Welcome to Judaism Demystified, a podcast for the perplexed.
We are joined once again by Professor Jeffrey Rubenstein.
This is the third episode in a row featuring Professor
Rubenstein because we are doing a series on Alicia Benabuya.
This is the third and final installment, so we highly
recommend you guys going back and listening to the previous
two episodes if you haven't already.
We've gotten tremendous feedback and we are really, really
enjoying this. So without further ado.
Professor Rubenstein, thank you for joining the Judaism
Demystified podcast. Doctor Rubenstein, we really
appreciate you making the time during all these hours on on
this subject. And before we finish this third
and final installment about Alicia Benabuya, we wanted to
ask you about yourself because people are listening for hours
already and I'm sure they want to know about you a little bit.
Like, how did you get into this? What What attracted you to
stories of of the Agada and so on?
Yeah, that's a good question. And 1st, thank you for having
me, and thank you for the series and popularizing Torah in
general in this way and my work. And it's a it's a pleasure to be
here. I I actually got into comedic
stories, romantic stories totally by accident, purely
serendipitously. I I started out my my graduate
work. My PhD work was with Professor
David Weiselitny Zikranali Raha. He died recently and he was a
great Talmudist. He was one of the world's
greatest living Talmudist at that time, but he was very
interested in traditional Talmud analysis of Sugiyo development
of Jewish law. I studied with him, but I
actually wrote my PhD my dissertation on more of a
historical topic because I was interested in more sort of
broader issues than just something kind of within the
Talmud. So I wrote it on the history of
Sukkot in the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud, which
incorporated a great deal of Mishnah and Talmud, but also a
kind of historical focus and many other sources.
So that's what I was working on. And then I was also working on
some just purely Talmudic issues with the development of what we
would call legal science. That is the move toward
abstraction that you find in Talmudic law, which itself is
its own kind of very complicated area.
So I was, I was doing all that. But one source that I was
analyzing in my study of Sukkot was a very interesting long not
a da, really a story at the beginning of Tractate Avada Zara
of the Babylonian Talmud, which which has to do with really what
happens when the next World happens.
And Akadish borahu, it starts out, God comes and takes a safer
Torah. And he says everybody who was
busy with safer Torah, with Torah come and receive their
award and the Romans come and the Persians come.
Everybody wants to claim it. Anyway, it's a long, very, very
interesting story. But at the end, God gives the
Romans, the Gentiles, really a test of a mitzvah to see if they
can observe the mitzvah now. And that mitzvah is the sukkah.
They're supposed to observe the mitzvah of sukkah.
So this was relevant to my dissertation.
I just tried to figure out why the sukkah.
Why this one? Why not another one?
How does that tell us about the history of Sukkot?
But meanwhile, I'm working on this text from Avidasarak, and
it's a beautifully constructed story, and I started noticing
some of these literary aspects of it.
And I didn't really know what to do with this because the kind of
literary story study of rabbinic narratives of rabbinic stories
was kind of under its infancy. But it was done by one
professor, a great professor at Hebrew University, Yonah
Frankel, who had started applying literary analysis to
stories in a pretty sophisticated way.
So I started reading a lot of Frankel.
I was reading also Jacob Noosner, a scholar, and also
decided stories were not historical.
They were what we would call fiction or literature.
And at this point I decided this was going to be my next project
once I was done with Sukkot. If you've ever written a
dissertation, you know a lot of people who who write
dissertations after they're done with it or done with them
publishing the book and maybe some articles, they never want
to see that subject again. They're totally sick of it.
They've had enough. I've had enough.
So I needed another thing to research it.
I I sort of gravitated these stories.
And what was very interesting is that I thought no one had really
analyzed these stories with the source critical methodology that
my teacher, David Weiselitny had developed.
That method, your critical Talmud method, had been applied
mainly to legal passages, not so much to narratives, to stories.
And so my idea was to combine this kind of literary analysis
that Jonah Frankel was doing with this kind of source,
critical or critical Talmud analysis that my teacher David
Weisselifny was doing and see what would happen.
And it seemed to pay off some good differences, you know, as I
think I was able to show kind of a lot of how the stories work in
the Bobly, where they come from, how the Bobly revised earlier
sources, as they do with legal passages and yet how the stories
are sophisticated, legal, sophisticated literary products,
literary creations with a theme and an and an art in and of
themselves. So that was how it all happened,
just totally by kind of chance. Fascinating.
