A couple of people sent me this Kotzk-blog article in recent days that summarises a primary theme from Rabbi Binyamin Lau’s The Sages: the apparent friction between creative and conservative elements within the Tannaitic study hall. The blog prides itself on “uncompromising truth and intellectual independence”, a mission statement which I see as an invitation to challenge its uncritical tribute to Rabbi Lau’s account.
A significant element of Graetz’s account is his attempt to demonstrate that the hermeneutical creativity of the oral tradition was an innovation on the part of Hillel; an innovation which led to conflict between different groups of sages. Graetz’s suggestion, which runs counter to traditional Judaism’s view that the hermeneutical rules are of Sinaitic origin, is reproduced uncritically by Rabbi Lau who writes in his introduction:
“It was in the beit midrash of Shemaya and Avtalyon that exegesis achieved a new form. There the scholars learned how to expound verses analytically by comparing, juxtaposing, and combining texts…Hillel introduces the practical application of the exegetical principles in the land of Israel…ushers in an exciting period of creativity in developing the Oral Law…”
According to the Graetz-Lau theory, Shammai represented the old and more static traditions while Hillel championed creativity in hermeneutical interpretation and halachic development. Shammai was strict and inflexible while Hillel was lenient and innovative. This apparent tension is then imaginatively threaded through subsequent generations of Tannaitic sages, reaching its peak with the debate between Rabbi Eliezer (“the Shammaite”) and his colleagues concerning the oven of Achnai.
As our chapter shows, Rav Hirsch advances considerable challenges to the Graetz-Lau theory and its depiction of the methodology of interpreting the Torah as being a major battleground between the schools of Hillel and Shammai (and their followers in subsequent generations). Rav Hirsch’s comprehensive research demonstrates, for example, how of 280 recorded disputes between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, 245 of them are entirely unrelated to hermeneutical methodology. Of the remaining 35 disputes, we do not find a single example of Beit Shammai disputing the validity of a hermeneutical principle advanced by Beit Hillel; he typically accepts the validity of the interpretative rule but counters with an argument against its specific application in the scenario under discussion. If anything, the reverse is true: a Baraita in Yevamot (16a) describes how school of Shammai offered 300 dialectic arguments to support their contention over a detail of levirate marriage. These arguments nevertheless failed to dislodge Beit Hillel from their loyalty to an ancient tradition. This is also consistent with the Talmud’s comment a couple of pages earlier that it was the school of Shammai that exhibited keener halachic reasoning.
Rather than debating the legitimacy of halachic innovation versus tradition – a theory made possible only by the selective presentation of Tannaic sources – the proliferation of disputes between these two great academies was attributed by a Tosefta to students not having properly absorbed the ideas set forth by their founding sages.
Rabbi Eliezer, presented by Graetz and Rabbi Lau as a rigid Shammaite traditionalist who vigorously rejected the interpretative methodologies (or “inane deliberations”) of his colleagues, is shown to have availed himself of interpretative or logical methods of extracting halachah on no fewer than 63 separate instances. Some of the most complex hermeneutical methods are even said by the Talmud to have been championed by him.
In the infamous Akhnai debate, a dispute over whether a certain type of oven can contract ritual defilement, grows in intensity. Rabbi Eliezer repeatedly succeeds in summoning supernatural affirmations of the correctness of his position. Rabbi Yehoshua dismisses these proofs and famously declares that “it [the Torah’s interpretation] is not in Heaven.” Rabbi Eliezer’s persistent refusal to concede the argument in favour of the majority view leads to his excommunication.
Rabbi Lau’s account views this event as part of an ongoing ideological rift between the schools of Shammai -- which rigidly clings to received tradition -- and Hillel, thought to be more creative and flexible in its hermeneutical interpretations of the Torah. He labels the strong stand taken by Rabbi Eliezer (the “Shammaite’’) in the Achnai episode a “classic example” of rigid adherence to tradition. In doing so, he fails to recognize that the debate is entirely irrelevant to the question of tradition versus creativity; Rabbi Eliezer does not ground his case in received tradition, nor does Rabbi Yehoshua respond with interpretative innovation based on hermeneutical rules. Rather, all parties to the dispute agree on the basic halachic principles governing the ritual impurity of vessels and are involved in a relatively minor disagreement as to how the halachah can be most logically applied to a specific circumstance. Importantly, the Gemara describes how “Rabbi Eliezer advanced all the arguments in the world”—hardly the behaviour of someone clinging doggedly to transmitted dogma.
The special significance of the Achnai case really lies in Rabbi Eliezer’s rejection of majority rule as the proper basis on which to resolve halachic disputes. The powerful implications of this rejection lead Ramban to comment that, had the Sanhedrin been fully functioning at this juncture, Rabbi Eliezer would have been tried as a Zaken Mamre (Rebellious Elder).
Readers with an interest in the history of the Tannaitic study hall are strongly recommended to include the writings of Rav Hirsch – a scholar who truly straddled the worlds of Talmudic and academic Judaism – in their attempts to reconstruct this fascinating period of Jewish history.
First posted to Facebook 16 December 2021, here.
