Welcome to Judaism Demystified, a podcast for the Perplexed.
We are joined again by Professor Jeffrey Rubenstein.
Many of you have emailed us and written to us asking us to get
him back on. I believe he was on episode 9
and he had a very, very interesting she or about Agadan
Midrash, but we didn't give it actual examples.
It's kind of touched on certain ideas and we decided that we
should probably have an episode or two or three getting into the
nitty gritty of some of these agadot.
And we decided that one of the parts that we should focus on
from his book Talmudic stories was the character of Aker,
Alicia Benabuya. So we're going to be doing a
three-part series, something we haven't done before, just on
this character. The different versions of the
story which appear in the Tosefta, the to Talmud Yashami
and the Talmud Bhavli. And this podcast was also
recorded over the span of a year, all three episodes.
We had to spread it out. So you might hear some
references that were, you know, talking about personal anecdotes
that may seem a little out of place, but I'm sure if you
understand in that context, you will be prepared for that.
And also, I want to say that this episode is dedicated to the
the neshama of Mayor Ben Moshe. I love a Shalom Abdul Rahim
Ilion, the late father of our dear friend Rod Ilion.
So without further ado, Professor Rubenstein.
Thank you, Professor Rubenstein, for joining the Judaism
Demystified podcast. This is the first time,
actually, that Bensee and I are filming separately.
He is in his hotel room traveling, and we just didn't
want to miss this opportunity to speak to you again.
We've gotten such great feedback.
Bensee can, you know, tell you more about our feedback from the
first episode? So fancy, Why don't you address
the professor? So we got tremendous feedback
and people loved everything that we were saying about Agada.
The only thing that I felt was missing and and that people
might have felt was missing is to actually go through it in
detail inside and see it. Whereas our first podcast was
more general, this podcast, which is really like the first
podcast that we did with you, it's really to get to this point
where we actually take the ideas that we generalized in the first
podcast and bring it into, you know, fruition now.
And to really go through an Agada the proper way, the
structure to analyze it, to break it down to, you know,
everything that the professor will be doing for us today.
And we're really appreciative of it because this is going to be
fantastic. OK.
Well, thank you for having me and I'm delighted to be on the
the podcast or YouTube again. So yeah, we we will be dealing
with the Agadav, Alicia Benabuya.
That was what Ben and Benji asked me to discuss, which I've
written about in my book Told Munich Stories and and
elsewhere. And of course, Alicia Benabuya.
And the story of Alicia Benabuya is one of the most interesting,
one of the most problematic in some ways.
One of the most popular. Stories about the rabbis, at
least in in modern times. It's also a very challenging one
to start with because it's complicated, it's long and it's
got various different and contradictory tendencies within
it. But it's always good to start
high, and we can always do other podcasts about more
straightforward or simple stories.
I've got dope. So Alicia, as I mentioned and
I'm sure everybody knows, it's become increasingly very, very
popular today and part of this is due to Milton Steinberg's As
a Driven Leaf, which is a modern reconstruction or retelling or a
full length book of Alicia Benabuya and his life.
I mean it's fictional but based on the comedic stories.
But many people have have read this book and enjoyed it and
developed a big interest in Alicia.
Actually, Alicia Benabuya became a topic of great interest since
the Jewish Enlightenment, when I think many of the, you know, the
the masquelib, the the Jews who were adopting modern Western
ways and getting a secular education and so on, saw
themselves connected to Alicia in certain ways.
A little bit alienated from rabbinic tradition, a little bit
outside of rabbinic tradition, maybe 1 foot in rabbinic
tradition and one foot outside, and many of them wrote about
Alicia. And kind of interpreted him.
You know, in light of their experience, which is kind of
what Milken Steinberg did too. So Alicia has been, you know,
thought about and discussed. And there are many, many
theories about what actually happened and who he was.
And you know how he became ahair, right?
The other this horrible apostate or heretic.
So much so that the rabbis couldn't even say his name.
So this is a very, very. Long and complicated chapter in
Jewish literature and Jewish tradition.
Called it a tradition. Well, what we're going to do
today is start with the beginning.
That is the earliest sources about Alicia Benabuya, and these
sources appear in the Mishnah and the Tosefta.
That is in the text we call Tana Edik from the period of the
Tanaim that is up to about 200 CE when the Mishnah was edited.
Maybe the Tosefta a little later, but these are before the
Talmud and then so there's a there's some sources that.
We'll talk about Alicia and the Mishnah well in the Tosefta
related to the Mishnah and these sources being interpreted both
in the Yurasami, the Jerusalem Talmud.
And in the. Bodily the Babylonian Talmud to
start the process of the stories about Alicia that become more
fully developed there. So.
So we'll look at those today and then we'll have to leave to
another podcast, you know, another time the full story in
the Yershami and in the Bodley, because these are very highly
developed and long stories. So it's very rich material.
But first, OK, in order to even understand these early
traditions about Alicia Benabuya, we have to understand
a form of mysticism that was practiced in rabbinic times, in
Talmudic times before the Middle Ages, when a new form of
mysticism, Kabbalah or where we have in the Zohar kind of took
over and supplanted or superseded these earlier forms
of mysticism. So I don't know if you've had on
your podcast other scholars talking about mysticism and the
Zohar and Kabbalah. Very much, very much so.
And we're going to have a lot more.
So we our our audience right now is familiar with the original
mysticism, which is the masse Merkabah mysticism, Merkabah
mysticism. OK, good.
Yeah, you don't have to really. You can.
You can maybe give a brief about it, but you know it's part of
your. Presentation.
So I'll give just a little bit about it.
Because the the, as you mentioned, right before
Kabbalah, there was an earlier kind of Jewish mysticism known
as Merkabah mysticism or Hekhalok mysticism.
So Merkabah refers to the chariot and this chariot.
It comes to us, so we we, we hear about it first in the
vision of Yukresko of the prophet Ezekiel.
In chapters 143 through three, Yukresko has this unbelievable
vision where the skies open and God writing his chariot, his
chariot throne appears to Yukresko and he describes this
throne or tries to describe it. It's a little hard to figure out
exactly what he's talking about, but as there's radiant and
there's colors and there's fire, there's a figure of a human and
he's on a chariot that is perched on angels or some kind
of beings with heads. It's not there if it's four
different beings on each side or 4 beings total heads of a human,
an eagle, a ox and a lion. These are the four kingly
beasts, you know, the king of the burbs, so the king of the
birds, the king of the beasts and the king of the wild
animals. So all of these symbolize really
kingship. So the the the vision of
Yukreskil was understood to be how you know God existed up in
heaven. That is usually God was up in
the heavenly temple but he came down and appeared to Yukreskil
on his throne. And this throne that Yukreskil
saw was in this heavenly temple which was known as the Heikhao.
That's why it's simply called Heikha lot.
There were it was not just one temple.
Sometimes they were understood to be 7 temples or 7 entrances
or chambers really within one another where God on his throne
was on the innermost one. And the goal of the Mystic was
to have this visionary experience of God.
So with some sort of out of out of body experience, the soul
could leave the. Body go up to heaven in some
way. Go through these, hey, hello to
the innermost chamber and there get the vision of God on his
throne. So I brought a little.
I found some. Pictures of this you know, you
can find these on on on Google Images, just because it's
sometimes hard to, you know, understand exactly what this
entails. And for those who are listening
on the audio version, I recommend switching over to the
YouTube to view the actual slideshow that Professor is
going to be sharing with us right now.
Yeah. So here's just a couple pictures
of, you know, this was one from the the Renaissance painter
Raphael in 1518 of that's supposed to be God, you know on
this on this throne which is carried by beasts.
That's the Merkava. You know, there's another one
who understood the vision in slightly different terms, where
again, you could see. Angels drawing this.
Throne and there's God in a kind of human form there, you know.
Still another vision like this. Again, there's some angelic
beings there. This one's a little more modern
obviously, but you know, has I think.