I I just want to make a point. A lot of people sadly and
misunderstanding with with with with a misunderstanding as to
what analyzing agadot via the the literary unit as a a
literary unit versus a historical reality.
The tendencies to think that that lowers the reverence that
one would have towards these agadot where in fact I look at
it as completely the opposite. You gain reverence when you see
the incredible detail and purpose, purposefulness in every
word and every choice that they make and how they develop these
stories. It it brings you to understand
that they had grand ideas in mind that they were trying to
communicate via this method. Yeah, you're you're 100% right.
And you know, the the notion that these are kind of meant to
be historical and just tell you about the lives and deeds of the
sages actually takes away from them, 'cause that wasn't what
the authors intended. They weren't.
They weren't interested so much in what Ravi Kiba did on this
day. You're on Shabbat here.
They were interested in communicating messages forever,
you know, larger messages that would be eternally relevant.
And they did that by telling stories of the struggles of the
sages. But we were supposed to learn
from them, not just, you know, what happened, but what the
literary unit is trying to tell us.
And let's let's move on to the next phase in our story of
Alicia Benavuya. So just for the listeners, we
recorded these three episodes. Like each one is separated by a
few months, so we we're not even remembering exactly what we
spoke about the first time, but I believe we touched.
On. I believe we did touch on some
of the we. Did the Yurasani vantage point
of this? Story, right.
But I think some of some of what you're about to present is also
going to be what I think it was probably touched on in the
first. So first we did the Tosepa,
which remembers that companion volume to the Mishnah where
really the whole story of Alicia originates, and we had a whole
unit on that. And then we did the Yerushami.
So as we saw in the first unit or the first of these series,
I'll very briefly refer to that. But the bodily story, what is
the beginning of the bodily story that we're going to look
at right now is really a interpretation of this Tosefta
parrot passage that is very, very cryptic.
So the Tosefta passage talks about four sages who went to the
Pardes, some sort of mystical endeavor or speculation, and
different things happen to all of them.
But you know, right at the top you could see the Tosefta says
Akher gazed and cut the chutes. Or Alicia gazed and cut the
chutes. What that means again we talked
about in that episode about him Scripture says let not in your
mouth lead you into sin. And do not say before the Angel
or messenger the malach that it was an error, else God may be
angered by your talk and destroy the work of your hands.
That's all that the SEPTA says. And this is very, very difficult
to understand. And it was clear by the time of
the Talmuds, both the Ursami and the Babli, they no longer
understood what this was talking about and they did their best to
interpret it through a story. So the first two sections of
what's going to become a long story in the Bhavli is an
interpretation of this Tosefta. So just to run through this
briefly, because again, you should refer to that episode
where we did this in detail. The Bhavli story starts in this
section. One, what did he see?
What did Akher see? He saw Metatron, to whom was
given permission one hour each day to sit and write the merits
of Israel. So he somehow had a heavenly
vision or he went up to heaven. He saw this Angel Metatron
writing the merits of Israel. He said it is taught on high.
There is no standing and no sitting and no jealousy and no
rivalry and no back and no weariness.
So he had a tradition about what's going on in heaven, but
it says there's no sitting. And here Metatron apparently was
sitting because he says, perhaps heaven forbid, there are two
divine powers, right? Metatron had permission to sit
and write the merits of Israel, of Israel, but he has a
tradition that there's no sitting, no one else except God
could sit. So maybe Metatron is a God.
He says perhaps they're two divine powers.
So that's his sin. It was kind of kind of dualism,
or we would call it heresy. Immediately they brought on
Metatron and struck him with 60 lashes of fire.
So they punished Metatron to show Alicia he wasn't a God.
They said to him, to Metatron, when you saw him, why did you
not rise before him? That occurs in some manuscripts
in the printed version, not all texts, but OK, They said to
Metatron you were kind of at fault.
Now he was given permission to burn the merits of Ahir.
So since Ahir caused Metatron to be punished as proof he wasn't a
God, Metatron was given permission to burn out Akher's
merits. Nidaka, naked midak measure for
measure. A heavenly voice went out and
said to him, return rebellious children except Akher.
So this whole scenario you could see is very strange.
But here the Rabbis are trying to understand what the Tecefta
means. So how did Alicia's mouth let
him lead him into sin? Because he said, oh maybe
there's no perhaps they're two divine powers.
His mouth said a sin. And don't say before the malach
it was an error. Who is the malach?
