The Oral Talmud Episode Episode 68: Thou Doth Protest Too Much (Bava Kamma 83b)
SHOW NOTES
“The entire Talmud is a response to the bind that we got ourselves into before the rabbis ever existed by claiming that our God writes books. That was the mistake of history. That caused us a lot of problems. To think that God actually writes words down and this document is the word of God was the beginning of the end.” - 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 rabbis were magicians? Not because they possessed supernatural powers, but because they knew how to make radical change look like it had been hiding in the Torah all along. An eye for an eye turns into monetary compensation. The trick works because you’re looking exactly where the magician wants you to look.
But Benay and Dan argue that somewhere along the way, Judaism forgot that the magic trick was a magic trick. Techniques designed to transform the tradition whenever it needed transformation became sacred artifacts that later generations believed they were no longer authorized to use. In this episode, Benay and Dan ask whether rediscovering the rabbis’ techniques of transformation might also recover something much more important: our permission to change Judaism again.
This week’s text: Bava Kamma 83b
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 68: Thou Doth Protest Too Much
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 rabbis were magicians? Not because they possessed supernatural powers, but because they knew how to make radical change look like it had been hiding in the Torah all along. An eye for an eye turns into monetary compensation. The trick works because you’re looking exactly where the magician wants you to look.
But Benay and I argue that somewhere along the way, Judaism forgot that the magic trick was a magic trick. Techniques designed to transform the tradition whenever it needed transformation became sacred artifacts that later generations believed they were no longer authorized to use. In this episode, we ask whether rediscovering the rabbis’ techniques of transformation might also recover something much more important: our permission to change Judaism again.
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, everybody and welcome back to this week's episode of the Oral Talmud. I'm Dan Levenson and I am here as always with Benay Lappé. Hey,
BENAY LAPPE: Benay Dan, how are you?
DAN LIBENSON: Great. Great to be back with you. Se- A little secret: we pre-recorded last week's episode because I was off dropping my son off at college so we actually haven't done this for two weeks.
So we are... So it's great to see you again and, uh, exciting to be back in this, in this very long, uh, very long section of, of the Talmud which, uh, we started a second late because I was g-... I was lost trying to find the place. Um, so you wanna give us a little bit of a quick recap where we are? We're doing this like to remind people we're doing this sampler of techniques.
So on the one hand this is an important topic of course but it's also important because it's showing us the v-... a vast number of Talmudic interpretation techniques where, where they're trying to sort of basically throw everything and the kitchen sink to, to figure out why even though the Torah says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth that it means that we should, uh, pay money rather than poking out peoples eyes and everybody agrees that that's the case; but the question is whether that's a radical departure from the Torah meaning that these incredible Talmudic techniques are what got us there or really the Ta-...
the Torah meant that all along, eh, which would be a sort of less radical point of view.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. Okay, so we're in this, um, sampler of 10 attempts to prove with 10 different, uh, interpretive techniques That the Torah meant money all along with the voice constantly challenging that, the voice of no, no, no, no, no.
The Torah meant exactly what the Torah said eye for an eye and this is a radical departure. So the first of these 10 proofs is a very long complicated two-part proof to prove that the Torah meant monetary compensation for personal injuries all along. And so far we've gotten onto the table the two parts of the proof.
Part one is ah, the Gezeira Shaba because the Torah says strike over here in the context of striking an animal for which the punishment is explicitly named as pay money. And the Torah sells-- says elsewhere the word strike in relation to a person Which is what we are purportedly trying to figure out what the Torah says even though we know it very well There is this technique of gezerah shava which allows us to transfer That which is explicit in one case in the Torah To a second case as long as the two share a word Okay?
So now we can like chutes and ladders the idea of Pay money overdue one who strikes a man. That's Proof One A It's half Half of the first proof And it's bolstered by a second proof And the second proof Is called the Diuk It's a hyper literal reading Uhh, which limits the application Of verse To its specified Case And the Verse In question Here Or the verse Thats being utilized Here Is the verse Umm From Bamidbar That Says You should not take ransom For the life of a murderer Because that murderer Should be put death I think on its surface The pshat The simple plain meaning is Contrary to what we've always done in the past and what other cultures around us do, the family of the murdered victim may not choose to accept money from the murderer s- and allow that murderer to go off.
Now, murder is going to be, uh, an offense that's punishable by death in all cases, period. Okay, that's the psha. But the second, um, attempt to prove that the Torah means monetary compensation in personal injuries reads that verse as saying, "Don't take money for the life of a murderer, but you may take money for anyone else."
In other words, any offender who does anything up until kill the victim, like an injurer. Even if that injure- injures a limb to the point of, quote-unquote, ki- killing the limb. It's still injury and therefore we can learn from that verse that God meant to imply you may take money for injuries. Okay. So after having gotten those two half proofs on the table, um, the editor now goes back to interrogate each of the two pieces because each is kind of shaky.
You know? Each one made us roll our eyes and feel not very convinced. And, um, so the interrogation of the first one is, hey, this gezeirat shava doesn't really work. The context about striking a man is really about fatally striking. Where are the two verses you're talking about? Long story short, the gezeirat shava ends up being built on two verses that don't have the necessary word in common, but the c- a concept of striking broadly speaking in common, which leaves us even more uncomfortable with the gezeirat shava half proof than we were in the first place.
But okay, we sit... The Gemara leaves it there. Then it interrogates the second h- half proof, in other words, the second piece of proof constellation number one. And Actually, it's not there yet. Sorry, we're not there yet. So we're, we're still, um... Now, the Gemara now is going to wait a minute, wait a minute. Let- let's take a step back here.
How could the Torah be talking about money? Because it clearly says this verse that we're about to look at today. I think we started it last time, but we're gonna pick it up there today. I
DAN LIBENSON: mean, this is a, this is a particularly, uh, long piece. And I mean, actually, like, when I thi-... You know, I've, I've been spinning out these various theories, and it almost feels to me like we were teaching our daughter yesterday what the phrase "methinks thou doth protest too much" means.
BENAY LAPPE: Uh-huh .
DAN LIBENSON: You know? And I mean, of course, that's kind of a misquotation from Shakespeare, but it's, uh, you know, but that's what come into the language. And, um, yeah, and, you know, we were explaining to her, like, if you keep saying like, "I didn't eat that candy," or whatever, you know, that probably means that you did eat the candy.