I like, I like the colours he describes colours and radiance.
And I couldn't find really any images of hey Halode except for
this book. This is on the cover of a book
about prayer and about mysticism.
But there I think you get a sense of their chambers.
Within chambers, that's kind of a heavenly temple.
And in the innermost temple is, is that Merkava is the throne.
So the goal of the Mystic is to go and get this vision and you
know, what he would accomplish there is, first of all, just
this amazing, you know, consummately unbelievable vision
of God on his throne. You know what could be a greater
spiritual experience than that? But also, you know, you could.
The Mystic was able to ask God for things.
You know, you and I, we're down here on earth.
We're sitting in show. We're praying.
You know, maybe God hears our prayers, maybe not.
But if you're right before that throne, up in the heavenly
temple. I mean, there's a very good
chance God is going to answer you.
So it wasn't just the sense that you wanted this incredible
vision, it was that you also had this ability to actually ask for
something and the suffering of the Jewish people or or
something like that. Now that part of this, this,
this Mirkava mysticism also included many, many angels
because there were angels who some of the texts guard these.
Different chambers and kind of prevent unworthy people of
getting access to the Mirkava or the throne room.
So there you required a whole lot of knowledge.
Esoteric knowledge. You know, mystical knowledge.
Of the names of angels or what you had to say or what you
couldn't say to get through these angelic guards that were
sometimes hostile to human beings, this is also a kind of
motif that runs through hey call mysticism.
And we find this actually very common in in rabbinic sources in
a sort of different way. But there's a sort of
competition between angels and humans as to who's better.
And who God loves more. And the angels can even be
sometimes hostile to Cubans, you know, a little less so in the
Talmud, but a little more so in the hipolotic mysticism.
So there were dangers involved in this quest, Dangers in terms
of the angels, You. Know punishing you, even killing
you. And also they were like with
with many kinds of mysticism or esoteric knowledge.
There was considered like dangers to the person who was
trying to learn this if you weren't sufficiently grounded in
your faith. And if you.
Didn't know you know, rabbinic tradition sufficiently.
You might come to the wrong conclusions and you might think
some heretical kind of thoughts. You know, we know.
This from the Zohar and mysticism, Kabbalah, later
Kabbalah. You know, you shouldn't engage
in this until you're 40, until you're mature, until you're
rabbi or something like that. So, you know, this was part of
this esoteric tradition that the rabbis were kind of worried
about that shouldn't be accessible to everybody.
So this is, this is kind of the background because I think this
is, you know, the way the rabbis in the earliest sources, the
taniatic sources, understood what had happened to Alicia.
Although what we're going to see is that there's a long
development within rabbinic tradition itself, within the
Talmud itself, where later tamunic sources or later Tamunic
rabbis perhaps didn't even understand these earlier sources
and they themselves. Were trying to make sense.
Of, you know what the real story of Alicia was, and really
interpreted in different ways. So with that kind of background,
I think we should, we should turn to the sources themselves.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
OK, so I'm gonna share my screen again, and we're gonna go to the
sources. We're gonna start with the
Mishnah, which is really the basis for the Tosefta, where we
get our first mention of Alicia. OK All right, you guys see that?
Does that look good? Perfect.
OK, I gotta get to the next slide.
OK. All right, so so here we have
the Mishnah, and you can see that this is Mishnah Khagiga 21.
And this Mishnah deals with these esoteric or dangerous
subjects that the rabbis thought.
It should not be taught in public and maybe should be
limited, you know, to those who were at a higher spiritual
level. So you can see it starts out.
I'll just read the English for those of you who want to follow
in the Hebrew, look at it occasionally.
You know, one may not expound the topic of forbidden sexual
relations before three or more individuals.
We won't get into exactly why for now, But you can see this is
something that has, you know, shouldn't be publicized or done
in public, a limit of three. Nor the act of creation between
2:00 or more individuals. So how God created the world
again was was considered, you know, this kind of very, very
complicated theological topic. That shouldn't really be taught
to, you know, just anybody or or in a public setting, because it
raised all sorts of questions. And then we get normally one
expound by oneself the divine. Chariot the Merkava, unless he
is wise and understands most, matters on his own.
So this talks actually about expounding the divine chariot,
meaning studying the portion of the Bible that talks about the
chariot, but it doesn't talk actually about a kind of
mystical experience itself, unless.
You know, learning about it is itself by definition mystical.
But nevertheless, you can see the Rabbis in this Mishnah are
very cautious about this kind of knowledge being disseminated.
One, it shouldn't even be taught to another person, but one great
rabbi or one rabbi is able to do this if he's able to understand
it himself. So there's something considered.
You can see that's kind of dangerous about looking into
this mystical subject that the Rabbi's were very cautious
about, you know, people doing by themselves.
They didn't even want to teach it, you know, but they thought
if you were sufficiently wise you could kind of figure it out
yourself, then that was OK. So this is this is all we get in
the Mishnah. And you can see Alicia Benabuti
is not even mentioned or as any sage but but in the Tosefta and
just to remind everybody, we all know what the Tosefta was.
It's right. The Tosefta is the supplement to
the Mishnah which. Is structured along the same
lines as the Mishnah. So for every tract date of
Mishnah, almost you have a tract date of so Sefta.
And you know a lot of this material was material that
Rebbehuna Nasi, who edited the Mishnah, decided to leave out
for whatever reason. He thought it wasn't
sufficiently authoritative or important or just didn't have
room. But much of it was collected in
this parallel text that so Sefta you know, maybe edited just a
bit of a little later, but it has the same sages.
As a period the missioner, so we consider it Tani Edik from that
same pre tamuric time up to about 200 CE when the missioner
was edited. So in the Tosefta you can see
this is Tosefta Khadiga. So it's the parallel track tape.
It goes along with the Mishna. We get a slightly different
version of this mystical Enterprises, Merkava or Hekolot
mysticism. So it starts out four entered
the Orchard, 4 entered the Pardes.
The word for orchard is Pardes, Benazi, Benzoma, Acher, the
other that is Alicia and Ravi Akiva.
Now this is clearly a parable because.
When you talk about esoteric subjects that you don't want
everybody, everybody to understand, and we just saw in
the missionary they didn't really want to talk about it.
You talk about it in parables, but of course that makes it very
difficult for the audience if you're not, if you don't have
any kind of direct, you know, tradition from the person who
made the parables to understand what they're talking about.
So we're not even clear exactly what this means, but the orchard
seems to be a, you know, a parable for mystical
speculation, for this kind of Merkava or Hekolok mysticism.
SO4 entered the orchard. Seems to be these 4 rabbis
engaged. In this.
Merkava activity or this hekolot activity, they tried to get to
that chariot to the throne up in heaven and get through those
angels and through those chambers and get there.
But as we see in the next section, it didn't go so well.
It's not for everyone. 1 gazed and died, 1 gazed and was
harmed. 1 gazed and cut the chutes, and one went up in
peace. And went down in peace.
So you can see for for the first two of them, Benaza and Benzoma.
The missioner will go on to tell us this Tosefta, Sorry will, go
on and tell us a little bit. You know what happened to
Benzama, Benaza and Benzoma. I skipped over it here just
because you know that's not our main focus.
But you know things went bad for them.
One died. One was harmed.
And then one. Gazed and cut the shoots and the
Tosefta tells us Alicia Alicia gazed and cut the shoots.
That was Alicia Benabuya. And then one went up in peace
and went down in peace. That's Rebbe Akiva.
And again the Tosefta goes on to tell us about a little bit more
about Rebbe Akiva. Now what does this all mean is
we're not totally sure, but you can see a little bit from even
from section B there where it says 1 gaze.
So So what is the gaze? The gaze seems to be this, an
attempt to get a vision of God on the Mirkava.