The malach is metatron And destroying the work of your
hands. Another meaning of work of your
hands is your merits, your scooyote.
It's the good deeds you do. So the work of Alicia's merits
were were destroyed. OK, we're going to see the
interpretation flows into the next section, but you can
already see this very convoluted and bizarre scenario.
It's just an attempt to make sense of the Tosefta, yeah.
Question for the viewers What's the time gap between the Tosefta
and the bubbly? Well, the Testa is a little
later than the Mishnah. So you know, the mission is
about 200 to 20 C edited by Ravi Hooda Nasi.
That's just after maybe 50 years later, 30 years later.
It's all Tony Itic. It's only got traditions from
the same period. But maybe it was edited a little
later. Now the Bodley, we don't know.
It could be couple, 100 years later, 300 years later.
I mean it was it was edited or redacted in like 606 fifty.
You know, we don't know exactly. So story could have developed
over the course of a long time. Right.
So, so your point of departure would be that they're not trying
to necessarily give the answer towards what the TOSEFTA means,
but rather giving or but rather utilizing the TOSEFTA in order
to open up certain certain certain ideas that they want to,
they want to bring attention to within the context of the things
that they're going. Through yeah, the.
The problems that are that are existing in their times.
Yeah, it's a good question. You say, what are they doing
here? Well, they're doing two things,
yes. On the one hand, they're trying
to make sense of the Tosefta cause, whatever it meant
originally, they seem no longer to have access of.
But they are, as you say, all stories, good stories, are
relevant to their their audience and the time in which they're
told. Otherwise they wouldn't be
preserved. They nobody would care.
So they're also trying then to make sense of something that
would resonate with their time. And we'll see what that is in a
minute, OK? Is the fact that the Urushalmi
has a different take as to what these mean for you enough proof
to say that they're they're trying to figure out the Tosefta
versus relating their tradition of how to understand that
Tosefta? Well, the Yorosami, yeah, the
Yorosami made sense of the Tosefta in a different way.
Yeah. I mean, they had a totally
different scenario and about what Akhir did, about what this
all means. And that tells me, yeah, the
tradition of exactly what the Tosefta meant was lost.
After all, it's cryptic. When you talk about mystical
things, you sometimes you don't want to say it openly because
you don't want just everybody to know it's esoteric, it's secret.
It's something that only the. Yeah, yeah, it's something only
the word they should know. But then sometimes your
tradition gets cuts off and no one remembers what it meant.
That seems to have happened a little bit here.
All right. So let's do the second section
and we'll just review so that that we'll talk about this whole
thing in a minute. So in the second section he said
that as Alicia said, since that man, meaning since I this is
comedic style talk about yourself in the third person.
Since I have been banished from that world, the next World, I'll
go and enjoy myself in this world.
Why is he banished from the next World?
Because his merits have been destroyed and he hasn't been and
and he's no longer able to repent.
So there's no way he can do good deeds, and any sin he does is
going to just be there for him after death.
So he's basically been excluded from the world to come.
So he realizes that, OK, I've got no share in the world to
come, so I might as well enjoy myself in this world.
I think that's a very rational point of view.
If we knew we weren't trying to do good deeds and revote and
and, you know, be obedient to get to the next World, now why
wouldn't we just go out and enjoy ourselves anyway?
Even if we wouldn't think that way, I think it's plausible that
someone would. Akar would.
So Akar went out to evil ways. The Hebrew is tarbut raha.
So he went out to evil growth. I'll come back to that in a
minute. Why?
It's important. And he found a certain
prostitute. He's going to go have fun.
He propositioned her and she said to him, are you not Alicia
Benabuja, whose name went out throughout the world?
You're a famous rabbi. What are you doing?
Propositioning me. So he uprooted a radish on the
Sabbath and gave it to her. So we violate Shabbat.
And she said it is another. It is Ahir.
It's not Alicia Benabuya. So this is an ideology, a story
of origin of his name. How did he get the name Ahir?
Here's how he got it. He he showed the prostitute.
He wasn't a rabbi, he was some other man.
And she said, ah, someone else. So he got the name Ahir here.
Now it's it's a very, again, a kind of very unusual scenario.
A little bit, but again, it's going back to the Tosefta.
So cut the shoots in the Tosefta, which is not clear.
What it means is, is this uprooting of the radish.
You know, what does cut the chute mean?
He cut off a radish. So that's how we cut off the
radish and shoots too, which is some sort of growth, right.
