This coming weekend, Daf Yomi enthusiasts will perhaps breathe a sigh of relief as they conclude the notoriously difficult tractate of Yevamot. The new terrain that they will exchange it for, however, presents the modern Talmudic student with a very different challenge.
Monday 24 June 2024
Ketubot: virginity claims and Talmudic wisdom
Sunday 23 June 2024
Sanhedrin, death penalty and criminal law
Yesterday’s Torah reading included an instruction that “The congregation shall protect the murderer from the hand of the blood avenger”. This phrase – vehitzilu ha’eidah – has become strongly associated with the requirement in capital cases for procedural rules to be tipped in favour of the defendant (see Sanhedrin chap. 4).
The Sanhedrin: a priestly prerogative or a free-standing judiciary?
The political system of ancient Israel is often lauded for its separation of powers, with a monarchy, priesthood and judiciary each functioning within distinct parameters of responsibility and power. What do we make then of the verse that we will read shortly on Simchat Torah – in connection to the priestly prerogative of the Levites: “They shall rule upon Your laws to Jacob, and [upon] Your Torah to Israel”?
Agunot, Sanhedrin and Tisha be'Av
When we assess the impact that thousands of years of exile have inflicted on our nation, our thoughts are immediately drawn to the weighty toll of human suffering and to the loss of sovereignty over our land. What we often ignore is the grave damage which has been wreaked on the Torah—the national treasure of the Jewish people. In fact, we have become so accustomed to the Torah in its stunted exilic form that we are unable to appreciate the extent to which our relationship with it has been defined by the stagnation of halachah. The passage of over 1,500 years without a functioning Sanhedrin has led us to revere the halachic status quo to such an extent that descriptions of the court’s legislative powers, and suggestions of how these may once again be employed at an unspecified future time, are likely to provoke considerable discomfort and even whispered claims of heresy.
It appears to me that if all the sages of the Land of Israel consent to appoint dayanim (judges) and grant them semichah (ordination), they have the legal status of musmachim and they can judge penalty cases and are authorized to grant semichah to others [thus restoring Biblical ordination]… However, this matter requires a final decision. [Hilchot Sanhedrin 4:11]
At this time, we have been beset by additional difficulties, everyone feels [financial] pressure, the wisdom of our Sages has become lost, and the comprehension of our men of understanding has become hidden. Therefore those explanations, laws, and replies which the Geonim composed and considered to be fully explained material have become difficult to grasp in our age, and only a select few comprehend these matters in the proper way. Needless to say, [there is confusion] with regard to the Talmud itself…
“Restore our judges as in earlier times…and remove from us sorrow and groaning”
Wednesday 5 June 2024
Talmud Reclaimed and grappling with a frozen halachah
When we assess the impact that thousands of years of exile have inflicted on our nation, our thoughts are understandably drawn to the weighty toll of human suffering and to the loss of sovereignty over our land. What we often ignore is the grave damage which has been wreaked on the Torah—the national treasure of the Jewish people.
In fact, we have become so accustomed to the Torah in its stunted exilic form that we are unable to appreciate the extent to which our relationship with it has been defined by the stagnation of halachah. The passage of over 1,500 years without a functioning Sanhedrin has led us to revere the halachic status quo to such an extent that descriptions of the Court’s legislative powers, and suggestions of how these may once again be employed at an unspecified future time, are likely to provoke considerable discomfort and even whispered claims of heresy.Judaism Reclaimed cites Rabbi Meir Simchah of Dvinsk’s Meshech Chochmah commentary to the Tochecha passage of rebukes and curses that we read yesterday. Explaining the words “I will break the pride of your strength [ge’on uzchem]”, the Meshech Chochmah understands this to be a reference to the Sanhedrin – the supreme court which was empowered to interpret the Torah, and to innovate and institute decrees in order to make the Torah’s core teachings more relatable to the needs and realities of each generation. In the legal system envisaged by the Torah, the Court was empowered to maintain and update Torah law in accordance with the rules transmitted to them.
As explained by the Rambam in his introduction to the Mishnah, the Oral Law consists of two categories. The first category is a core of transmitted teachings which convey the Torah’s primary intentions, and are understood to have been transmitted intact throughout the generations from Sinai. This core, explains Rambam, lies beyond the scope of judicial interference and reinterpretation or rabbinic dispute. The second category, by contrast, is made up of finer details of the commandments and was delegated to the sages to legislate through the Beit Din HaGadol. These details of biblical law – even once legislated – could be revisited by a future court if it considered that the Torah could best be interpreted differently, or that the needs and realities of the nation had evolved.
But how are we to know which Talmudic laws belong to which category? Long intricate passages and chapters of Talmud debate numerous details of biblical laws. Surely it is crucial for us to know which of these are understood to represent God’s eternal word and which were subsequently legislated additions?