This was, as some people call it, a visionary type of
mysticism, you know, seeing the Mirkava seeing God on his
throne. So for the three of them, it it
seems like what this parable is talking about is indeed.
This kind of Mirkava mysticism where they tried to get up and
and and see the throne and maybe at least the two of them who
were harmed, one died and was harmed.
You know, we're struck down by these angels there.
What does it mean to gaze and cut the shoots?
OK, we'll talk about that in a second.
And then again, Ravi Akiba went up in peace and went down in
peace. So there it doesn't mention
gaze, but it mentions going up and down, and that would be
consistent with Merkabah mysticism.
He went up through the hekolot to the Merkabah, the throne
itself, and then he came back down and he came out in peace.
You know, Ravi Akiba was successful.
But we can see it was very, very dangerous.
And this is at least in the rabbi's eyes.
This was one of the reasons they wanted to limit its audience and
not even really tell us about what is going on now.
Cutting the shoots is is very unclear, but of course this is
part of the parable that we don't fully understand.
It seems that it's what Alicia did again that you know, the
best guess of scholars simply based on this context is if you
think about an orchard and cutting down shoots, cutting
down plants, perhaps what what the Tosefta means is that this,
this orchard, the orchard, you know, was God's orchard or was a
King's orchard, you know this is the allegory orchard.
Was apartheid was the special gardens or orchard of a Persian
king. I mean that's where the the word
comes to us from. And these were his private area.
You know it's where the king relaxed or where the king well
went. It wasn't for everybody and it
was surrounded by plants or trees or a fence or something
like that to keep it private. So it's possible What Alicia did
his sin in this earliest source was he cut down those plants
that it made the the orchard private.
It made this mystical vision private, right?
If God is the king and the orchard is somehow his realm up
there, or how to get access to it, Alicia tried, in other
words, to open it up to other people.
He cut down the chutes, protecting or enclosing this.
Orchard, and that's what he did, was wrong.
But again, exactly what that means, we don't know.
It's, you know, he tried to publicize it.
He tried to teach it to other people.
He tried to teach it to people who were unworthy.
He talked about it not not 100% clear.
And and I keep emphasizing that because that's we'll see.
The rabbis of Talmud didn't really understand this any
better than we did, and they did their best.
To make sense of it. But the way they made sense of
it, you know, might not be exactly what it meant in its
original tradition, in this tradition, in the Tosefta, you
know, because it is told in a kind of parable.
Now we do get one other piece of information about Alicia, and
this is that the Tosefta adds a biblical verse.
So it's in section D You can see it says.
Scripture says about. Him Let now not your mouth lead
your flesh to sin and do not say before the malach.
Now we know that malach can either be an Angel or a
messenger. I guess we can take it for Angel
for now. Do not say before the Angel that
it was an error, else God may be angered by your talk and destroy
the work of your hands. So the toseft is saying is this
verse somehow captures what Alicia did wrong?
But the problem is this verse is very opaque.
I mean, do you want guys? Understand this verse you know
what does this mean? How does your mouth lead your
flesh to sin? And don't say that before the
malach. That's it's an error or God may
be angered. There's a little tension here
between starting with the malach and then shifting to.
You know to God. In the Hebrew, I'll tell more.
I'll tell Marley thing Ham Allah and then lama eats sofa.
Elohim, What is this Angel doing, you know?
And what is it that causes God to be angry?
What is destroying the work of the half?
So this verse, I mean, there definitely seems to be something
dumb that's wrong, but it doesn't really help us that much
understand what Alicia did wrong, or what the Tosefta
thinks he did. Wrong, because it's such a
difficult verse. The shot of this verse, if you
look at biblical commentators, is probably about something
about vows. That is, not taking a vow and
then violating it. So how does your mouth lead your
flesh to sin? You you take a vow, you know I'm
never going to eat meat again. And then if you eat meat, you've
violated your vow, so you've sinned, and maybe that's your
flesh is sinning in some way and and you shouldn't.
Then at that point you can't plead to the Angel that you made
this vow in error, because you've taken God's name in this
vow and God will be angry and punish you.
I mean, that's probably sort of close to the shock, but clearly
that's not what the Tosefta means here in this context.
But we don't really know what the Tosefta means, except you
can see a little bit about this malach, this Angel which.
And this Angel and God being angry and making some sort of
anger, making some sort of error, you know, that does sound
like part of the dangers that are warned about in these
hekalot, in these Merkava texts, that the angels might punish
you, you might get hurt by angels, you know, you might get
destroyed. But again, it's very, very, very
inscrutable. And you know, So what, what I
want us to understand just before we go on is that when the
Talmudic stages in the Yerushalmi and in the Babli came
to try to make sense of this tradition and understand what
happened to Alicia, I think they were just as puzzled as it.
But as we are today. In other words, they did not
have some sort of direct oral tradition about what actually
happened to Alicia. And they were left, like we are,
to try to make sense of the Tosefta.
You know, they knew that kind of background.
They knew a little bit about meerkaba mysticism.
Hey hello mysticism. At least some of the rabbis, but
exactly what the Tosefta is talking.
About they didn't know. OK, so you know, the point is
that, you know, there's a sort of sense I think in the popular
imagination and people who have sometimes read Milton Steinberg
and read other books about Alicia is like we know exactly
what happened to Alicia and. You know, we have these.
Biographical traditions about him.
But in the earlier sources, this is all we have, and the
biographical traditions we're going to get to now are really
just attempts to make sense of this early.
Tradition. Hey, that makes sense.
OK? It'll make a little more sense
as as we get to it. All right?
A. Lot.
Of sense. A lot of sense.
OK, All right. So let's move then to the
Yurashami and see what the Yurashami says.
OK, so the Yerushalmi as we know is you know is a commentary to
the Mishnah and it follows the same order and structure as the
Mishnah. So for Bishnah tractate Khagiga
we have Yerushalmi, Tractate Khagiga, and many times in the
Yerushalmi the Tosefta which also follows the Mishnah as
quoted in the Irishami. So here in Yerushalami Khagiga
in the same chapter. We get.
The quotation of the Tosefta. And then we get the Yrushami's
attempt to understand it. OK, so you can see what I've put
in yellow at the top layer there.
The top row akhair gazed and and cut the shoots.
That's just this quote from Persefta.
Kagiga, right? Well, we have in the in the
Tosefta Alicia gazed and cut the shoots.
But it first it starts out with four entered the orchard,
talking about Alicia and Akhair. There's actually some variation
in the manuscripts of the SEPTA about using the term Akher and
Alicia, but clearly they're they're used interchangeable
there. So the Tosefta says Akher, you
know, gazed and cuts the shoes, basically quoting the Tosefka.
And now the Yerosami tells us, you know, ostensibly what seems
to be some other traditions about Alicia, but I'm going to
claim they're simply attempts to understand the Tosefta.
They're not really independent of it.
So what do we have? The YEROSAMI says Who is Akher?
Alicia Benabuya, Who would kill the young students of Torah?
Now pause for a second audience and tell me how is the Yurasami
understanding. The Tosefka.
How is 1? You know this first section in
the Yurasami understanding that first yellow row lower, lower A,
lower case A in the Tosefka. The shoots, The shoots being
young students of Torah cutting, the shoots would be essentially
killing the shoots. Exactly.
So you know what? What is so heinous that Akar did
that, Alicia did that? You know, the rabbis couldn't
even mention his name and they have to call it the other.
Well, obviously it's not cutting, you know, real plants.
What's wrong with that? And you know, the cutting, the
shoots is clearly a parable. So how do we decode the parable?
So as you very astutely realized, cutting is understood
as killing and shoots young plants.
Young growth is understood as killing young students of Torah.
So you know in some of the the stories, the retellings of the
tummy nutrition about Alicia, you know, he does these terrible
things. But this is really just the
Yerushalmi attempting to understand.
The SO SEPTA. Really just that line of
Tosefta, is that the correct understanding?