That's why he went out to evil ways.
But it uses the word growth. So you know there was some sort
of evil growth that he was he was involved in.
So this continues the efforts to explain parts of the Tosefta.
Part of it was in this first section he gazed.
What did he see? Mala Metatron mouth led him into
sin. God being angered and cutting
the shoots is kind of explained here with the word occur.
So you know, like we saw in the first session, I encourage
everybody to go back. You know, we went through this
kind of table where all the parts of the Tosefta and the
verse that the Tosefta quotes are explained by the bodily in
this narrative scenario. OK.
And and that's how the not the bodily generates this scenario
by explaining the Tosefta. OK.
So that that's the beginning of the Bobly story.
But what the Bobly has done through the story is, as you
say, Ben see, you know, we're trying to address or make a
story that's relevant to their own concerns.
It has created the figure of a great sage.
I mean, we'll see how great he is in a minute.
The prostitute already says you're such a great sage, your
name is famous. So someone who obviously knows a
great deal of Torah, but who is now precluded from the next
World and therefore embarked on a life of sin, because why not?
You know you're not going to get to the next World.
So this raises the question for the Bavli are the merits of
Torah study intrinsic, inviolable, or can you lose
them? That is, the rabbis think Torah
study in the Bavli especially is the greatest thing anybody can
do. Tamu Tarak and AE Kulam.
Greater than all the other mitts vote.
They make exaggerated statements.
The Torah was why God created the world.
The Torah was the blueprint for creation.
OK, so if you've learned Torah, the rabbis want to know, could
you ever learn that merit first of all?
And how could you ever sin? That is, once you know Torah,
shouldn't that Torah protect you from sin?
I mean, shouldn't that Torah have its own positive effects?
That you would never become a Sinner and it's hard for them to
envision a great rabbi actually sinning?
Sure, he could do one sin or two sins, or, you know, a few sins,
but could he actually become? A.
Total Sinner, right? A heinous Sinner.
Someone who rejects it all, who throws away Judaism.
Having learned Torah. Now what they do here is
construct A plausible way this would kind of happen.
How would it happen that a great tourist sage would become a
Sinner? Well, he made a little mistake.
He said the wrong thing, and you know, it was an innocent almost
mistake. He got confused by his
tradition. He said maybe there are two
powers. Megatron was punished because of
that. Then Megatron wiped out his
slyote and he was his merits. He wasn't allowed to repent.
So you know, it was very unfortunate, but we have a
plausible construction of a rabbi who no longer can be
eligible for the world to come and therefore goes out to sin.
And I want everybody, you know, to understand you could see his
sins here are, you know, they're basically we would say Ben
Adamma Macomb, right. These aren't stealing and
killing. I mean, violating Shabbat
because he doesn't care about observing Shabbat anymore.
And, you know, it's not even incest or adultery.
It's, you know, consorting with the prostitute.
I'm not saying it's good, right? But in terms of the scale of
sin, it's not the worst thing in the world.
If you remember the Yorashami, he had much greater sins there.
Yes. Yes.
OK. Bob Lee is, you know, it's
because it's constructed to him in this way.
It's sort of great tourist stage who somehow lost his share in
the world to come and therefore, you know, logically figured I
might as well enjoy myself here. Why am I saying, well, he he he
went out and became a Sinner, but it wasn't Even so bad.
OK, so that's happened now. Now the rest of the story, in my
opinion, is trying to answer this conundrum.
Will, can Alicia Benabuya really lose his merit for Torah and
descend into sin, which is something the Rabbis might be
concerned about for themselves? Could we ever, you know,
envision us experiencing this fate?
Or is the Torah he learned ultimately going to prevail
somehow despite everything that happened?
Because they believe Torah is just so great and and and has
such positive effects? OK, so that's what I think is
their main question in the story.
That's not what the toseft is about at all.
But the rallies aren't interested in what the toseft is
about. They're interested in something
else, the rabbis of the bottling.
So they're they've done their work in interpreting the
Tosefta, but as you say, they've done it in a way that it is
going to be relevant and important to them.
OK, so let's go on now to Section 3.
Yeah, the. Beautiful.
No, I I just said beautiful. Beautiful.
So in Section 3 we have 3 dialogues between Alicia and
Rebbie Mayer, which is which are author and Rebbie Mayer, which
is already kind of interesting because Rebbie Mayer is not
giving up on Alicia despite all this thing that's happened.