And it kinda feels to me like if we have this extraordinarily long complex, uh, area, section of the Talmud that is really looking at, like we talked about last week, you know, s- it's kinda like this thing which, like, anybody who really understood it would know that it's sort of a nonsensical approach to argumentation, this idea that, you know, God hid these, he th- he hid these ideas in the Torah just by putting the same word in two different verses that have nothing to do with each other.
Like, that's kind of on its face a, a sort of a crazy idea, and it only works if it's so confusing to people that it's like- That they give up ... as we also talked about last time, that you can't even, you know, your head starts spinning so much that you're kinda like, "Okay, okay, whatever." You know, I m-... And, and i- maybe, you know, this part is so long specifically because this idea, this ap- approach is so bad, and the only way to do it is to overwhelm you with, with content.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I do follow David Cramer's, um, conclusion, which is it's here to send the meta message that this radical move that we made from Eye for an eye to money
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: cannot be, you cannot claim that that's what the Torah wanted.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And so it's there to tell you, in spite of the fact that there's no way to legitimately root it in Torah, that's what we did, that's what we can do, and we can do it again on any other issue.
That- Mm-hmm ... that's the meta message here. Yeah. Um, I, I, I think that's very reasonable. Y-
DAN LIBENSON: you know what it's reminding me of? And then we talked about this a little bit last time, uh, sort of, but I, I'm just thinking back to this like, I read something recently, I can't remember where, that it was about a particular card trick that has not been figured out yet.
You know? Uh-huh. That there was some, some magician from, you know, he might be still alive but I, I think it was like a magician from 50 years ago, and there was one particular card trick that he did, and it was amazing because he never held the cards in his hand, and somehow it still, it still worked. And they couldn't figure out, you know, usually there's a kind of an associate that comes and does something, but that's actually considered like not good magic if you have to rely on having some guy come up from the audience and do it or whatever.
And so, and, and, and with every other card trick, they kind of see that the, that the magician has held it in his hand for a second, but they can't quite see what he did, but they know he must have done something. But this one is particularly h- hard to puzzle out because you don't see that he ever went near it, and so how could it, how could it be?
But of course we know that somehow i- this, it's a trick, right? Somehow this magician figured something out that we qui- can't quite tell. And tha- and I fig- and I can't remember if we, if we talked about it, uh, uh, during our episode last week or it was afterwards where I was talking about, um, David Copperfield and he did this trick where he made the Statue of Liberty disappear.
And of course he didn't make the Statue of Liberty disappear. Everybody knows that. But nobody could figure out how he did it, and then I read something and it turns out that they had created this platform that the audience was sitting on, and there were kind of, um, sheets on either side, you know, curtains, and you could see the Statue of Liberty in front of you.
And he, he held, brought a curtain up and you couldn't see the Statue of Liberty anymore, and then somehow the, the, there was like a, a, a turntable and it moved ever so slightly enough to change the angle so this, you couldn't seen the Statue of liberty anymore just when he put down the, the curtain, and that was how he did it.
You know, but nobody could figure it out for years because it was, it was so amazing, right? But of course everybody knew that he hadn't really done it. And I kinda think of this as like, um, that, that what's going on here is that there's a magic trick happening, and the people at the time, the, the regular people who, who are not literate and You know, this wasn't their primary business and whatever.
They just couldn't figure out. And at a certain point, like, they were just kind of, "Okay, we'll go with it." And the rabbis were almost these, like, magicians because they could make you seem, make it seem like you were just following the Torah, and, like, no big deal, this is what God wanted all along, when they were really doing radical changes, and that was the magic.
And now we are m- more sophisticated, and we can all read. And so now we can kind of see how the trick is done. And at the same time, there's a group of people who claim the most authentic Jewish identities, you know, and claim to be doing it the most authentic way. And the way that they're studying this is, is as if these rabbis were these amazing magicians, and they were doing real magic.
Like, it wasn't a trick. It wasn't sleight of hand. It was real stuff, and it has to do with these words being in two different places, and these kind of, you know, God putting in these... And they're studying this today I think in, in most yeshivas, you know, as if ... Well, it's not as if. The, the, the claim is made about this particular technique, the ństwa, that we cannot find new ństwa anymore, that that is a, a, a tool that is not allowed to be used by modern rabbis.
It's only a tool that was able to be used by the ancients, and, you know, either because they were especially spiritual or mystical or magical in a real way. Like, it was not a trick. It was real magic. Or it was just that the, they, they were closer to the time of Moses, and so they remembered the very specific clues that were handed down orally, whereas we've forgotten them.
So either way, it's this notion that, okay, we're gonna study this. You know, it's sort of like going back and studying card tricks as if, like, i- imagine a world that forgot that there was such a thing as slight of hand and then was studying these tricks and saying, "Wow, those people back then, they, they actually could make cards move in the deck without touching them."
I- You know, like, that's what I'm seeing here.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. But okay, g- the, I love this whole scheme. The only thing is you portrayed back then the everyday person as knowing it was a trick but didn't know how it was done No, no,
DAN LIBENSON: no. The everyday person didn't know it was a trick back then
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, great. Okay, great.
Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. And, and now the irony is it's a whole class of rabbis who don't think it was a trick- Right. Right ... and that's the, that's the danger.
DAN LIBENSON: Exactly. Well, like yes. Right, exactly. It's sort of like ... I mean look, we know in the Middle Ages, for example, that again, we, we know this because we don't really believe in, in real magic, right?
I mean, we, we don't believe in, you know, Harry Potter and stuff like that. So in the, but in the Middle Ages, like we know that people thought magic was real. I mean, in the Torah people thought magic was real, right? They thought that the rods turned into snakes and all those kind of things, you know? And, and if that ever, if that wasn't, was more than a mythic story, like it was because they, they basically had tricks, you know?
And I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Like, it, y- you know, like priests did, did like mysteries, right? You know, and they still do in, in various ways. And, and um, eh, but, but so you know, but we know now that they s- there must have been tricks. Like, we know now that the, you know, priests, I mean like the Christian priests in the Middle Ages, we know they weren't really magical.