I don't know. I don't think so.
I think the correct understanding is probably more
in terms of sort of a mystical enterprise, but this is how the
Yerushami takes. So, and I think you're saying
that because it's hard to understand in the context of the
Pardes what how killing young tourist students has anything to
do with, you know, gazing and having that experience leading.
How do they, how do they connect?
I'm not so sure because that's what I mean trying to say.
If the parties is referring to some sort of Merkava or hey
Khalot mystical enterprise, you know everything we understand
about what that involved. I mean had nothing to do with
other people or killing people or.
Young students. You know, it had to do with out
of body experience of your soul, you know, up into these heavenly
realms. So it's the Urshami, it seems to
me. Either It kind of understood,
but it didn't want us to, didn't want us to understand.
That is, it didn't want its audience to know anything about
that mystical background because the Yershomi was trying to move
away from it. Or suppress it essentially.
Or the scholars of the Yershomi just didn't even understand it.
I mean, that's possible too, but they give us this
interpretation. And then you can see in in the
next row, letter capital letter B, they said he would kill every
student whom he saw distinguish himself in Torah.
So that's very similar to the previous row, and it doesn't add
much, but it does add every student whom he saw.
Why is it important to say every student whom he?
Saw. It gives a connection.
It gives a connection back to the gates.
Exactly so the the Tosefta says he gazed and cut the shoots.
So the Yerushalmi I think is making two sort of similar tries
to interpret. That the first basically just
interprets, cut the shoots, he would kill the young students of
Torah and the second says he saw these young students distinguish
themselves. I guess shoot being a, you know,
a good plant, therefore a good student of Torah.
And then he would kill them, cut them down.
So it's a second attempt to understand the Tosefta to take
into more data that there's a gaze and cut to shoot.
OK, so this is these two are different versions of Yaroshami
interpretation #1 or Yaroshami story #1.
Now Yaroshami goes on to give what it presents as an addition,
like he did something else, but it's really another kind of
interpretation of Sosefta. So let's look at #2 there.
Not only that. But he would go to the meeting
place, the school or the Beit Madras.
The Yurasami calls this a baitvada or bevada, what they
probably sometimes calls a bait Madras.
So we would go to this meeting place.
He would go to the school and see children in front of their
rabbi of their teacher. And he would say, what are these
sitting and doing here? This one's profession is a
builder. This one's profession is a
Carpenter. This one's profession is a
hunter. That one's profession is a
tailor. In other words, they shouldn't
shouldn't be learning Torah. They should be.
Engaging in these kind of careers, you know, preparing for
these kind of careers. When they heard this, they would
leave him and go. Away now I think this also goes
back to the So Sefta that line up above that we saw Akher gazed
and cut the shoots. You can see first of all is that
he would go to the meeting house and see children.
So again we have this seeing that's interpreting Akher gaze
and the shoots again our children.
But in this version, how is cut the shoots cut being?
Understood. It's not that it would kill the
students, but he would cut them off, right?
Cut them off from Torah or cut them off from tradition.
So cut the shoots in two is he would cut off the children from
learning Torah. I'm wondering if the fact that
he's saying something would go with the last part.
Exactly. Oh my God, Benji, you are you
are, you know, the model student who already are catching on.
So at this with this story the the Urshami begins to take into
account the other datum that it has from the Tosefta, which is
the verse and that's why it quotes the verse right here.
And the other yellow about him Scripture says let not your
mouth lead you into sin. So how does the Yurashami
understand this verse in relation to Alicia?
His mouth led him into sin by convincing these young students
to abandon their Torah. And that was, that was that was
something that he said and it was clearly very, very sinful.
So that's why the Yurashami, you know, sort of splits up the
Tosefta like it did. It quotes the first line of it,
then it gives us story one, it then gives us story 2, and then
it gets to the second part of the Tosefta to tell us that
story two has now begun to incorporate both gazing and
cutting the chutes and the mouth leading into sin.
So this kind of weird scenario again comes from an
interpretation of the Tosefta. You know, a different 1.
The Yorushali presents these as cumulative.
You know he did #1. Not only that, he also did #2,
but again, I think we can understand these as two kind of
independent attempts. Understand the Tosefta.
OK, everybody with me so far that that's clear.
Yes. OK, now the Yerushalmi
continues. I couldn't fit it all in one
slide, but you can see it's this is the continuation just
starting again with that verse that we just read and the
Yerushalmi continues for he destroys the works of that man.
This is an interpretation of the last few words of the Tosefta.
You see the verse ends. Sorry.
The the verse quoted in the receptor.
God may be angered by your talk and destroy the work of your
hands. So the Yerushalmi says he
destroyed the work of his the work.
He destroyed the works of that man.
Or the works of the hands of that man.
I should have translated it, Masay Yadav shallow Tohai.
In other words, he destroyed his own works of his hands.
That man, the the Talmud, often talks about a person and the
third person. Yeah, in the when it means the
first person. So in other words, he destroyed
his own works. Now, how did Alicia Benabuya
destroy his own works or the work of his hands?
Work of your hands is an idiom. It appears pretty often in the
Torah and very often in rabbinic literature following its
presence in the Torah and the rest of the Tanakh.
And it can mean different things.
One thing it can mean is children.
Actually, the works of our hands are our children.
I mean, that's the that's what we make as, as, you know, as
adults and as parents. So it's.
Possible it refers. That the Yurasami is saying
here, you know, trying to understand the verse in terms of
that scenario, that he destroyed these children, cut them off
from Torah. But another another meaning of
works of one's hands is meets, vote, the commandments.
The good deeds that we do are the work of our hands.
Masaya denu masaya die Masaya da masaya dekha, you know.
So at least that's the way the rabbis often understand when the
Bible talks about. Masaya da.
So in other words, it seems like the Yerushami is understanding
this part of the verse saying that Alicia, by this heinous
act, by getting all these students to leave Torah,
abandoned Torah, you know he destroyed the meets vote that
were to his credit, you know he. Lost the merit of those meets
vote or you know, again, maybe it's a double entendre.
It also means he destroyed the children or cut the children off
from Torah. That is the work of his.
Hands or our hands? You know the work of people's
hands is their children. So you know, it's a little bit
of an awkward attempt, but I think again, the Yurasami is
doing its best to understand why the Tosefta quotes this verse in
relation to Alicia and what that might mean.
But the Yurasami doesn't quite at least yet, you know, get deal
with the rest of the verse. I mean, there's, you know,
there's an. Angel or a mala?
That it was an error. And God being angered by your
talk, I mean, we don't quite see that.
Interpreted yet, but they were somebody could be doing the best
that it could, you know, Maybe not.
Maybe it's not that every part of the verse is relevant, so
that that's all part of story Two, right.
So we've got two attempts to understand Alicia, one just
taking into account the the phrase gazed and cut the shoots,
and one that is the second one taking into account that phrase
as well as two parts of the verse.
Right, The mouth, leading him into sin and destroying the work
of his hands. But now we get a third story in
the Yerushalmi. This is a little more, a little
more lengthy, right? So it says.
Also when there was a persecution, they made them.
They made the Jews carry burdens, but the Jews arranged
to have two people carry one. Burden.
On account of the rule that two who perform one labor on the
Sabbath are not culpable. All right, so again, the Urshami
is imagining a a situation where someone is persecuting the Jews.
Let's say it's the Romans. I mean, we don't know because
the Urshami doesn't tell us. And they're forcing Jews to
violate Shabak. They're forcing Jews to carry
things on Shabak. As we know, you're not allowed
to carry from a private domain to a public domain, or a public
domain to a private domain, or 4 cubits in a public domain.
But the Jews are trying to outsmart these persecutors by
having two people carry their load, whatever they're supposed
to carry. Because if two people carry
something, they don't violate Shabbat, at least not according
to the right to law, the law of the Torah right.
To do that, you have to carry. Something you have to.