So that that is another sort of sub question in the, in the, in
the, in the, in the story. That is, if you do have a sage
who's sinning like Alicia Benabuya, should you even learn
Torah from him or would you get corrupted?
But at least here it seems that may or will learn Torah.
But so let's see their dialogues.
You can see another thing. I'm not sure we'll fully have
time to explore this, but you can see Section 3 ABC this this
story is a very, very beautiful literary structure.
Section 4 there five, and then I've labeled this four prime, 3
prime, 2 prime, one prime. It has what we call a chiastic
structure where the first part corresponds to the last part,
the second part to the second to last to the third to the last,
third to the last. So it's it's actually a very,
very polished and beautiful literary structure and you have
these internal units of three as we'll see within it.
I don't know if we'll have total time to unpack all of this, but
I I wanted to mention I hope you don't hope it's OK.
There are a couple really I think fine studies of this One
is a a book by if you could see this a long gush and gutstein
called The Sinner and the Amnesiac.
Does that show up to you guys at all?
OK and. It it's blurry, but you know
what? We we can add it to the
description, right? OK, and the other is my book,
Tell Munich's stories. I guess that's also blurry.
OK, I've blurred this background, but anyway, so in
both of these you'll find much more detailed discussion of all
of this. Also, on my NYU website I have a
long article on this very story if you're if you're interested.
Anyway, let's look at these dialogues between Akh and Rabi
Maher. So after he went out to evil
ways, Akhar asked Rabi Maher. So Rabi Maher already knows
Akhir is sinning, violating Shabbat, consorting with
prostitutes, but he's still hanging out with him.
Why? Well, because as we'll see,
Akhar's Torah is still so precious.
So he asked Rebbe Mayer what is written, the one no less than
the other, is God's doing OK? He quotes him a verse from
Cohellet, from the Bible, and he says, what does this verse mean?
And Mayer answers everything that God made.
He made its counterpart. He made mountains.
He made hills. He made seas, He made rivers.
OK, that's what the one no less than the other is God's doing.
Now, Mayer's answer, I think, is very ordinary.
That is, it's a boring, straightforward understanding of
this verse. Yeah, God made mountains and
hills and and and seas and rivers, OK, you know, great.
So this shows Mayor's inferiority to Akher because
Akher's going to come back with a better explanation.
He said to him, that is Akher, Alicia said to Mayor Akiba, your
master did not say this. You know there's a better
explanation from your own master.
You don't know it or you didn't. You forgot it.
I know it rather. He made righteous, He made
wicked. He made the Garden of Eden.
He made Gehenna. Each and every person has two
portions, one in the Garden of Eden and one in Gehenna.
The righteous man, having earned merit, takes his portion and the
portion of his fellow in the Garden of Eden.
The wicked man, having been found guilty, takes his portion
and the portion of his fellow in Gehenna.
Now, this is a very interesting but also problematic
interpretation. I mean, first of all, it's it's,
it's, it's, it's it's a better explanation than Meyer because
it's so novel, it's so innovative.
What does it mean? The one no less than the other
is God's doing. He made righteous and wicked and
Johannam and Garden of Eden. And you know, so this is a much
better explanation. So This is why Reverend Meyer is
still trying to learn from Akher.
Akher, even though he's a Sinner, still has this great
Torah and Mayer still wants to learn it.
Now the very fact that it's a better explanation, there's
there's more to it than that. It's also I think probably self
referential. That is the the the thing that
Akher was accused of was basically a kind of dualism. 2
powers, heaven forbid, the two divine powers and usually two
divine powers is the power of good and the power of evil.
You know, that's that's the classic dualism, which is of
course a good explanation of why there's evil in the world.
This Zoroastrians believe, there's lots of dualistic
religions believe this. But here Akher is saying God
made righteous and the wicked, He made the Garden of Eden and
he made the heaven, He made the good things, he made the bad
things. So Akher is basically saying, I
don't accept dualism. And I think the narrators or the
people who made the story, the storytellers are kind of hinting
to us, ah, really wasn't a heretic.
It was a, it was a, it was a, you know, inadvertent
explanation that came out of his mouth.
He didn't mean that he believed in two divine powers.
He was like, why is Vegetron sitting?
And, you know, then he said it and all this.
So it's basically meant to make him a little.
So that's why they emphasize the mouth part.
That's why they said that he sinned with his mouth as opposed
to he sinned. Yeah, I mean the the fact that
he's saying with his mouth is also related to CEFTA.