We, we know that they must have been doing various tricks, uh, slight of hand, things like that. And the people didn't know that, and it wasn't 'cause the people were like yokels. It was like because they w- they just like ha- hadn't evolved. Like, th- they you know, hadn't gotten that sophisticated. They hadn't read, you know?
Yeah. So it was kinda easier to, to, um, to, to get a, a trick to, that people believed was real magic, and the magicians presented it, "This is the real deal." The, the magici- magicians presented it as if they were doing real magic, whereas today every magician admits that there's a trick. You know, every magician admits it's sleight of hand.
They just say like, "Try to figure it out," you know, like, "That's your challenge." And so I think that we can still enjoy a magic show today even though we know that the magician is not really magical, that they're just smart, right? And, and, and so that's what I think is going on here. You see, yeah, so the people back then, they didn't know that it was a trick, um, the, the regular people.
They didn't know that it was, it was a sleight of hand. But, but like you're saying, at least what you're alluding too, the other, though all the rabbi's knew that it was, you know, tricky. I mean, I don't, I don't mean to say trick in a pejorative bad wa- you know, they knew that they were kind of playing around, you know?
And- Right.
BENAY LAPPE: A- and the Talmud was the curriculum for how to become the magician, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And for how to do the tricks-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: so that you could portray radical innovations to the people as Truly magical. Mm-hmm. What God... Okay, good. Keep going.
DAN LIBENSON: So and, and the what you're saying I think is that today we have this whole class of rabbis, I don't wanna, you know, have to put a denomination on them but we know who we're talking about.
Uh, that, that a whole class of rabbis who have been taught that it actually wasn't, it actually was magic, and that we can't do that magic anymore. But what we're studying here is these true magical things that, you know, God put into the text of the Torah. And when they were doing this radical thing, changing it from poking out somebody's eye to paying money instead, that that was actually sort of a form of magic that God had placed there, and they continued to, to study it that way thereby missing the opportunity to learn the tricks, right?
And, and, you know, we can get into, I, you know, to calling it a trick is, is not make, gives it a valence that I don't really mean. I don't mean it to sound tricky. I mean it to sound like smart, you know? Like this is how we keep going. Right, techniques
BENAY LAPPE: of tr- Mm-hmm ... Techniques of transformation.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Right.
And so therefore it's as if like we have lost ... I mean, we, we are, we are trying to rediscover it, but I mean, it's like the, the Jewish world for the most part has lost the ability to keep doing what we've always done because rather than admitting that what we've always done was a form of magic in the sense of the not magical magic, but tricky magic, you know?
Right. And that's okay. That's, that's the game. Uh, instead we've forgotten that and imagined that there was something going on that we don't understand or for many people we th- yeah, they claimed it was magic, a foreign magic. We don't believe in that magic anymore, so therefore the whole thing is kaput, you know?
As, as opposed to like they didn't really believe they were doing magic either. They, they were, you know, they, these were the techniques, so.
BENAY LAPPE: Exact- I agree. I love, I love that framing, and I think that that is at the core of the tragedy of our current Jewish crash. Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: It, it's that we've, we've lost the realization that over the last 150 years w- we, we've, we've gotten to this place of our, our hands are tied.
There's nothing we can do. And people who say that actually believe that's true. Right. And that means it's over. Yeah. Um, i- but of course, of course we have the techniques, we have the legitimacy of using them even to radically deviate from the Torah. And w- we know there are lots of places and lots of ideas that need to shift from what the Torah says.
Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: And I think, and I think that, so, and I, I said this as a prelude to jumping back into the text because I think for our viewers, like, what, uh, what you're gonna, what you're, what you're experiencing today is, like, being kind of, like, lost in this sleight-of-hand. You know, in this ... And, and, and that's somewhat intentional.
You know? That, that, that there's this kind of, there's this like, "Don't look over here. Look over there. Don't look over there." You know, right? And, um, the goal of that, I think, we're not suggesting that we should reintroduce this trick today. You know, we're not saying that, um, people should be doing Zeir HaShaveh Az today again.
You know? We're saying that because once you understand what they were doing, that it was kind of tricky and, and, um, you know, and, and, and, and sleight-of-hand, and, "And don't look here, don't look there," it should make it more authentic for us to feel like we can make changes. Not, and we shouldn't trick people anymore.
You know, our people are more sophisticated, so I feel like we're gonna have to come up with new techniques for our time as opposed to just replicating the rabbis' techniques. But seeing that the rabbis were using techniques, to me gives me a feeling of authenticity that it's okay to come up, and maybe better, to come up with intellectually honest techniques today for a sophisticated population that will allow us to say, "Hey, y- we've always made changes,” and the chain of, the chain of continuity is discontinuous.
You know? It is, it is a, a, it is making changes, and that's, that's, it's continua-. If you have a s- if you have a tradition of making changes, then making changes is continuous with the tradition. Right? Like, that, that's a, that's a cool idea to me.
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely. And, and let's remember that all of these various techniques, whether it's Rabbi Ishmael's 13 techniques or, uh, u- another handful of Rabbi Akiva's, these are only techniques in the category of claiming that the Torah always meant whatever it is you're trying to, where, where, where you're trying to go.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: But there are four other ways of sourcing radical innovation, Svara being one of them. And it's very dangerous
DAN LIBENSON: to- Svara meaning moral
BENAY LAPPE: intuition ... Svara meaning one's moral intuition. E- Just because people will be hurt, let me show you how people are being hurt.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I don't think people should be hurt.
If we change it this way, people won't be hurt.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Basically that's what, what Svara is saying.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And we're doing it because our, our moral intuition Um, tells us to and we believe in a God who wants us to prioritize our moral tradition even over the word of Torah. Um, you don't wanna use that too much which is w- because then the system, p- people lose trust in a system in which they can see I think that individuals are utilizing their own, you know, discretion.
It doesn't
DAN LIBENSON: feel like a system when, if you do- Yeah ... that all the time. It doesn't feel like a tradition. It feels-
BENAY LAPPE: Right, and that's true for every legal system, whether it's- Mm-hmm ... a religious one or a secular one, right? But there are other sources. So you want to use that sometimes but there's also custom, which is a really powerful legitimate source of change, and precedent, and, um, legislation.
So- Well, I s- And yet there was ... Yeah, go ahead.
DAN LIBENSON: I, I just feel that custom is a way of saying, um, collective savara that's lasted for a while, right?
