBENSON: it, it, functionally it is. And, and everybody acts- Right ... as if it is, and probably thinks that it is even. And like in the case of Kaddish, even probably a lot of rabbis think, don't really know that it's not a law law.
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, okay, so just to, let's just look at the, the rest of this case, um, just to, just to finish the, the, the case.
Um, the next day, which was Shabbat- Uh, and who this person forgot their knife. So what do they do? Uh, one, one whose Pascal offering was a lamb took the knife and stuck it in its wool. So the, basically you, you just like put the, the knife in the wool of the lamb so that the lamb would carry it to the temple.
Uh, which is kind of, um, there's something kind of, uh, m- morbid about that, you know, that, that you're carrying your, the, the knife that's about to slaughter you, but that's another ... Uh, and if the case was a goat, which doesn't have wool, that you would stick the, the knife between its horns. And so this was a way of, um, uh, of getting the knife there even if you forgot to bring it.
And Hillel saw this incident and remembered the Halakhah that he once learned. He said, "Oh, yeah, the, this is just like the, uh, the thing last week." And then not only is it the wisdom of the people, uh, but actually as soon as I see this I go, "Oh, yes, yes, yes, I actually remember that I did hear exactly this from the mouth of Shmon of Tel Ayyon.
This is exactly what you're supposed to do if you forgot the knife." Um, so-
BENAY LAPPE: I- is it, is it possible that he didn't really? It-
DAN LIBENSON: I, yeah, that's what I think.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, yeah. It's like, that's a good idea. Oh, yeah, that's what my teacher taught me.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah. Um, so, so then it, it just, uh, goes on a little bit, um, to, to question this case, and then we get a little bit of an extra little piece here.
So the Gemara says, "Even driving a laden animal in an unusual manner is problematic." This is what they're doing here, it seems problematic, they, the, the Gemara is saying. Uh, granted there's no prohibition in Torah law, but there is a rabbinic prohibition. In other words, we're not, you're not supposed to actually do this, uh, to, to have an animal, uh, carrying
An animal's not supposed to be carrying on Shabbat, uh, even if it's not the way that they usually ... A lot of times you can get away with doing something on Shabbat that you're not supposed to do if you do it in an unusual manner. Like, sometimes you'll see people turning on a light with their elbow or something like that, if, in a, you know, or with a child's finger.
You know, there are all kinds of little workarounds. They may not actually be kosher, but people do various things. And, um, and that's like this idea that if you do something in an unusual manner, you can do it, and that actually is in the Talmud. There, there's way, there certainly are instances where you can do that.
So they're basically saying, "So we're gonna do that," but, like, it's not usual. It's not the usual way that a, that a sheep or a goat would carry a knife, to have it between their horns or in their fur, so, in their wool. So you can, you could do that. And the Talmud's saying, "But, but actually you're not supposed to do that.
It's not a Torah violation, but it's still a rabbinic violation. We don't, we don't actually have a carve-out for animals carrying." Uh, and so this is what the Sons of Betaira asked Hillel: "If there's an act that is permitted by Torah law and a rabbinic decree stands before it and doesn't allow it, what is the law with regard to uprooting the rabbinic decree in an unusual manner in a situation, uh, in order to fulfill a mitzvah?"
So they're saying, "Is there a, is there a particular exception to that rule if you're doing a mitzvah?" Which in this case is bringing the Pascal sacrifice. So normally you're not allowed to let an animal carry a, uh, a, a, carry anything in an unusual way on Shabbat, uh, even though that's only a rabbinic prohibition.
But maybe there's an exception if you're doing a mitzvah. And Hillel says, "I once heard this halakha, and I've, but I've forgotten it. Le- so, but leave it to the Jewish people and rely on them to come up with a solution, because if they're not prophets, their sons are prophets." So same idea. And then they, um- And, and, uh, and they, they look at that, but, but then with, with, um, what they say about this incident is, "But wait, but why did Hillel not know the law in these cases?"
'Cause it seemed like he was listening to Shimon and Ab talion, right? And this is where Rav Yehuda says that Rav says, "Anyone who acts haughtily, if he is a Torah scholar, his wisdom departs from him. And if he is a prophecy, his, uh, prophecy departs from him. If he is a Torah scholar, his wisdom departs from him, as is learned from Hillel, for the master said in this Brita, Hillel began to rebuke them with words.