Do not say before the Angel that it was an error.
You know as God may be angered by your talk your mouth leads
you into sin, you know but but you're right.
But it's hinting that that he that what he what what happened
to him in that sad episode with Metatron was an error.
It was what we would call shogue, you know, or accident it
wasn't. It wasn't part of a hardcore
heresy. OK, so there's a hint at that.
Now, it's also, this is also a very, very problematic theology
by Jewish and rabbinic standards.
The righteous man, having earned merit, takes his portion and the
portion of his fellow in the Garden of Eden.
I mean, we never heard just about anywhere that I know of in
rabbinic literature that something like this happens,
that one person grabs someone else's merits and the wicked man
gets punished for someone else's sin.
So. And and if you look at some of
the gaonium who comment on this story, they actually reject
this. They say this is wrong.
You know, they can't accept this.
This is so you know I think what's going on is they're I
mean I don't fully know what's going on but I think they're
trying to explain well this is unfair and this is a little bit
what happened to Akher. It's unfair again kind of made
it covertly sending us a message that it's really not right that
something like this would happen to Akher.
That a righteous man would lose his his his his portion and that
a that a wicked man even if he does some some good deeds would
would get punished for someone else anyway.
It's it's definitely raising this whole issue of you know
rewards and punishments and so on.
So so I think this this needs a little more investigation.
But anyway OK we have a little again, a parenthetic comment on
the story I'm just going to skip over but basically a later rabbi
kind of glosses this with a proof text.
OK now we we then get to a second discussion between Akka
and Rebbi Mayer. So now Akkar again after he went
out to evil ways again he could see the repetition.
Akkar asks Rebi Mayer what is written.
Gold or glass cannot match its value, nor vessels of fine gold
be exchanged for it. Again, it's sort of interesting
verse, and he's asking Robert Mayer what this means.
This is from the Book of Job. If there is probably wisdom
Hochman, but the rabbis probably understood this is Torah.
So he said. Matt Mayer says this refers to
matter of Torah which are difficult to acquire, like
vessels of gold and vessels of fine gold and easy to lose like
vessels of glass. So this is actually, you know, a
better explanation of the verse that Mayer did the first time.
It doesn't basically just repeat the verse, it actually adds
something to it and might kind of makes an analogy, gold or
glass. Why are they compared to Torah?
Because they're difficult to acquire.
Torah is difficult to acquire and they're easy to lose, like
vessels of glass can break. So he he, he introduces a kind
of analogy. You know, he tells you, in other
words, more than what the verse just says.
And there's trying to up his game here, but it's still
inferior to that of Akher. Akher again responds by God, are
they even like clay vessels? In other words, if you are
comparing words of Torah to different kinds of vessels, gold
glass, you would also have to compare them to clay vessels.
But clay vessels are worthless or cheap, you know.
So we wouldn't want Torah compared to clay vessels.
So I don't like your explanation because it leads you down, you
know, it leads you to a bad place.
OK, we can't we can't accept this.
And and a keeper, your master didn't say thus right it this
wasn't even the explanation of your own teacher that you didn't
know. You didn't learn, you forgot,
which I know. Rather, just as vessels of gold
and vessels of glass, even if they are broken, can be
restored, so a sage, even though he sins, can be restored Now
this is right clearly self referential to the question
we're trying to figure out. Can a sage who sins do
repentance? Always.
Can his Torah prevail? And he would be forgiven.
And Akhar says yeah, he could. So Mayer says to him, Then you
2. Repent, OK, he's clear.
You know, he clearly sees this as self referential, referring
to Akher himself. So you repent.
But Akher says to him, no, for I've already heard from behind
the curtain, the curtain up in heaven return rebellious
children except Akher. So I think this is particularly
tragic because everybody else can repent, but because of this
unfortunate incident with Metatron, Akher can't repent.
And he tells that to mayor. He says, you know, you're right,
You know, I can't. Now mayor probably didn't hear
this. I mean, he obviously wasn't up
there in that heavenly scenario. So after had heard that voice,
but mayor had never heard that voice.
So but now he's apprised of it and you know we the audience and
mayor learn again why he can't repent.
And this is important because the simple the simple solution
for the sage who does sin, if he ever sins, is to repent.
Why not Then you're then you're sage again, you know then you're
back in the in the good. Then you're, you know in good
standing and you you stand to to get to Alam haba.