BENAY LAPPE: Absolutely. Anonymous legislation is the, I think the legal definition of custom.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right. That's right. It's the savara of the people.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Not the savara of the legislators.
Uh-
DAN LIBENSON: Or of a person. It's, it's a collective, it's a collective, uh, peoples-
BENAY LAPPE: Right ...
DAN LIBENSON: uh, savara.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. Um, but you, you really reminded me last time that, of the power of rooting a change in Torah. The, right? It, it, it You know, there, there aren't signs at protest marches that say Tzedek, tzedek terdof, right? Justice, justice shall we pursue for no reason.
It's because it's a, it's a powerful idea, and the fact that it's in our Torah makes us feel like, you know, whatever we think that compels us to do, um, gives us certain righteousness about it. And, um, but there are techniques that probably we're done with. I think we're done with Gezeirah Shavas. I think we're done with...
Uh, but, but others are actually literary techniques, not just logical techniques, which we use all the time- Right ... to interpret Shakespeare, The Constitution, the newspaper, all... You know what I mean? Novels, all sorts of things, you know. If, if you talk about two things near each other, it, it's a natural assumption that they might relate to one another.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And all, all sorts of those techniques. So-
DAN LIBENSON: Okay ...
BENAY LAPPE: um, all right.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So let's jump into the text.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, so we're looking here, the Gemara is challenging this initial version of the gezeirah shava that you described earlier, right?
BENAY LAPPE: Um, i- No, I don't think it's challenging the gezeirah shava specifically.
It's challenging the claim that at this point in the text has been, quote-unquote, settled that the Torah always meant money. That claim, not a prior proof, but the claim is being challenged with another verse in the Torah that looks like it doesn't at all sa- convey the idea that To- Torah meant money.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: So, and we'll, we... Just to remind folks, I have this, like, version that has the Torah verses next to the Talmud, but it's a little small, so we'll, we'll kind of go back and forth between them as we want to look at the Torah verses that we're talking about. But we were, um, we were looking at, at two verses that, that claim to be, uh, that claim to, to, to be connected to...
They use the word strikes, and the, the Gemara challenges this, "But the latter verse doesn't use the expression 'one who strikes.'" Is that- The- ... not where you wanna be?
BENAY LAPPE: Go up a line or two. Okay, stop. Um
The- Can we press down? I'm sorry, we're, we're, we're stuck in g- Oh. There it is. There it is. There it is.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Sorry.
BENAY LAPPE: There, the Gemara challenges. That's where we are.
DAN LIBENSON: Start over. Edit this part out. Okay. So the Gemara challenges: "But isn't it written in the verses discussing one who injures another, 'And a man who strikes any person mortally shall be put to death'"?
BENAY LAPPE: Great. Let's not read any more of the explanatory English, 'cause it's just gonna get confusing.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. So the challenge, the challenger, which is sort of this imaginary voice pushing the student, the Talmud student of 2,000 years ago, to clarify and articulate and reassert and convince that voice that Torah actually always meant money, is saying, "Wait a minute, wait a minute."
We have this verse in the Torah right there, Leviticus 24:17, that says, "A man who strikes any person..." Now again, mortally is actually, uh Not in the Torah.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It just says strikes, okay? So, um, one who stri- a man who strikes Any, the life of any other person, all right, uh, shall sh- surely be put to death. So that doesn't look like one who strikes another pays money.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: It says... Right? It says something other than that. We'll leave it at that. To which the opposite voice, the one who's trying to claim that the Torah always meant money, says, "No, no, no, that verse is referring actually to money."
Which is extraordinarily far-fetched because, as you can see, the verse clearly says shall be put to death. Which means that the striking must be a fatal strike.
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: Because
DAN LIBENSON: here's the verse. "If anyone kills any human being, he shall be put to death." That's, uh, uh that's, that's the verse. Great.
BENAY LAPPE: Great, great.
Okay, now let, let's keep this screen there because the voice that says no, that verse is, is actually God telling us money, monetary compensation should be the punishment for striking another human being, is now going to defend this outrageous claim by saying, um... Well, it... I, I jumped a line ahead. This voice says, "No, it means money," to which the former voice, the challenger voice comes in and says, "What are you talking about money?"
Um-
DAN LIBENSON: Where do you say the verse is referring to money?
BENAY LAPPE: Good. You have to say it refers to actual death.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Why not say he is punished with actual death?
BENAY LAPPE: Beautiful. Stop, and don't go to the loss of limits to complicate it. Yeah. Right. It, it... We don't need to go there. Okay, great. Um, and now comes Mr. No The Torah Always Meant Money saying, “No, don't let your mind go there.
Don't even think that this verse is, is talking about anything other than money, and I'm gonna prove that to you in two different ways.” So, uh, right. Let that not enter your mind for two reasons.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Here
DAN LIBENSON: come them- So let that not into your mind that here it says if anyone kills any human being, he should be put to death.
The, the voice that's claiming that the Torah always meant money, an eye for an eye always meant money, that voice is saying, "By put to death we mean money." Right. The Torah meant money. And then- That's right ... the next, the other voice is saying, "What are you talking about? It says clearly shall be put to death.
It doesn't say anything about money. There's no hint of money." Uh, and, and it explai- and it says that there, that you, you shouldn't imagine that it means ... Uh, u- uh, but then the other voice is coming and saying, "No, it, it can't mean death, and here's two reasons", right? It can't mean physical death.
BENAY LAPPE: That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: But the, so we're back to the voice that's saying it's al-... The Torah always meant money.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: And saying, "Here, I have two proofs." Right. Even though, that even though it says put to death, it meant money.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Exactly. Okay. And here come the two proofs. First of all, this line that you think means shall be put to death, if it does.
But the line that you think means what it looks like it means doesn't mean that because it is juxtaposed to another line. And here, uh, there it is, the very next verse that says one who strikes an animal shall pay. Okay. So this is now sampler technique number three This is called a hekesh, and it is that literary technique that I was referencing before which is that if y- if two things are uttered immediately one right after the other, you can assume that the speaker is talking about the same thing.