And, um, and, and because he acted haughtily, he ended up saying to them, 'I once learned this halakha, but I've forgotten it.'" And then there's a whole thing about, like, other kinds of people that, that get, like, a similar kind of punishment or, you know, that they're... And, and, you know, it's basically the idea is that if you act haughtily and you're a, a scholar, you're gonna forget your scholarship.
If you act haughtily and you're a prophet, you're gonna forget your, you know, you're, you're gonna be unsuccessful as a prophet, et cetera. Um-
BENAY LAPPE: So, so this whole s- this whole narrative is really a story about Humility. Or a story about- Leaves his
DAN LIBENSON: heart
BENAY LAPPE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
DAN LIBENSON: Well, I, I, what I think is, uh, is, is interesting is the, is the sort of balance, uh, you know, bal- the, in other words, the, the...
First we're reading the story, and we think it's just about the wisdom of the common person, right? And there's a whole set of principles here that the common people can be trusted, and they're children of prophets, et cetera. But then it turns out that there's a, another side of it, which is that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not, uh, intention, it's resonant.
It, it actually pushes it farther, right? Which is, is it says that if you're a leader or a scholar, uh, and you lord it over the people, you know, you conduct yourself in a, I would read it in modern language as, like, egotistically- Mm-hmm ... that you are going to end up being embarrassed, making a mistake, forgetting something.
You know, you say, "How dare you forget," and in the next sentence you forgot, right? I mean, that's what, at least in the- Mm ... in the storytelling, that's, it's the very next sentence- Right ... in the story he f- he forgets after he's just been haranguing them. And it feels to me like it's interesting to see the pairing of those.
And so it's not only that... And, now, you could also limit the case and say, "Well, it's only a certain case where the leader's acting haughtily and then forgets, and then you can trust the people." But you can also see it as a broader statement- Mm-hmm ... I think, that says, you know, leaders shouldn't act egotistically, and people shouldn't be overly humble, let's say, right?
Leaders should be more humble, and people should be less humble. Something like that, right? Mm-hmm. And, and that, um, and that if they don't behave that way, you know, the, the karma god, you know, whatever, right? In other words, the tables will turn. And, and, and if a leader tries to be egotistical, eventually they're, they'll be brought down, and the, and, and, and the, it's the wisdom of the people that's going to end up carrying the day and, and solving the...
You know, so it, so, so that, that feels to me like very relevant, especially, again, in our time, where I'd say the people are even wiser than they ever were in history. Um, but some leaders, I think are probably more egotistical than they've ever been in history. Yeah. Which is not a, not a proper pairing.
BENAY LAPPE: Uh, b- but- It's not an accident.
Uh-huh. I th- I think when, right, in times of enormous change, when a whole new formerly disenfranchised group of people are in on the game-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh ...
BENAY LAPPE: uh, they're coming up with, with new practices and new ideas and new values that are gonna be very threatening to those formerly and currently, you know, in formal power.
And y- yeah, I- that, the, it makes, it makes sense that it's, it's a natural but unfortunate tendency for those in power to kind of- Lock down and get, you know, like, haughty, and be unable to really hear the wisdom in what's bubbling up. Not just forget their own Torah, but for- forget the place where Torah come- forget, like, lose access to the place that To- where Torah comes from.
Mm-hmm. Which ultimately is svara, which has to do with being in intimate contact with people different from you.
DAN LIBENSON: Hmm. That, that's a very interesting ... I, I like that take, that, that, that it's the, um, the forgetting. The, in a sense, the, the haughtiness, it's not ... The forgetting is not a punishment for the haughtiness.
The haughtiness is itself the, the cause of the forgetting of the Torah, because where the Torah really comes from is svara, right? Where the Torah really comes from is, is a, a deep sense of morality and, and that is not in accord with egotistical thinking and egotistical behavior. And so at the point that it becomes about you and your ego, by definition you've lost the, the, uh, uh, the, the, the anchor of where the Torah is.
And even if, like, again, this story is a metaphor, so it's, like, specifically stated he forgot his Torah, but, I mean, the point is I think that you've already, you don't have to say it. You've, you've forgotten it just by being egotistical. Yeah, yeah. And at that point no longer should be followed and, you know, if there's nobody around that's not egotistical to follow, then you, you go with the common people.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, I like that. That's good. The, um, the, the, um, it, it brings me back to what you were saying about the, the Minhag Aruha, the, the, the rabbis who were saying that the peoples, whether it's Kaddish or, uh, also I've heard this about Kol Nidre, and, and- Right ... uh, and Tashlich and all these. Uh, a- and by the way, the- these are some of the, like you were saying, like, these are some of the practices that to this day remain the people's favorites, right?