But the story has to preclude repentance, to preclude that
easy answer, to get to The difficult answer is what
ultimately will happen and will the merit of Torah save you
despite not being able to repent?
OK, now we get to the third story, third dialogue, and it
starts a little differently. Our sages taught and once
happened that Akher was riding this horse on the Sabbath going
on his way and Rabbi Nair was walking after him to learn Torah
from his mouth. So here I think it makes it
explicit what we've been saying. Maher's walking after him
because he needs to learn Torah. So even though this sage is a
Sinner or a heretic, you know a terrible seems to be a terrible
person. Although as we've said, he
wasn't stealing and killing right?
He was violating Shabbat or whatever.
You know Torah is so important, the disciples still wants to
learn. Now this is going to be
questioned later in the story, but for now we are supposed to
understand Torah is so precious you've got to go out and get it.
Even from a problematic teacher, a sinning teacher, a heretical
teacher. So here his teacher is in the in
the in the act of sinning. He's riding horse on Shabbat,
which you're not allowed to do. And in some sources, this is
actually associated with with, with rebellion.
That is, the way you rebel against Judaism or the rabbis is
you ride a horse on Shabbat. Technically, riding a horse on
Shabbat is not the biggest violation of Shabbat.
It's like a Schmutt, or you know, it's not even right or
whatever, but but it it's symbolic.
So he's, he's symbolically riding a horse on Shabbat.
But again, we would say, yeah, he's riding a horse on Shabbat,
'cause it's easier to ride than walk.
So if you're not concerned about violating the laws because
you're you've been precluded from Alam haba, of course you're
going to ride a horse on Shabbat.
You know, just like anybody today who doesn't care about
observing Shabbat, he's going to drive instead of walk to shore
or wherever they're going, right?
So we understand what he's doing, right?
The mayor's trying to learn Torah now, Arthur says to him.
To Mayor, Mayor, turn back Hazor, since I've already
measured by the footsteps of my horse that the Sabbath boundary
is here. You're not allowed to go 2000
cubits outside of your place of rest on the Sabbath.
So. So Mayor has been following
Alicia Benabuya and I guess got so immersed on Toro he didn't
realize he was about to violate Shabbat by violating this law
about not going too far and and and Alicia has to remind him.
So this again shows the greatness of Alicia Benabuya.
He's been somehow monitoring the distance, counting by the
footsteps of his horse while engaged in these discussions of
Torah with Remy Mayer. And you know, he's still
cognizant of of the mitzvah. And he wants he wants Reba Mayor
not to violate it, which is also blurring the lines, I think like
you were mentioning earlier. Is he really as as evil as you
make it when he's actually consciously trying to make sure
marriage does not violate? Yeah, exactly, 'cause he's not
really rebelled against God or, you know, he's like we've seen
in some of the other sources. Of yourself in his own faith.
Yeah, yeah, he knows that he can't do it.
But you know, he's still concerned for his talmid, for
his disciple, right? So it's it's part of the kind of
tragic construction of Alicia Benabuja.
He's not evil. He's tragic, right.
But again, he's a figure to pose this question, you know, sitting
sage question. OK, so he tells mayor, you know,
you go back. And so he said to him, mayor
says to him, then you should repent, then you Hazor.
So again, there's a nice play on Hazor, right?
Hazor. Hazar means both go back, go
back and don't keep travelling. But it also means to repent.
So you go back and and this is all very symbolic, the Sabbath
boundary, you're going outside the community of Torah.
You're breaking the boundaries. You know you're leaving or
you're staying inside. I mean it's very, very, very
symbolic scene. But again, when Mayor says to
Alicia, you Hazor, you turn back from violating Shabbat and you
repent double entendre, you know he says the same thing.
No, I've already heard from behind the curtain return
rebellious children except Akhir.
I can't do it. OK, So again tragic.
OK, so we move on to Section 4. Now in this Mayor took hold of
him. He took hold of Akhir and he
brought him to the House of study.
He said to a child, tell me your study verse.
Now what's going on here is. The way the rabbi sometimes got
a kind of prophecy or you know, intimation of of God's will in
an age after the age of prophecy is to do this.
You would ask a, a, a child what, what verse do you happen
to be studying now? And that verse was like a
message for you. What kind of prophecy we or you
could like open? I mean we have other instances
of this. You could open a book and open a
tanah and stick your finger in and that verse would be
relevant. Or.
If you just were passing by, you know, the outside of a big
message or bait Midrash and you heard a verse from inside that
pasuk, that verse could be relevant to you.