That somehow those two things are related in a significant way. Namely, in our case since the f- the second thing that was uttered is talking about striking, and it clearly says pay compensation, money. The thing before that also, um, was talking about striking but we don't need a word in common they're just
Hmm? Must also, um, imply that the punishment should be c- pay with compensation.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Bracket, in spite of the fact that it says explicitly otherwise. But-
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, I mean, uh, 'cause conceptually that's a decent argument that says, and we have it in American law all the time, you know, that if we don't understand this, uh, sentence like it say et cetera or something, and we're to say, "What does et cetera mean?"
Well, we can look at the context around it and say, "Well, that probably means similar types of cases." But, you know, if it's really explicit you, you d- you only bring in that technique if it's not clear. If it's, if it's clear in the plain meaning generally you don't... You're, you know, you're gonna be laughed out of court with that kind of argument.
And, and I just want to look at the Hebrew here just because, just because like, you know, the English if anyone kills any human being he shall be put to death. It, it's even stronger in the Hebrew. It says, um, a man who will, uh, a man who will sl- strike any soul, uh- Yep ... of a man, right? Basically means who will kill a man.
Mot yu mat is death shall surely die. Like there's no n-... And, and to contrast that with the way that a similar thing is said in the next, in the next verse it says, and, and, uh, a pers- Or, and he who, uh, strikes the soul of an animal, you know, basically who kills an animal, it's the same, it's the same, uh, uh, word nefeš.
BENAY LAPPE: N- Right. Right. Right. S--
DAN LIBENSON: So.
BENAY LAPPE: Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Will pay a soul for a soul, basically. So it doesn't say like, uh, you know, so in other words I'm, I'm just trying to point out that this one says, "Death shall surely die," you know, and this one says, uh, "Shall pay a soul for a soul." It's not even the same words. You know? It's not a version of the same words even though in the English it could seem a, a s- a little bit similar, but it's, in the Hebrew it's even more different than it seems in the translation is, is what I wanna point out.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Uh, well, I think we have to understand that in the world of these techniques, these interpretive techniques- Shot is the, the simple plain meaning of an entire utterance, um, loses its predominance. It loses- Mm-hmm ... its reigning nature. You no longer are obligated to read an entire verse as a u- one unit that conveys an idea.
You are now permitted in the realm of, you know, these exegetical techniques to isolate sections of a verse as if they are hermetically sealed off from what came later in the very same verse.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: You know? That, that's sort of fair game now. W- you know, once, once the rabbis begin the game of radical interpretation, um, particularly after there's no temple and they really need to come up with lots of new practices, they have to leave the world of Torah being a document that was meant to communicate to the simple reader exactly what it looks like it says.
That, you know, sort of originalism has to end while still making a claim of originalism in this new, with new techniques. Do you know what I'm saying? I don't know. Yeah. Originalism is coming to my mind because of what's going on in Texas right now.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: And it's, it's like a new kind of deliberately playful originalism, but with a cl- right? With a claim of originalism. But nobody really, no one who's really doing it thinks that. I don't know. I'm, I'm just-
DAN LIBENSON: Well, nobody, nobody except maybe the common people today.
BENAY LAPPE: Exact- exactly. Right?
DAN LIBENSON: Because conservatives in America have been taught over time to see originalism as a really valid form of legal argument, even if they don't know exactly what originalism is.
And so if you can tell somebody that this, "Oh, this is a form of originalism," they're like, "Oh, great," you know, "Then we support that." Um, and um, you know, there, there's, there's forms of originalism that, uh ... Right, 'cause like for example, there's, uh, an idea of legislative history in Anglo-American law, in American law where, where it says like, well, if I can see what the legislators were saying in the newspapers when they were passing this law, then I know what it meant, even though the words that they used d- don't seem to mean that exactly.
But if I can know what the, what was on the mind of the legislator. So you could argue that that's a form of originalism because it really gets to the, what they originally wanted. But often, you know, that's when it, it's generally not been the practice of Conservatives so much to do, to use legislative history if the language is clear and they can say, “Well, the plain text is, is,” you know, well, if, if it turned out that the original intent was a more progressive approach, they wouldn't use that and they would claim that that's not, we don't need to look at, at legislative- I agree … intent because if the, i- because it was the job of the legislature if they had an intent to make it get into the language of the statute.
And by the way, that's exactly the argument of, uh, the Oven of Achnai, you know, where Rabbi Joshua is saying to, you know, "God, You had a chance and if You didn't get it into the Torah in plain language, then we have the right as, as interpreters to take it in another direction." And then God kinda laughs and says, "You got me."
Right? And so, um, you know, th- this concept of originalism doesn't necessarily have a clear meaning and, and, and I think it's, it's, it's good of you to raise it because really what the argument here is about is, is originalism in the sense that the, uh, person who, the voice that is saying that the Torah always meant money is a kind of originalist argument that says, yeah, it looks like it means, uh, life or eye poking out, but it actually meant money all along, and we know that from these other signs that show us the original intent of the meaning.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. But I've absolutely 1000% convinced that it was originalism with a wink.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh. Yes. Yeah.
BENAY LAPPE: For these guys in the Talmud. Yeah. The problem is that it became originalism without a wink, um, to those who, who eventually came to learn this because those who came to learn Talmud were the most pietistic conservative, um, folks and, yeah.
And- Okay, we already went there. Okay, good .
DAN LIBENSON: So, um, all right. So, so we, so we're looking at what we can maybe learn the meaning of seven- of verse 17 even though it seems to be so, so clear that it means death, but we can learn that it doesn't mean death because the very next verse is about something other than death.
Although parenthe- parentheses, there's a way of interpreting the meaning of verse 18 to also mean death, that it means... You know, you could read it as saying, like, you have to kill one of your animals to compensate for the animal that you killed, something like that.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. Sidebar on what you just said. O- o- one of the meta messages or agendas I think of the editor of the Talmud is precisely to raise or, or to, to convey the realization that what we're
The way we're reading verses is not the necessary and only way to read verses. And th- some of my favorite passages in the Talmud are where the very same verse is being read by the opposite, the parties ar- arguing, debating opposite points, and reading the verses with different techniques to say opposite things.
Mm-hmm. And I think the meta message is clearly there is no one single read of any verse. Clearly a verse can mean any number of things. Clearly that's our job, to make claims about what they mean, um, in order to make the tradition better, all motivated and driven by R. Sefara.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, so yes, clearly this verse, y- A, a number of other arguments could have been made about this verse.
