There were once two close friends who only loved one thing more than their friendship and that was baseball. As they aged they become fixated on the question of whether or not there was baseball in Heaven. They decided that whichever one of the two died first, would find a way to communicate with his surviving friend and share the news. Months turned into years and eventually one of the friends died. Three days after his death, he appeared to his surviving friend in a dream. He said, “I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that there is baseball in heaven. The bad news is that you’re on deck.”
I don’t know if there is actually baseball in Heaven. But according to the Talmud there are disputes about halakhah in Heaven. A few days ago, in our daf yomi daily Talmud study we encountered the story of a dispute between HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy Blessed One, and the Sages of the Heavenly Academy, the Metivta d’Rakia. The dispute concerned an arcane detail of Jewish Law connected to nega’im, the Biblical skin affliction that create ritual impurity. If a white spot appears on a person’s skin and then a white hair grows out of that spot of skin, the individual is impure. If the white hair appears first and then a white spot develops around it, the individual is not impure. What if it is not known whether or not the white hair preceded the white spot of flesh? What is the halakhah in a case of doubt? HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy Blessed One, declared the individual pure. The sages of the Heavenly Academy disagreed: Impure. (Safek l’humra?).
How could they resolve that dispute? One might think that God’s opinion would determine the halakhah but the Sages would not submit. One cannot be intimidated by status when arguing a point of halakhah. One must have integrity in the search for truth. On the other hand, they couldn’t easily ignore the opinion of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And so all parties involved decided to seek an expert opinion and defer to his decision.
Rabbah bar Nahmani was the world expert on this topic of halakhah. He had said so himself. Be careful what you wish for, because, in short order, having declared himself the reigning expert in the laws of skin afflictions, Rabbah bar Nahmani was summoned to the heavenly academy, the metivta d’rakia to offer his opinion. He agreed with God. In a case of safek, the individual retains a pure status.
That’s one way to resolve a halakhic dispute! The members of the heavenly academy couldn’t suppress their own opinion even in the face of a dissenting opinion from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. However, there was universal agreement as to the reigning authority on this arcane topic and that individual was summoned to resolve the dispute.
We saw a second story in our daf yomi Talmud studies this week that is also about resolving a difficult dispute.
Before sharing the story, I want to offer a pitch for the community to join us for daf yomi, a synchronized and organized study of one page of Talmud each day. We gather every weekday morning after Shacharit and are usually done by 8:30. After several weeks of very dense material, lots of mathematically challenging commercial law, this week was like a reward. One page better than the next!
Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Hiyya had frequent disputes about all manner of details of Jewish law and practice. The Talmud relays that Rabbi Hanina would attempt to win these arguments by asserting his superior stature as a scholar:
כי הוו מינצו ר’ חנינא ור’ חייא אמר ליה ר’ חנינא לר’ חייא בהדי דידי קא מינצית ח”ו אי משתכחא תורה מישראל מהדרנא לה מפילפולי
“How can you dare to argue with me?” Rabbi Hanina would ask. If, God forbid, the Torah was forgotten entirely, I alone am capable of recreating all of Torah scholarship through the use of my power of deduction.”
That’s an intimidating claim! Rabbi Hanina was confident of his ability to recreate every facet of the vast edifice of Torah knowledge through his own intellect. Who would dare argue with Rabbi Hanina? Well, Rabbi Hiya dared to argue with Rabbi Hanina.
He would say in response, “you may have the power to recreate the entire Torah should it be forgotten. But I have the power to prevent the Torah from being forgotten!”
דעבדי לתורה דלא תשתכח מישראל
What was Rabbi Hanina’s strategy to ensure the survival of Torah? The Talmud continues, “If the Torah were at risk of being forgotten I would take flax and weave it into a net and use it to catch a deer and I would feed the meat to orphans and use its hide to make scrolls and I would write the Five Books of the Torah on the scrolls and go to the city and teach five children how to read the Five Books of the Torah and then find six children to teach the Six Orders of the Mishnah and then have the children teach one another and in this way the Torah will not be forgotten.
אמר ליה ר’ חייא לר’ חנינא בהדי דידי קא מינצית דעבדי לתורה דלא תשתכח מישראל מאי עבידנא אזלינא ושדינא כיתנא וגדילנא נישבי וציידנא טבי ומאכילנא בשרייהו ליתמי ואריכנא מגילתא וכתבנא חמשה חומשי וסליקנא למתא ומקרינא חמשה ינוקי בחמשה חומשי ומתנינא שיתא ינוקי שיתא סדרי ואמרנא להו עד דהדרנא ואתינא אקרו אהדדי ואתנו אהדדי ועבדי לה לתורה דלא תשתכח מישראל
This story is not just an example of “snappy comebacks by Talmudic Sages” this is a debate about the way to ensure the survival of the Torah and a flourishing Jewish future. Rabbi Hanina believed that Jewish survival depends on the brilliant insight of elite scholars. The right individuals with the right answers to the compelling questions of Jewish life will guide us to a secure future. We know the leadership training initiatives dedicated to finding and cultivating leaders who can save us in the model of Rabbi Hanina. We also know of Jewish organizations in the thrall of a charismatic and genuinely accomplished leader at the helm. And we know that sometimes those leader’s serious flaws are overlooked because we see him (usually it’s a him) as being indispensable and irreplaceable.