Perform a Shabbat labor individually, you know, by
yourself, and then what happened?
Alicia said. Make them carry individually, so
they, the persecutors, went and made the Jews carry
individually. So he's he's almost like he's
he's basically turning his back on his people and he's he's
going to the to the powers that be and saying oh if you really
want to make them, you know if you really want to get at them
this is what you have to do make them carried individually.
So it's kind of like he's he's a traitor.
Yes, exactly. I mean, the Yoshami is
portraying him, like you say, as a traitor, as someone who's
presumably apostasized, you know, renounced his religion,
certainly renounced his people, not over to be some advisor for
the Romans. Presumably I mean or.
Some persecutors and telling them really how to, you know.
Make the Jews. Violate their their own laws.
You know, it's a terrible, terrible thing.
So the story goes on. Unless we'll finish the story,
then we'll come back to talk about it.
But they arranged to set the burdens down in a Carmelite in
order that they not carry out from a private domain to a
public domain. So if you know Shabbat law, you
know, a Carmelite is a kind of intermediate domain.
It's neither public nor fully private.
It's like the courtyard, you know?
And again, you don't violate Shabbat law.
Deal, right. At least according to the Torah,
if you carry from a private domain to a Carmelite or a
Carmelite to a private or public domain, it's only from a private
domain to a public domain, or for cubits in the public domain.
So again, the Jews were trying to outsmart the persecutors, or
at least avoid the worst kinds of religious violations.
Because after all, with the Romans with the persecutors knew
know about this, you know, sort of detailed.
Law about Shabbat boundaries and and domains.
And so on. But then what happened?
He said, Alicia said, make them carry flasks.
So flasks are made out of glass. I mean, the Romans had kinds of
glass or something very brittle, and they went and carried
flasks. And the trouble with the flask
is it probably couldn't be set down in a Carmel leap.
So in other words, again, Alicia told the Romans how to get the
Jews to violate Shabbat by, you know, in the most extreme way
by. By making this loophole
impossible, they they couldn't sit down flasks because the
flasks would break. So they had to carry them from
the private to the public domain.
So again, Alicia, you know, is this advisor, this trader, this
collaborator, you know, working with the persecutors now, it's a
kind of odd scenario. You must, you know, kind of.
We'd have to think like, you know.
So where does the Yerushalmi get this?
I mean, you know, again, it seems to be making this up, but
why does it make up this scenario?
How does this interpret the SO SEPTA or the verse?
Well, again, it's kind of the. Mouth.
Leading to sin. How does a mouth the mouth lead?
To sin by telling them to carry the flasks.
Exactly so. The mouth leads to sin.
The map Alicia's mouth providing counsel to the persecutors leads
the other Jews to sin because they have to violate Shabbat and
it leads him to sin of course by you know, forcing others to
violate Shabbat. So it lives up to that part of
the verse and again destroy the work of your hands.
I think again this is can be understood in terms of
destroying meets vote, that is forcing the Jews to to break
meets vote not observe Shabat. Maybe Alicia losing merit for
his meets. Vote if.
You know, work of your hands can refer to be smoked.
But again, there's probably a double meaning here because the
flasks would break if they were set down.
So again it could be you know the destroying the work of your
hands or breaking you know the work of your hands could be your
son could be trying to understand that in terms of you
know the the breaking of the flasks.
You know it could have both meanings because it's a it's a
very odd kind of scenario to to otherwise for the Yoshalmy to
come up with it but wasn't trying really I think to
understand how those verb, those words would apply.
OK so Yoshalmy gives us, you know three stories, right.
I mean killing the students, Not only that, but advising them to
leave their studies and then this collaborating with the
persecutors that it presents as he did this and he did this and
he did that. But I think it's 3 attempts to
understand the SOCEFTA. If you look carefully.
The first one just interprets the first phrase in the Socefta
gazed and cut the shoots right? Killing the students or seeing
and killing the students. The second scenario interprets
part of both that phrase gazed and cut, the shoots, the
students abandoning Torah as well as your mouth leading you
to sin because he told them to. Leave and I think this third one
just interprets the verse. You know, does not really go
back to the Tosefta gazed and cut the shoots.
This third scenario about the Jews carrying burdens is just
your mouth leading you to sin and destroying the work of your
hands. So yer Shalmi is.
I mean it's very brilliant here, you know, it's very
aesthetically pleasing In a certain sense.
It's making three attempts based on the two data that that you
have in the Tosefta, gazed and cut the shoots and then the
verse. The 1st just the gays didn't cut
the shoots. The second verse both the 3rd
just the verse. You know the Urshami saying, I'm
I'm doing my best here working with the different components I
have and this is what I come up with.
It it's it's almost like in a sense, and I, you know, maybe
there's a slight pun here, but it's almost like up until now, I
know that it's going to get into Metatron, now we're going to get
into that. But yeah, it seems like up until
now, it's almost like they're demystifying it or just putting
it into a a what's the word? It's it's kind of like just
putting it, putting it into a context which which fits, you
know, for for their audience in a way.
Yeah, I mean that's that's funny.
Judy isn't demystified. It's actually perfect for your
title, 'cause This. It could be seen as a kind of
demystification or, you know, suppressing whatever mystical
element there was in the Tosefka and making it into something
else. Yeah, making it something that
maybe resonated. More with their audience.
You know, they had some experience with persecution or
they had some experience with, I don't know about people killing
young students of Torah. I don't know.
That would seem that would seem pretty extreme.
But, but I think the the point I think we should come away with
is that Yerushalmi generates these very, very negative
portrayals of Alicia, not because it has biographical
information, not because it's got some ancient tradition.
About what he did. It's interpreted.
Trying to interpret the Tosefta and in a way you can see this is
a kind of Midrash. So remember what a Midrash or
rabbinic Midrash will interpret a verse in the Torah, and very
often not according to what we would call this the shot.
Or it'll make sense of it in different ways.
And especially the rabbinic kind of retellings of the biblical
stories. You know, what happened with
Cain and Abel and Cain and heaven and how they came to, you
know, murder each other, or what happened with Abraham on the way
to the Akeda. I mean, any of these rabbinic
stories about biblical characters, these midrashim, you
know, interpret what you have in the Bible in these different
ways to generate new narratives, to generate new stories.
And it's very unusual for rabbinic stories to be generated
out of earlier rabbinic traditions as opposed to
biblical tradition. But I think this is an.
Example of it here. It's a kind of.
Midrash on a rabbinic source. Not on a biblical source, but it
but but it comes to the same thing.
You know, telling us a new story about the characters.
OK, so that's the Urshami. But you know, what's going to
happen in in in later Jewish tradition is that people will
start thinking this is what Alicia did, killed young
students of Torah. He collaborated with the Romans,
you know, and we get these kind of later traditions about trying
to reconstruct what Alicia did, how he came to this.
But you know, I think that's a little misguided.
Because the Yorushami itself is just teasing out these scenarios
to make sense of it. So, SEPTA.
And it's not. It's obviously not saying that
he literally killed them, but he's like cutting them off.
Well, well, in the. In the in the first scenario he
did kill them in in story one he would kill students of Torah.
Yeah, and the second story is kind of walking it back a little
bit. But he's not literally killing
the students. He's he's just, you know,
becoming a traitor and leading them astray.
Yeah, it's a. It's a different a different
attempt to understand the Tosefta source less.
Kind of less terrible. Right.
So meaning they're interpreting it, doesn't it?
It it's not a matter of literal or not literal here, it's a
matter of how are they going to interpret the words that they're
trying to interpret. Yes, how are they going to make
sense that that that's? What they're doing, yeah.
Exactly. All right, so.
Let's go to the Bob way. Good.
We did the Ursami, Yeah. OK.
Yeah. Hey, guys, What's me?
Yeah. We're with you.