Okay, fine. So first of all, we have this juxtaposition of a verse that clearly says money to the prior verse that's talking about striking. Mm-hmm. And again, s- misleading translation in 17. The word is not actually kills. The word is actually strike. If you take out the context, then that's what the rabbis are doing
DAN LIBENSON: Just to, just to, in the translation it just says kills because the Hebrew is strikes a soul.
Strikes every soul. So the, the English doesn't say kills any soul, it just... It's interpreting the, the phrase strikes a soul to be killing. But it would better to translate it I think more, more, uh, word for word. That would be something like, "If anyone strikes the soul of another human being shall be put to death."
A- and what's more- And then we understand that probably means killing
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And I think another bit of evidence that for, that pushed the translator to use the word kill here, is at the end of the sentence says, "He shall surely be put to death."
DAN LIBENSON: Right.
BENAY LAPPE: And n- nobody thinks, as we've said before, nobody thinks the Torah ever could have meant that someone who merely non-fatally injures someone else is put to death.
So therefore, the striking has to be killing. Mm-hmm. But again, the way the r- the rabbis are now treating Torah, th- they are undeterred by the c- context which constrains the meaning of strike here.
DAN LIBENSON: Right. Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay,
DAN LIBENSON: so we have a second option.
BENAY LAPPE: It's ... Right. And secondly how does, uh, the English translated- And
DAN LIBENSON: furthermore
BENAY LAPPE: And furthermore.
Good. And furthermore, um Further on, that's it. I'm looking in the original here. Further on- Okay ... it's written after this verse, quote, "Uh, just as, uh, when he will give a blemish and a man, so shall be done to him." What i- what does our translation say? A man who- if a man
DAN LIBENSON: makes- Yeah, in, it's in the Torah it sa-...
Well, yeah. I mean, so in the t- in the Talmud translation is says, "And furthermore it is written, 'As he has given a blemish to a person, so it shall be given to him.'" And then
BENAY LAPPE: they- Good. That's verse 19. Mm-hmm.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, verse 20. And-
BENAY LAPPE: 20?
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, and 'cause here, and, uh-
BENAY LAPPE: No. It's 19 ... but it- That's a mistake. That's a mistake.
Okay. That's a mistake. It's 19, unless the mistake is over on the right-hand side.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh, no, I, I, I think it says it basically twice, so I'm not sure 'cause, 'cause in the- No.
BENAY LAPPE: It's 19.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. 19?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So, so it says, "If a man maims his neighbor as he has done, so it shall be done to him."
BENAY LAPPE: Good. Stop there. How does verse 19 tell us that actually verse 17 is talking about money?
It goes on to say, “And we should learn from it money.” And we learn money because the actual language of 19 isn't, "If a man maims his neighbor." If you look at the Hebrew, the actual language is a man, . Uh, if a man shall give a blemish in his neighbor. Give a blemish.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Giving, they interpret as nothing other than money.
Giving is the act of sort of the transactional. It implies a transactional thing. Um, and that means money. It- it's, it's a, it's a ridiculous argument. I think it's meant to be ridiculous, and we're meant to go, "Oh, come on." Okay.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: But maybe, maybe that, maybe that's a technique I can use- Mm-hmm ... when people push against me and say, "Hey, I was in the marketplace last Thursday, and I heard the Torah say eye for an eye."
Right, so just to make- Or on whatever issue in the future shall be that.
DAN LIBENSON: Right, so just to be, just to make this super clear, the, the, the Hebrew says, "A man who will give a blemish to his fr- his fellow, uh, just as he, just as he did, such wi- will it be done to him," right? Um, and, and actually there, in 20 it also says, so it- it's basically the same idea, uh, "As a man gives a blemish to another man, so shall it be given to him."
You know? Yeah. And, and so the interpretation here is that the reason why it says, uh, "give a blemish" as opposed to just hit or maim or whatever, is because give is hinting that it's money, you know? Yes. And yeah, it's absurd, uh, right? I mean, the, that ... You know, uh, because if God wanted to tell us that if you give a man a blemish, he should give you money, God knew how to write that.
You know? Like, there was no reason for God not to just write that clearly. Why would God ... Like, why would God, if God is a, a merciful, you know, loving God, why would God put a statement in the Torah that might be misinterpreted to actually cause people to be poking out each other's eyes and killing each other?
Like, th- that would be such a absurd notion of God to me that it doesn't stand up to even a basic, you know... I mean, it's clever and cute and whatnot, but if you really take seriously that God wrote the Torah and that God, you know, wanted people to not be killing each other, and kind of that is the whole point of the Torah is to, is to have people treat each other better than they would in the state of nature, then you would want to be absolute- I mean, if I were God, you know, like thinking about, I mean, I shouldn't say that, you know, 'cause maybe God has different ideas.
But like, I would be like first on my to-do list would be like make sure that you edit every line to make sure that it's not gonna be misinterpreted, especially if it might be misinterpreted in the direction of people being crueler to each other than I wanted.
BENAY LAPPE: Yep. I, this entire project, the entire Talmud- I think it's a response to the, to the bind that we got ourselves into before the rabbis ever existed by claiming that our God writes books.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh. I
BENAY LAPPE: mean, that was the mistake of history- Uh-huh ... I think.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: That, like, that caused us a lot of problems. To, to think that God actually writes words down- Mm-hmm ... and this document is the word of God, was the beginning of the end, I think.
DAN LIBENSON: That's so interesting. That, that's like that law of unintended consequences, right?
Because i- it seems really good, like you can imagine somebody in the, in the 6th century BCE, whenever that was, you know, Ezra, you know, maybe who's coming back from the Babylonian exile and brings this book. I mean, think about it as, as, uh, as, you know, I sometimes think of Ezra as kind of a version of Joseph Smith, you know, who found these, these g- golden tablets in his yard, and he translated them.
And he says, "You know, this is the word of God." And that seems like a brilliant idea if you're basically bringing- Exactly .... a new religion or a new form of a religion, and saying like, "Yeah, you know, you don't have to believe me, but I mean, I got this, this is directly from God. And actually he didn't give it to me, I just found it.
He gave it to Moses, you know, a thousand years ago." And that's brilliant. The unintended consequences is like, well, what if in a thousand years from now, that stuff doesn't make sense anymore for all kinds of reasons. Not only because people change, but maybe because, like, we're in exile, and you know, you brought this amazing book that works well maybe, you know, when we're in own land.