Rabbi Hiya felt that the survival of Judaism depended, not on an individual scholar with sufficient brilliance, but on a whole generation of students whose curriculum might be relatively rudimentary, but who comprise a sufficient substrate for the Torah to perpetuate itself from generation to generation. And those students were themselves empowered to teach others so that even though each one might not have known a lot, they could teach one another and ensure that information is preserved and spread.
Like all great debates, there is no ultimate resolution. Does Judaism require elite brilliance or mass education on a basic level? How can anyone choose. Personally, I describe myself as a “democratic elitist” – which is somewhat of a hybrid position. I have a very high standard for the knowledge and literacy required to live an empowered Jewish life, and I’m committed to providing that knowledge to everyone. Leadership should be cultivated and supported, but it must be transparent and accountable.
But there is another angle to this story which is worth highlighting. Rabbi Hiya didn’t just teach Torah to a new generation of students. He first made sure that orphans were fed with meat from that deer. His educational agenda was built on a foundation of kindness and concern for the vulnerable and the hungry. This too is still a relevant component of Jewish leadership Before anyone will listen to one has to say about the relevance of the Torah or the attractiveness of Jewish life, they need to know that you care about them.
A generation ago, Binyamin Lifton traveled two days by train to the Lithuanian city of Grodno to apply as a student at the yeshiva there. The entrance exams in traditional Lithuanian yeshivot were rigorous yet quick.
The rosh yeshiva would ask the student questions about the sections of Talmud they had already studied – or should have already studied – and based on these brief closed-book oral examinations, the top students would be admitted to the advanced yeshiva. When Binyan Lifton arrived for his examination the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Shimon Shkop looked at him and said, “I have just two questions for you. When was the last time you had a hot meal? When was the last time you slept in a bed.” Binyamin Lifton grew up to be a Jewish educator, a teacher at a yeshiva in New York. But Rav Shimon’s concern for him made an indelible impression upon him more than any fact or piece of information he would learn.
Joseph and his brothers also have a dispute about the path to best ensure the future of the Jewish people. Sure Joseph’s brothers were jealous of the coat of many colors. Sure his dreams seemed to them like delusions of grandeur. But consider the content of his dreams. He dreamed about sheaves of wheat at harvest time. He dreamed of agriculture. The sons of Jacob were shepherds and merchants as their father and grandfathers before them. Joseph’s dream of agriculture is a dream of a future for the family in a different profession in a different land. Joseph knew that only a future as farmers in Egypt could enable his family to survive in an unstable future. The brothers were committed to the old ways. They were committed to remaining in their ancestral land in their ancestral professions. Of course they were threatened by Joseph’s dreams of agriculture!
How can a dispute of that sort be resolved? Halakhah, follows the majority and whichever perspective is compelling to one’s colleagues will carry the day. Joseph couldn’t convince his brothers to share his dream and in the world of halakhah if one cannot convince one’s colleagues there is nothing left to say. As we saw earlier, even HaKadosh Baruch Hu cannot sway a majority to adopt a position they do not find convincing or compelling. However, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik emphasized, when teaching this story, that although God does not intervene to sway halakhic disputes – lo bashamayim hi the Torah is no longer God’s possession in Heaven but a document for human beings to interpret – when it comes to history, God does cast a vote.
For Rabbi Soloveitchik this was autobiographical. He came from a long line of anti-Zionist rabbis and his influential and beloved uncle, known as the Brisker Rav of Jerusalem, was arguably the most famous anti-Zionist rosh yeshiva in the early years of the State of Israel. Rabbi Soloveitchik was never again accepted among the other rashei yeshiva once he publicly affirmed his identification with the Mizrachi religious Zionist movement in the 1941. Like Joseph his brothers hated him for his maverick opinions. Like Joseph he was isolated from those whose acceptance he most craved.
The laws of majority rule should have dictated Joseph’s deference to his brothers. But in the realm of history, sometimes God gets a vote. For Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik the Holocaust and subsequent establishment of the State of Israel demonstrated that the minority position of the Religious Zionists, the maverick embrace of a new way of living in a different land, was the path endorsed by history even though it was not endorsed by a majority.
I was taught never to speak about “leaders” because that term creates a false dichotomy between “leaders” who lead and everyone else who follows. In reality, each one of us has opportunities to exercise leadership within our families and within our communities to promote the changes that we feel are needed. We have learned from Rabbi Hiya to first demonstrate our love and concern for those we hope to influence. We have learned from Rabbah bar Nahmani that we ourselves might have the knowledge, skill, or insight that is crucial for resolving a longstanding problem. And we have learned from Joseph that faith means being willing to adopt unpopular views. In the fullness of time, we may turn out to have been quite correct.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 