OK, so here's the Bob Lee. So again, the Bob Lee appears in
Traci Khagiya of the Bob Lee. It's also in the section of
Talmud that interprets that Mishnah that we saw in the in
the mission about the American bomb mysticism.
And we get a. Story about the quotes The
Tosefta, you know, Akhir gazed and cut the shoots and then it
continues as follows. So what did he see?
Right. What did Alicia see?
Because what did the Joseph to see say?
He gazed. Right now there are some
manuscripts of the Talmud that doesn't that.
Don't say what did he. See some of them actually just
says what is this or what is Alicia, but and if you open your
kind of printed text, the villainous shots that has you
know. What was this?
Or my he as opposed to my haza. What was he Or what is he as
opposed to? What he saw.
But I think this is the better reading.
That is, the Babylonian Talmud is asking here, what does the
Tosefta mean when it said Alicia gazed, you know, what did he
see? OK, so now it tells us this
story. He saw a Metatron.
So Metatron is the name of an Angel that we know from various
sources. He saw a Metatron to whom was
given permission one hour each day to sit and write the merits
of Israel. He said.
It is taught that on high there is no standing and no sitting,
and no jealousy, and no rivalry, and no back and no weariness.
Perhaps, heaven forbid, there are two divine powers.
Immediately they brought out Mephotron and struck him with 60
lashes of fire. They said to him, when you saw
him, what did? Why did you not rise before him?
OK, this line I've put in angled.
Brackets because it doesn't appear in all.
Manuscripts, so they think the better reading has it.
So they said to Metatron, when you saw Alicia, why did you not
rise before him? He was given permission to burn
the merits of Akher. Metatron was destroy the merits
of Akher. A heavenly voice went out and
said to him, return rebellious children, except for Akher.
All right, so this is, you know, again a very tricky story.
Let's try to understand it. What did he see?
What did Alicia see? So he saw.
He saw heavenly scribes sitting, which you're not supposed to be
sitting if you are not God. That's right.
So first of all, I think the thing first thing we should
observe is the bodily presents. This in more of a mystical.
Way. A little more consistent with
hey, hello to Merkava mysticism because as we said, what what
that kind of mysticism entailed was a heavenly journey, an out
of body experience up to the heavenly realms where you saw
these angels and you got to God's throne.
So as opposed to the. Urshalmi the Bible is more
consistent with understanding it as a kind of mysticism.
So. The bodily assumes or is telling
us that when he got up to heaven there he saw this Angel who was,
you know, his function was like you said as a scribe to record
the merits. These houyot right of Israel,
you know of the Jews. So that on Yom Kippur for the
nation as a whole we would have these merits to our credit.
But Alicia got confused. He had some other tradition that
up on high in heaven there's no standing or sitting, no
jealousy, no rivalry, no back. Back refers to the backs of
angels. According to some traditions You
know the angels have heads on all.
Sides or they're kind of face to face so you never see a back.
There's no weariness, they never tie tie her out.
But in in this tradition that he got from somewhere else, it says
there's no sitting and Megatron is sitting so.
Alicia reasons that an Angel can't be sitting because on
high, no standing, no sitting, no jealousy means not.
The angels can't do this. So Metrotron must be also
divine, must be a divine figure, perhaps heaven forbid, their two
divine powers. And you know, I think the bobbly
here is sensitive also to what the rabbi's felt was a potential
problem with mysticism with. This kind of esoteric inquiry
into the heavenly realms as you might be LED astray.
You might get some you know, come to some incorrect
conclusion. Interesting.
The interesting you know from my what I see here is that I've
read some scholars also saying that this is potentially A
cautionary tale about Gnosticism or dualism maybe even
Christianity where he he kind of sees this lesser Yudke Vovke in
in as as some capitalists describe and came to a
conclusion that there is there are other forces other than God.
So I think you're 100% right. I mean that's that's potentially
in the background. There was this kind of religious
movement that you, as you say, known as Gnosticism, which
sometimes entailed. I mean, there were various kinds
of Gnosticism, but a belief that there was a kind of higher God
and a lower God, but there were two divine powers.
Like it says here, you know, sometimes this is a good God and
a bad God. I mean, this kind of dualism is,
of course, a good way to understand why this world is
evil and why they're suffering. We know in Babylonia
Zoroastrians were dualists. So, you know, there's a lot of
backgrounds here, but it could be that kind of, yeah, that kind
of Gnosticism or mysticism. And the rabbis are kind of
saying that's the danger. That is one of the dangers if
you engage in this kind of mysticism.
You know you might. Be LED astray by those heresies.
As an interesting footnote, there's, you know, we see kind
of modern day Bensey smiling 'cause he knows where I'm going
with this. But we see kind of the modern
day view of mysticism. The the Kabbalah of today kind
of leads people to the same. In a way it could lead people to
the same conclusion, not everybody, but that there are
different kind of expressions of the Godhead and.
Yeah, so Kabbalah, I mean that's why I say Kabbalah is different
than Hekolod America vamis distance.
Kabbalah understands God in terms in terms of tends to be
wrote. But those, you know Sphero also
do have these kind of different. Powers or Potencies.
So it's not quite the same as dualism or two divine powers.
But it's yeah, but that's that's similar.
Problems, Let's say beyond. Yeah, beyond, beyond the Sphero,
there's also the you know, there's the OX mode, and then
there's the Insof. And yeah, yeah, So, but yeah,
you're right. Right.
Which is for the same reason that it's considered mystical
and esoteric and shouldn't be engaged in by by everybody,
right. In any case, so let's go back to
our story. So, so, so Alicia says maybe
they're two divine powers. So what do they do?
They brought out Metatron and they they whipped him with
lashes of fire. So this proves to Alicia they're
not too divine powers, right? This was the way of convincing
him, demonstrating to him that Metatron's just an Angel.
You know he's not a God because he can be punished.
Like any subdivine figure. And and then this line they said
to him, when you saw him, why did you not rise before him?
This kind of blames Metatron a little bit.
You know, it was also a little bit Metatron's fault because
Metatron should have stood up and not let Alicia get the wrong
impression. So you could have that line or
you could not have the blind. But, but in any case, Alicia
caused Metatron to be punished, you know, to suffer in order to
prove that they were not too divine powers, because he had
articulated that very, very dangerous belief.
Now once Metatron is punished, he was given permission to burn
the merits of Ahir. So this is kind of a midaka
neged Midak, a measure for measure punishment.
Alicia caused Metatron to be punished.
So Metatron gets to take revenge and punish Ahir.
Metatron was struck with lashes of fire, so he gets to burn out
Akher's merits in return, and again, that seems to be his
function, right? He's described who was writing
the merits of Israel. So here he gets to erase or
destroy the merits of Akher of. Alicia, this this one Jew you
know. And once he's done that, Akher
Alicia loses all reward for meets vote, right?
He's lost all credit for meets, vote, and therefore what?
You know he can never get to heaven.
You know he's consigned to, you know, whether the rabbis think
you're going to go to Gehenna or hell or just to be destroyed,
you know he's not going to get to Alam haba.
And not only that, a heavenly voice went out and said to him,
return rebellious children. Except Akhir, right?
It's a quote from a verse near Miyahu and Jeremiah Shuvu, Banim
Shuvavim. Everybody can do chuvo, right?
We know all Jews can do chuvo. We're supposed to do chuvo every
year on Yom Kippur every day, and that's how you get rid of
sin. But if Alicia can't do chuva,
he's stuck. He's got no merits and he can't
do chuvo for his sins. So at the end of the day, he's
going to be a Russia and there's no way for him to escape that
fate, no way for him to get to Alam Haba, he.
Has no incentive to improve because.
That's right. So the story is going to
continue with him doing evil and so on.