But in exile, it really doesn't work, so we're gonna have to make some changes. And we can't because God wrote every single word here. We- Right? That, that's, and you never thought of that 1,000 years ago.
BENAY LAPPE: Right.
DAN LIBENSON: So, yeah. So-
BENAY LAPPE: It's very Monty Python, right? Uh-huh.
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting th- about the unintended consequences element of it.
Yeah, that's a great point.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. A- and, and we've been like tied up in that. I think that's a lie.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I think it was expedient. It was, you know, effectively coercive, and maybe didn't seem all that violent at, at the time. It was a good way to get people to sign on to a very counter cultural, um, set of practices that would, you know, that, that they felt would create a better world, and it did.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: And I guess that was their best shot, or that was their, their best idea for how to get people do this.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, we've been paying the price of the difficulty of that claim ever since. Anyway
DAN LIBENSON: But it- but it brings me back to the, to the conversation that we had a few weeks ago about the th- the idea of third revelation at Sinai being the Torah of Sefora, et cetera. Because I think that sometimes the way out of a law of unintended consequences situation, right?
Or, or when you, when you have any kind of, um... You know, when you ... I used to d- remember that like I, I kinda felt like I was pretty good at this in like college essays or college exams, when I would like write myself into a corner. You're kinda stuck 'cause you've already spent an hour writing it, and then you realize this is completely wrong.
And then you can either make a big X and rewrite it, or you can write your way out of that corner. And actually, in the writing yourself out of the corner is where the most interesting moment happens. And so that's why I think I did well on a given exam because that was the interesting point, was like, wow, that's, that was a creative thing.
And it was only because I didn't wanna like make a big X and start over again and, and lose what I'd already invested. And I think that the genius of the idea of the oral tour of, of the rabbis brought, is that you don't have to deny the idea that God wrote the Torah or whatever. But you, you say, "Oh, but there was another Torah."
And, and that other Torah included the tradition that we should do shabbos like this, you know, that would, uh, kind of understand that what God wrote in a different way. And, you know, and then what we were talking about was like, and what they really thought was that it was the oral Torah all along. Right?
That there, that, that- There was maybe some kind of revelation at Sinai, but it was never written down by Moses. You know, the, I mean, it was written down later. And, you know, the idea of a, of, of now that we see problems with, with what the rabbis have, have in the Talmud and the way that our community, elements of our community, or really all of our community has been taught to kinda look at this, whether you believe it or accept it or not, is like, well, yeah, this is the sacred book of Judaism so, like this is what Judaism, what does Judaism say about whatever?
Let's check the Talmud. You know, as opposed... But, but if really, you know, what, what we really understand now is that this was human beings best attempts at wisdom, you know, guided by some kind of spiritual thinking and whatnot, you know, and that's what svara is, then, then that kind of ultimately solves, helps solve the problem of, of those unintended consequences because you can't go back and say, "God..."
I mean, you can say, "God didn't wr- write the Torah," and whate- But, I mean, a lot of people aren't gonna, aren't gonna be swayed by that.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: I dunno.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. Yeah. I don't think for a minute that the rabbis though that God wrote the Torah.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Right.
BENAY LAPPE: But, but the, the really sad irony is that the inheritors of the tradition at some point
Have lost their ability to see that tr- I, I think that fact
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Um, and, and then we're in that upside down world we talked about last time. Mm-hmm,
DAN LIBENSON: mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: Um, okay so sh- let's, uh... Should we go back?
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah, let's go on a little bit more because I th-... I, I think all of that ... Uh, we got a little bit. We got one line further, but let's go on a little bit more.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. Um-
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, now there's a, a big hard return.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay. Um So the Gemara asks-
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And- So I just want to give the big picture of where we're going.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Now we have these two proofs that are like two halves of one Proof constellation. The Gezeirah Shava and the Diyuk from a couple weeks ago. We've pushed off the challenge from this other verse, wh- which...
Okay, fine. And now the Gemara is going to interrogate the fact that a single proof actually needs two proofs. In other words, that a single claim needed two proofs. Why would you need two proofs-
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh ...
BENAY LAPPE: to prove a single thing?
DAN LIBENSON: One should be enough.
BENAY LAPPE: One should be enough.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. So that's where we are now.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Okay, so th- so now, so now we're going back to look at that, at that one ... The fir- the first proof was this idea that, uh, that, that this one, uh, shall said, uh, shall be put to death, but the next verse says money, and tha- and therefore we understand that the first verse should mean money as well even though it says put to death.
So, right?
BENAY LAPPE: We're done with that one. That whole thing was a kind of sidebar. It's actually in terms of manuscripts, and it's very problematic. Oh, so
DAN LIBENSON: we're backing all the way up to the original- We're backing al-... Exactly. We're
BENAY LAPPE: backing
DAN LIBENSON: all
BENAY LAPPE: the way up to the diyuk. Fine. It's m- and, and, and what, what does it say?
Here it is
The Gemara asks, that's where we are
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, the Gemara asks, "And what potential difficulty with the first derivation did the Brita refer to when it prefaces second de- derivation with the phrase, 'If it is your wish to say?'"
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, and that is just confusing language. I'm gonna restate it. Remember that Gezeira Shava, the first proof you gave for the claim that the Torah means mamon?
What was the matter with that, that you felt the need to throw in a second verse?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: I mean, a second proof. You know, you s-... I- if you... And you, and y- you, you, the voice of person who claims Torah means mamon, let's call that mammon, money, mammon, you seem to imply that I was gonna have a problem with it.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: If you thought I was going to have a problem with it, what problem did you think I was gonna have-
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm ...
BENAY LAPPE: that you needed to shore it up with a second proof? Okay. Which
DAN LIBENSON: is the dyuk.
BENAY LAPPE: The dyuk, exactly.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. So what, what did you see ... So the Brita means that a further difficulty is troubling to the Talana like you just said.
What did you see that led you to derive the principle of monetary payment from the phrase, "One who strikes an animal?" That's the Dyuk. Why not derive the Halakha from the verse, "One who strikes a person shall be put to death." Uh, Leviticus 24:21, so that's, uh, that's
BENAY LAPPE: here. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This English is really more complicated than, than the Hebrew.