The, the, or the ones that the people, if they don't love them, they think of them as the most serious, like Kol Nidre. People, I think, think that that's the point of Yom Kippur. Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: It, it's like why are we surprised at that? Right. They came out of deep human need. Right. Our needs are essentially the same.
Right. Human beings at whatever time, right? Right. So this came out of people's real lived life experience. That's what svara's about. Right. So it, it sh- I, and, and I think that was what was underneath the rabbis' sense that we could trust the people.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Because what they're coming up with isn't from their heads.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: It's from their deep needs and lives.
DAN LIBENSON: Right, and so if, um, so, so in a sense, those stories, which are more recent stories about the origins of Tashlich and Kol Nidre and Kaddish, and all kinds, and those are a few hundred years old at this point. What are the stories that we can tell about things today?
Maybe it's same-sex marriage, maybe it's, uh, maybe it's intermarriage, maybe it's all kinds of practices today that have not yet been around long enough, I think, that people have put them into the category of Jewish practices as opposed to seeing them still as a little bit, a little bit, um, of a rebellion against Jewish practice or something, something like that.
And, um, but eventually they will get to the stage of these are Jewish practices. We have rituals for them. There's a right way to intermarry Jewishly, right? Yeah. There's a right, there's a right way to conduct the ceremony. We have, you know, uh, we recently, um, had a conversation with one of your students, Becky Silverstein, and, and he said that, um, something about, you know, they're doing this trans-halakhic project in Svara, and we talked to Becky Silverstein and, and Lainie Solomon.
And Becky said something like, "It's really great when you have a ritual for something, and it's very comforting to receive it on a PDF." I forget exactly how he put it, but it was something along those lines. And, um, and it's like some of these Tashlichs of tomorrow are not yet on a PDF, but they will be.
And-
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, it, it, go, go ahead.
DAN LIBENSON: No, no, and I was just gonna say, and, and, and when we look back on those things at their time when they were in a similar status, and what we see was that the rabbis were resisting them, saying that they were bad or silly, and in the end, they're the ones who, you know, emperor had no clothes, right?
They're the ones who we look at and say, "Ugh, why were they even fighting that? That's actually a very beautiful custom." Yeah. Um, the, the, at the end of the day, like that's, that's a, that's the same story that- Exactly ... that we just read in the Talmud, and we're, we're repeating it again and again. And, and when we look at something like the Pew study and, and various ways in which people's response to what the Jews out there are doing is to like resist it and condemn it, as opposed to, you know, like I think of it as like steering into the skid, which I don't, like I think I've mentioned this before, I don't exactly know what that means.
I don't know what actually, but like, you know, I know it means like don't fight it. Yeah. Uh, and um, and, and but ride it and, and do something good with it, you know. That, that, that would be a different attitude, and seems to be what
BENAY LAPPE: that
DAN LIBENSON: is.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, absolutely. It's like, uh, you know you're onto something when y- you've been recognized as a minhag
DAN LIBENSON: Arua,
BENAY LAPPE: right?
Yeah. Like, that's, that is like l- look who thinks he's Dustin Ashes a little bit. It's like, like th- then you know, right? W- when you're noticed enough and you, and there's enough- You know, there are enough people doing this minhag garua, then, okay, then you can go, "Ah, this, this might just make it. We might just be onto
DAN LIBENSON: something."
I feel like we should close today's episode with a blessing for a minhag
BENAY LAPPE: garua. Yeah, I love that.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, all right. Well, we'll have to, we'll have to send that out for somebody to, to develop. Uh, actually, by the way, I think that that's the story that I was thinking of, that there's a story, and it's in The Orchard, actually, that there is a story of where they, this, it's like a, it's like a bad version, but they, they wanted to make a blessing in the, uh, Shemoneh Esrei, in the Amidah prayer, you know, against the heretics.
And, uh, and Rav Hananel says, you know, "Is there anyone here who can tell me a blessing against the heretics?" And, and, and, and one of the rabbis, uh, says, "Oh, I remember one." Anyway, um, okay. So Benay, we will, we'll see you here, uh, same time next week.
BENAY LAPPE: Great. All right. That was fun. Thanks, Dan. Have fun.
DAN LIBENSON: See you soon.
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 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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