We'll get to that in a minute because after all, he's he's got
no, you know, he's got no options, he's got no reason to
be good. He's got no reason to be mitzvot
to mitzvot anymore because they're all burnt out and he
can't do shuba. And we'll just look at the next
scene of the story, 'cause it's important for understanding the
CEFTA 2 and then we'll we'll go back to the CEFTA, so the story
of the bobbly continues he. Said that as Alicia said, since
that man, that is since I again the 3rd for the first person.
Since that man has been banished from that world.
I will go and enjoy myself in this world.
I've got no way to get to a Llama BA.
No merits, no ability to do Chuva.
So why should I do meets vote. Why should I be good in this
world? I'll go be ahead in this.
You know I might as well. And Arthur went out to evil
ways. Literally evil growth Targoutra.
I think it's important it uses this term.
It's not the most common term, but why would it be evil growth
going back to? The yeah is this.
Is this part of the shoots? Yeah, so this is going back to
the shoots will be. So he went out to evil growths
evil ways. In modern Hebrew the words are
boot means culture, but in the in the in Rabbinic Hebrew it
means you know it means growth. So he went out to evil growth.
He found a certain prostitute. He propositioned her.
She said to him. Are you not Alicia Benabuya,
whose name went out throughout the world?
Aren't you the famous sage Alicia Benabuya?
Everybody's heard of this great sage.
Why are you propositioning me a prostitute?
He uprooted a radish. On the Sabbath and gave it to
her. Uproot are we?
Is the uproot thing maybe another kind of?
Could be, could be another cutting the shoots.
Another cutting. The shoots are like, a little.
Yeah, OK. And then she said, it's another
right? It is Akher.
It can't be Alicia Benabuya, because Alicia Benabuya would
not violate Shabbat if you uproot a plant, right?
It's the kind of gardening, it's it's forbidden on the Sabbath.
So he proves to her that that he is not, it's not Alicia.
And then she says, oh, it's another Akher.
So here we get a kind of ideology and origin of the name
Akher. How did he get the name Akher?
You know, this prostitute said, oh, you're you're another
person, you're not Alicia Benabuja.
So that's that's how we got the sobriquet or the nickname of
Akhir. So professor, when you look at
this, it's so interesting. We have here 2 interpretations.
We have the interpretations of the Yoshami.
We have the interpretations of the Paasley completely
different. Completely different.
Because even even like, there's nothing that you can compare
them. It's just it's meaning like
completely two different distinct directions.
Yeah, you're right, because neither of them really
understood the Tosefta. And so they they they made the
best they could to to make sense of it and you know, they went in
certain directions. We will see a little later.
When we do the other podcast about the Ursami and the badly.
There is something in common between the two.
They did have a kind of shared tradition, but but not really in
this section. OK, but so you make a a good
observation. You know it's like two different
midrashim, right? You can.
Interpret A. Biblical verse.
So, so it's it's just it's interesting to me that when
people want to take these for what it's worth historically it
it becomes it's you know like what do you.
So because the Bavli was more popularized, so the Bavli, the
Bavli version kind of got popularized.
So then that's what happened and you know, but if you look into
your Xiaomi it's it's not at all what happened, but that's OK
because it just never gained as much popularity.
I mean, that's really where it's how it's ended up.
And you also mentioned in your in the previous podcast we did
with you about the different gear Saut and the you know we're
not supposed to look at these things historically because you
see that each version is trying to teach like a different
lesson. You should learn all of them and
try to understand all trying to tell us because for example the
Bob Lee will use the backdrop of like a Bait me Josh where it
wasn't originally because that was their their culture so so I
think that's that's important to.
Point out 100%. In other words, any rabbinic
story, rabbinic stories about Rabbi Akiba, rabbinic stories
about Rabbi May, or all those rabbinic traditions, as we
explained before, are not meant to be historical or
biographical. They're closer to what we would
call didactic fiction, you know, with the asterisk that fiction,
history, biography, and antiquity did not exist in
exactly the same way that we conceptualize them today.
But so any Ribbinic story, even the ones about Ribbin, you know,
should not be understood historically, biographically,
but, you know, call the Homer. This one because these ones we
see exactly where they come from, and they come from
interpretation of an earlier source.
You know the others. And some of the other ones, we
don't know exactly where they come from.
Sometimes we do. Here we see clearly that there's
a Tosefta. Here we see clearly there's a
Tosefta, and we see clearly that the babbling Nyushalmi are
trying to interpret over here. It's clear as day.
I understand. So there.
Is any historical or biographical kernel.
It's in the Tosefta, but you know, even that we should
understand is probably a later tradition and meant to tell a
lesson about this kind of mystical speculation.
You know, even the Tosefta is far removed.
From the original Alicia, you know, we just have no idea, but
certainly you know 100% the bobbly in your shop.
Alicia Benabuya is basically the archetype for teaching this.
It's a tool to teach a specific lesson about apostasy or heresy.
Exactly. And actually, we'll see the
Bobbly is going to use it. Really, for teaching a different
lesson and your shop, you're teaching different lessons.
But it does exactly become a tool.
For right, Benji's words would hold for the Tosefta.
Well. It's yeah, the Tosefta does
teach that there's a danger in mystical speculation, but again,
it doesn't tell us really that much about.
What it really is possible? But once you get into the
bottling, like what what comes like, you know, all the stories
that start following it goes in a completely different
direction. It's not even discussing
mysticism. It's it's, it's right.
It's, it's, it's going to start. Posing completely different
questions. Exactly, exactly.
We'll get to that. Let's just look again what I
want to make one thing clear. We'll we'll get back to that
other slide. But so in other words, we can
see how the bobly interprets the Tosefta.
If you look at these two columns, right.
So the Tosefta says Alicia gazed and cut the chute.
So in the bobly, what is the gaze?
Well, and it says it opens. What did he?
See. He saw Mechatron cut the chutes,
as you guys already correctly figured out.
The Bobly understands is went out to evil ways or growth, went
out to evil growth and then uprooted the radish.
Those are both attempts to interpret the toseft as cutting
the chutes. How did his mouth lead him into
sin? He said Perhaps they're 2
powers, right? He he voiced or articulated this
heretical dualistic speculation. So that was a mouth articulating
A theological sin. You might say the Angel or
malach in the verse is clearly Metatron.
You know, we didn't get that in your Shalmi.
The Bahui's doing a better job, if you ask me, of interpreting
all the data that it has in the Tosefta, do not say before the
malach that it was an error. I think that's being interpreted
as, you know, do not repent. In other words, you akher cannot
say, oh, I made a mistake, Let me do Chuva.
No. You can't.
You can't repent. No God being angered in the in
the verse is being is Metatron being punished.
You know he was angry at Metatron or I guess you could
say angry at Alicia too by his talk.
Again the talk is the mouth leading him into sin.
Perhaps there are two powers and destroy the work of your hands.
As we said Masaya Dekha. Masaya daf work of your hands
often refers to meets vote or the merit of meets vote.
So how did the work of Alicia's hands get destroyed?
His merits, his cuyote, the mixed vote he did were destroyed
by Mechatron. So almost everything in the
Tosefta and the verse from Cohelate that is quoted gets
interpreted in the Bobly to create this kind of scenario.
The Bobly really does a great job.
Here I have to say. May I may I say that you're
you're you're mentioning that the Bawi does a better job.
I'm wondering if, see, there's an intuitive notion over here
with the Bawi because it's it's it's talking more to the point
of the of the Tosefta, which is the mystical experience, which
is right that I think that's why you're saying it's doing a
better job. So, well, better job 'cause it's
it's, it's consistent with that mystical background.
And also 'cause it, it takes into account more of the verse
and the Tosefta. Right, right.
The Yoshami, what it did with the verse is really out there.
I hear you. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. The Yoshami took into account
parts of the verse, but we'll look at that in a minute.
But dropped, but dropped the stuff about Metatron or an
Angel? No Angel appeared in the
Yoshami. So I'm wondering if the if the
because in general, as a whole the Yoshami tends to be again
pun intended I guess, but sort of demystified as opposed to the
Bavli. The Yoshami doesn't talk about
demons much. The Yoshami doesn't.