The... I wa- I wanna say that differently.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. Um, what did you see that led you to derive the principle of monetary compensation? Eh, fro- okay. The
The voice that, that... Oh, boy. Okay. The second proof, the duke
Is brought, is acknowledged to have been brought in because the Gezeira Shava is acknowledged to have the weakness of learning something about people cases- Mm-hmm ... people-people cases, person injuring person, from animals, from the context of animals. Mm-hmm. That's, that's a problematic, and that, that's a problematic, um, move, you know?
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: States that allow euthanasia aside, we generally accept for example, that if a dog or a cat, God forbid, is suffering at the end of their life, we bring the animal to the vet, right? And we accept that the animal can be put down.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Would we deduce because we, we do that with animals that therefore we can do it with people?
Uh, no, no. We, we don't do that. We don't imagine that what's permissible for animals or what the law is in the case of how we treat animals should be the case of how we treat people. So that g-, that gezeirah shavah was weak in that regard.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. Um, and th- there's a little bit of back and forth here that is saying, "Well maybe it's not so bad," and then will try to find it in this language.
And I'm gonna do a better job of rewriting the English because this is kind of cumbersome.
DAN LIBENSON: Okay. But, but fundamentally, like, so just to wrap up and sort of- Yeah ... see where we are, like I think what I'm understanding is that, that a few weeks ago we had, you know, the first stitch in our sampler was the gezeirah shavah, this magical thing.
God put the same word in two unrelated verses. Uh, you know, therefore we can learn from one to the other. And then we see that, that same voice, the, the voice trying to find that the Torah always meant money brings in this other idea, the diyuk. A- the, this, this, this hyper literal meaning of a different verse.
And the, the, the... In right now here we're, we're, we're having the Talmud voice saying like ... Or the, the, the voice of, uh, that the Torah has been changed, that i- the Torah originally meant an eye for an eye really, uh, is saying, "Hey, wha- what was the problem with your original? Why did you have to bring in two proofs back then?"
You know, the, the gezeirah shavah and the Diyuk. And, and is it the, um, and is it then the voice of the, the money voice who's answering? He's saying, “Well, the problem that I saw was that in general we don't learn from animals to people.” And so that's why I brought in a second proof that was learning from people to people.
BENAY LAPPE: Right. And there's a little bit of back and forth where th- the opposite voice says, "I... Maybe it's okay actually to learn From animals to people. Maybe the, the important commonality is just that both cases be about injuries
DAN LIBENSON: and learning- And that's what we're gonna get to. I mean, we haven't gotten quite there yet, but that's- Fair enough
that'll probably be the answer.
BENAY LAPPE: Uh,
DAN LIBENSON: no- Or not the answer, but that's gonna be the reply ...
BENAY LAPPE: it sh- That's right. That's right.
DAN LIBENSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay, great. So for now, they're ... I, I got lost in the English. The English is-
DAN LIBENSON: Yeah, w- yeah, we'll- ... hard We'll re- We'll re-revise some of the English. Uh- Again. But like, but the point is, it's confusing.
I mean, it's just, it's just confusing, and it's a lot of, um, and it's a lot of back and forth and going ba- you know, it's, it's saying ... But it, but that's, that's what I'm saying. Like, that's the part of the point, you know? And, and like, there is an atmosphere, I think, in like the, the contemp- Actually, I got a question the other day, like, "Well, what do, what do more traditional, you know, Orthodox, what would, what would a student studying this, what would that be like?"
And I kind of said, "Well, I don't know that we want to have such a person who would wanna come up to, on our podcast." Maybe they would. You know, but, um, but you know, like you could maybe listen to another show to see what, how they would. But I mean, the basic idea is like, it's very, a very serious effort to try to like line everything up and, and so does Svara, right?
I mean, More Power, that's, that's right. We should do that. But the difference is, is that we can, we can make meaning out, we can sort all this out and find like, it's not just look over here, look over there. I mean, it really is calling back to things, and it does, it does, uh, you, you could sort everything out and make it really clear what's, what the arguments are and who's talking to what.
But I think that the fact that it is written in this very dense, confusing, you know, digressive ... You could say that's Talmudic and the Talmud is always like that, but actually the Talmud is not always like that. And when it's like that in a very, uh, small area, like it's som- Yeah, sure, the Talmud has digressions that, that go off and discuss something else, but when it's kind of like digression, digression, digression, digression, I think that y- you have to see that as partially intentional and/or maybe completely intentional, and designed to make you confused, not because it's a test, or not solely because it's a test of making sure that you've really mastered your learning, but because that's part of the game.
You know, that's part of the, the approach, to kind of sta- Yeah ... make your head spin.
BENAY LAPPE: Yeah. I, I don't know if I would say it's to m- make you confuse so much as it's there to demonstrate that the proofs that are being offered aren't f-, y- what, are in fact suspicious, are in fact- Sure ... bad proofs.
DAN LIBENSON: Uh-huh.
BENAY LAPPE: And that we are not beholden to the possibility of making good proofs in our attempt to make better Torah
DAN LIBENSON: Mm. Nice.
BENAY LAPPE: I think, yeah.
DAN LIBENSON: All right. Good note to end on.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. Okay, great. All right.
DAN LIBENSON: So we'll see you next week.
BENAY LAPPE: Okay. All
DAN LIBENSON: right.
BENAY LAPPE: Thanks, Dan
DAN LIBENSON: Thanks so much for joining our chevruta today! We hope you’ve enjoyed learning with us… and with the Talmud. You can find links to the source sheets for all episodes in the show notes and on our website at oraltalmud.com. Your support helps keep Oral Talmud going. You can find a link on the website to contribute. We’d also love to hear from you! Email us with any questions, comments, or thoughts at hello@oraltalmud.com. Please, share your Oral Talmud with us – we’re so excited to learn from you. The Oral Talmud is a joint project of SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva and Judaism Unbound, two organizations that are dedicated to making Jewish texts and ideas more accessible for everyone. We are especially grateful to Sefaria for an incredible platform that makes the Talmud available to everyone. It’s free at sefaria.org. And we are grateful to SVARA-nik Ezra Furman for composing and performing The Oral Talmud’s musical theme. The Oral Talmud is produced by Joey Taylor 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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