Which laws would be within the legitimate scope of a new Sanhedrin to revisit and potentially amend or repeal? This is particularly important for the modern student of Talmud for whom numerous passages seem to be entirely at odds with current social and ethical values. When are we required to accept these teachings nevertheless as the immutable word of God and when is it legitimate to suggest that, had Ravina and Rav Ashi been compiling the Talmud in the 21st century, certain chapters would have been unrecognisably different from the Tractates in front of us today? And if we are to suppose that certain passages are primarily a reflection of social reality and values from a very different society, how are we supposed to approach the task of studying them in today’s world?
Shockingly, such questions are almost entirely absent from standard Talmudic curricula today. Yet these are questions that the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud were acutely sensitive to – and occupied not only their thought but also that of earlier generations of Talmudic commentators.
My upcoming Talmud Reclaimed: An ancient text in the modern era (which goes to print in a couple of months) seeks to tackle these questions along with many others, showing how they were approached by our greatest sages.
We pray daily for a restoration of the sort of Supreme Sanhedrin Court which we possessed as a nation in ancient times. While present day politics and factional infighting makes such a vision appear distant, at the very least we can prepare the ground for a new Court by focusing our study of Talmudic law around a recognition of these two very different categories that run through its Tractates and asking ourselves what scope a duly empowered Court would have to revisit many of its conclusions.
First posted on Facebook 14 May 2023, here.
Tuesday 21 May 2024
Could the Sages completely change the meaning of a Biblical verse?
The passage in question concerns details of which burials of family members a kohen (priest) may attend in spite of the overarching prohibition against his becoming ritually impure. Initially, it would seem, the Torah viewed the wife’s burial as being the primary responsibility of her father and family in which she was raised. As social realities and values changed, the sages via the Sanhedrin were pressed to apply Torah law to the new circumstances (see R’ Amnon Bazaq Nitzchuni Banai, Hebrew, for more details).
The verses read:
“Let none [of you] defile himself for a dead person among his people except for “she’ero” who is close to him: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother…[But] a husband shall not defile himself [for a wife] among his people, “lehechalo.”
In his commentary to this passage, Ibn Ezra notes that the basic meaning of the word she’ero is an umbrella term which covers all close relatives for whom a kohen may become involved in their burial, even though he will become impure by doing so. Meanwhile, the final clause appears explicitly to exclude a wife from this list of close relatives.
However, continues Ibn Ezra, the sages have transmitted to us that a kohen must bury his wife despite the fact that he will contract ritual impurity by doing so. In order to do this, he continues, they reread she’ero to mean “wife” [i.e. his specific close relative] – who is now included in the list of exceptional relatives whom a kohen is obliged to bury. Most significantly, in the final clause, the sages “annulled the original meaning” of the verse in order to interpret it to be teaching that the only sort of wife for whose burial a kohen should not make himself ritually impure is one whom he was forbidden to marry in the first place.
Ibn Ezra indicates that this technique of altering the meaning of a verse, which he understands to have been the case with she’ero, is one that the sages employed on numerous occasions – further potential examples of this phenomena are analysed elsewhere in Talmud Reclaimed.
Rambam by contrast, while accepting the ability of the sages to amend Torah law, does not seem to embrace the suggestion that they could so radically alter the meaning of a verse. Rather, writing in Hilchot Avel (2:7, see Radvaz) he appears to follow the Talmud’s explanation that the sages (via the Sanhedrin) legally categorised a wife as a form of met mitzvah – abandoned corpse – that even a kohen would be permitted to bury. The husband as the sole inheritor was then required to take responsibility for burying her. Rather than changing the meaning of the verse, Rambam preferred to stretch the limits of existing legal exceptions to work around the Torah’s initial position which prohibited the kohen from burying his wife.
Whether this shift involved the Sanhedrin assigning a new meaning to the verse as Ibn Ezra argues, or significantly extending the scope of met mitzva as Rambam rules, do we have a way of knowing when this change might have taken place?
Unfortunately we have received few if any of the court records from early generations of the Sanhedrin. However a verse from Yechezkel, read in yesterday’s Haftarah seems to provide some insight here.
Reviewing a number of the priestly laws, Yechezkel paraphrases our parsha’s verse stating:
“To no human corpse shall they come to defile themselves, except to father and to mother and to son and to daughter, to brother and to a sister who has had no husband, shall they defile themselves.” (44:25)
No mention at all is made of a husband’s obligation – or even permission – to bury his wife. This implies that the change would have taken place during the Second Mikdash period.
More about Talmud Reclaimed: An ancient text in the modern era can be found at www.TalmudReclaimed.com.
First posted on Facebook 19 May 2024.
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