The Yoshami doesn't seem interested so much in, you know
mystical speculation as much as the Bavli which which you'll see
a lot of shades in, you'll see a lot of angels.
So I'm wondering if kind of like the character of of the
Babylonians of the Bavli and the character of the Yoshami
contributed to their way of interpreting.
Yeah, it's possible. I mean, it's very possible.
I think this notion that the Ursami doesn't have as many
angels and demons as the Bobly might be a little exaggerated.
There's definitely less in the Ursami, but the Ursami is a
shorter text. You know this?
This, I think this goes back to the scholar Lewis Ginsburg who
was trying in a famous essay was trying to explain differences
between the Bob and urshami. There are a lot of.
Demons that appear in the. Urshami maybe they're more in
the bodily cause. Babylonia, you know, and
Zoroastrianism and Persian, Iranian culture, they they
thought more about demons. But there's definitely in the
Urshami. Everybody in antiquity believed
in demons and angels. It might be there's less of the
mystical speculation in the in the Urushami it might be the
bodily continued the hello traditions a little more
although I think we have texts from arits Israel about them so
it it's possible what you're saying is true.
I'm I'm. I'm just not sure.
Fair, Fair.
It could be. I'm wrong.
I I'm not. No exponential.
I mean, I know you could. I heard these ideas floating
around, so I was kind of just bringing it up.
But you're much more familiar than me.
I'll take your word for it. Yeah, and one thing that's
standing out to me, obviously is like, it's really jumping out at
me is the whole prostitute narrative.
Yeah. Well, again, that that that
prostitute marriage is prostitute.
Narrative is funny because it might even be a kind of comical
element in it, but it's the Bodley's understanding of what
someone would do who's got no motivation to be a good person.
Why would you not just try to enjoy yourself, pleasure
yourself eating, drinking? Why would you observe me?
So why would you observe the sexual prohibitions?
So the Bodley, you know, kind of.
Almost logically, I mean, there's some, you know, there's
some kind of reason to this. You know, if you if you think
there's no nothing to work for, you've got no chance of getting
any sort of heavenly reward, so. Yeah, you might.
You might go out and. And and be ahead in this.
SO11 interesting observation is that you know in the ancient
world especially prostitutes were kind of like this shows
that prostitutes actually new stuff like here she's even she
knows like Kalaha she knows who she knows who is Why because
because people would who would go visit prostitutes they they
would talk they would speak to them they would tell them.
Stuff. I think you're being a little
more, a little too historical. I think this is this is the
bobly imagining a kind of prostitute who's knowledgeable
about Jewish law. But again, it's for the purpose.
Of no, it's it's it's just funny that he, he, it's interesting
that he goes to a prostitute and is having this conversation like
he propositions her, like, yeah, you have to do anything.
It's strange. Yeah, well, he propositioned her
as the typical bobly phrase for what you say to a prostitute.
You know, it's like, but but yeah, but the whole scene is
really to prove, to provide the explanation of of, of cutting
the shoots, uprooting the radish and then getting the name Akhir
because the prostitute thinks it's the other it.
Also, just to segue the name. It shows what kind of company
he's keeping meaning that's how far down he's gone that he's.
With Yeah, exactly. OK all.
Right, I want to do. I want to do.
One other thing here, you're going to have to reorder the cut
and paste. Is that OK in your editing?
It's OK. Yeah.
'Cause I I forgot to do this. With the Urushami so.
You can even go back. It doesn't have to be cut and
paste. We'll just keep this in.
It's fine. Yeah, no, yeah.
So here again so let's pretend you know we're we're we're we're
just dealing with the Urushami. So, so let's let's just review
the Urushami and illustrate how the Urushami understands and so
SEPTA and the verse that it quotes.
So again this is to make clear just how the Yuoshami is
interpreting the SEPTA. Where the Tosefta says gaze, the
Yuoshami says you would kill every student to be saw
distinguish himself in Torah. Cutting the shoots the Yuoshami
understands as killing the young students of Torah.
I should also say also cutting, cutting them off from Torah,
that is telling them to abandon the Torah.
Letting your mouth lead you into sin is in that third story, in
the second. Story where he says.
Now what are they doing here? The students should go away, and
in the third story, it's where he tells the persecutors make
them carry individually to violate Shabbat, not two at a
time. Or make them carry flasks which
they can't sit down. Now it doesn't seem that the
Yershami interprets those other parts of the verse.
I mean, it's OK that Yershami could have thought it was only
the first part of the verse that was relevant to the 1st and the
last. Part.
And then God may be angered by your talk as above.
That's him saying, you know, saying those things.
I forgot the last line there and destroy the work of your hands.
You know, as we said, destroying the work of your hands was
destroying the meets vote that the Jews were doing and possibly
just destroying the children. So again, this I think makes
clear again, you know, just in a more tabular form that your Sami
is really interpreting the Tosefta.
Along different lines. And doesn't really have
independent traditions about what Alicia did.
Fantastic. Yeah, so you could you could
splice that in and edit it or I guess you could leave it at the
end or you could just submit it if you don't think it's helpful
at all, it's. Definitely helpful.
I don't think we need. AI don't think it needs to be
edited. I think we could just leave it
as is because it's part of the anyway.
All right. So, so you can see, you know,
but really both like you said, both stories go in different
ways but they both really go back to the SEPTA and then what
we'll what we'll do and subsequent subsequent podcasts,
subsequent you know recordings is in one we'll have to do the
Ursami because it's a very long story you know.
It'll take a while. And then in a separate 1, the
Bavli. And then, you know, we could
even think about a third one about other traditions.
But you know, much of it goes back to the Tosefta and the
verse that gets spun out. You know, medrashically almost
in different ways to generate these different pseudo
biographical traditions about what Alicia did.
And we're going to get into the motivations behind the way the
Bavli and the Ushami characterized Ahir, right?
That's going to be part of it. Yeah, we'll get into what the
Bavli and Ushami want to want to explore, want to teach through
the figure of of Usher. I think of Ahir.
I think they. You know, they go in different
directions, but they use it for their own purposes because, you
know, like you said, they weren't so interested in this
mystical speculation anymore. Or if they were, they weren't,
You know, they weren't generating traditions for the
Talmuds that really went into that in detail.
They thought that should be esoteric.
They thought that should be secret.
And therefore when they had these sources in so SEPTA which
they had interpreted initially in those.
Ways that we saw today. They then took it to work out
different things that they were interested in, and they thought
that their audience of rabbis and students would be interested
in. And I'm that's what we're going
to get into eventually. Yeah.
I'm I'm very interested in the student aspect which is Robby
Mayer who you know he stays loyal to his teacher even after
his apostasy and he kind of never gives up on him and he
still learns from him and he and and then like offers just of
trying to push him away. He doesn't want him.
So I find that to be interesting because cutting off the shoots
doesn't really apply to every mayor.
So I find it very fascinating. Right.
Well, again, yeah, that's true. That's true in the Bobly.
Remember, it didn't take cut the shoots in terms of killing
students or cutting them off from Torah.
Yep, as you ever had the mayor in the Bobly.
But you're right. And they were finally it did
take it that way. And you do have traditions of
him and Rebbehr and they were Shami too.
So it didn't didn't take it that far.
Yes, that's true. So we're really looking forward
to it for all of our listeners. You know, this is a a lot to
cover. It's a subject that requires
hours and we can't just put it all on my podcast, but we're
looking forward to this series on Alicia Benablia.
It's such a fascinating topic and we want to thank you
Professor for coming on again. We really enjoyed talking to you
as usual and looking forward to the next podcast.
All right, great pleasure. We'll we'll do it when we can.
I feel like I just left the sheer right now.
Thank you so much. This is incredible.
Yeah, my pleasure. Bye.
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