So these were mechanisms like the bot call or, you know, ways
of getting a kind of message. So Mayor hasn't given up on
Alicia yet because he's heard Alicia tell him about this
heavenly voice. You can't, you know, return.
You can't repent. But he himself hasn't heard it.
So I think mayor is still fighting for his rabbi.
He hasn't accepted it even if Alicia has.
So he goes to the Bateman Raj. He says to a child, tell me your
study verse and the child says, he said to him there's no peace,
said the Lord for the wicked. So in other words, this confirms
that Alicia is wicked. What is the relevant verse to
Alicia Achir and to his fate? There's no peace for the wicked.
OK, so this doesn't help, Mayor. The opposite.
It confirms exactly what Alicia said.
God doesn't want any part of me or my repentance.
Mayor doesn't give up. He brought him to another fate,
Midrash. And he says to the child, What's
your voice? The child said to him, though
you wash with natron and use much Lye with kind of soaps,
whatever, your guilt is ingrained before me, declares
the Lord God another verse about Alicia being guilty.
He brought him to another house to study.
The child said to him, and you who are doomed to ruin.
So over and over and over again we're getting no Alicia is
indeed fated for perdition. He brought him to 13 houses of
study. They recited for him in similar
ways. Now 13 is the stock number in
the bobly. It doesn't always mean 13.
It means a lot. Took him to a lot of houses of
study. In the 13th House of study the
child said and to the wicked God said, who are used to recite my
laws and mouth, the terms of my covenant, seeing that you spurn
my discipline and brush my words aside.
Now the word wicked to the wicked is ule Rasha.
But that child stuttered so it sounded as if he said and to
Alicia, God said he said Ule Alicia.
So this is like a a very, first of all this is brilliant
storytelling technique. I mean, can you see how
absolutely brilliant this is? They find a verse that says ule
Rasha and it's like it sounds like Alicia, it's kind of great
word play right there. So it makes it black on white
that that God doesn't want Alicia and doesn't want his
Torah. I mean, this is actually, I
think made it worse. Not only has Alicia not have a
place in the world to come, but who are you to recite my laws
and mouth the terms of my covenant?
I I don't want you even learning Torah.
OK, now now we have something interesting here.
Some say Akher took a knife and cut him up and sent him to 13
houses of study. And some say, Akher said to him,
if I had a knife with me, I would cut you up.
Now this notion of cutting up someone and sending them around,
remember this is in the end of the book of Shoftim where this
happens to the right. So this is playing on that
biblical story, but the. Pillagish Bagiva.
Story Yeah, the pillagish Bagiva story exactly.
But this is the one place where Akhir is portrayed as a real
Sinner by killing a child and and sending him around.
I think this is got into the Bodley by accident based on the
Urshami, because if you remember the Urshami, one of their
explanations of what it meant that cut the shoots was kill
young students of Torah. It was exactly this.
And in that section of of the Urshami he did terrible things.
He collaborated with the Romans, he killed young students, he
sent them away from the Bateman rush.
They made sense of the Urshami in a different way.
So I think this is a kind of gloss that somehow got in based
on the Irshami and then you could see probably some people
in the Bob Lee, some storytellers, you know have him
say if I had a knife with me, I would have cut you up.
So he didn't do anything. You know he just kind of made a
threat that makes him, you know a much more sympathetic figure.
But anyway so I think this is, this is this doesn't really go
the cutting up doesn't really go with the rest of the story.
I think it it doesn't belong here, but OK, whatever.
All right. So then we.
So this makes it absolutely clear to Mayor and the audience,
if they didn't know before that Alicia is, is cannot repent and
is considered a Sinner because of what he did, because Megatron
wiped out all his merits, you know, OK, so now we get to the
crux of the story. And, you know, if we get to the
fact that there's a chiastic structure, this kind of the
central section is this Section 5.
And again, often that is the point of this kind of structure
where the different parts correspond.
To. So we're reaching the apex based
on the kind. That's what I'm saying.
We're reaching the apex right now, OK?
So where are we? OK, so when Arthur died they
said we don't know who the they is but I assume it's angels
cause he's dead right? Let him not be punished and let
him not enter the world to come. Let him not be punished.
Since he studied Torah regularly, let him not enter the
world to come since he sinned. So I think this is like answer
number one for our conundrum or our main question.
What happens when you have a great scholar of Torah who's
then becomes a Sinner, even though that shouldn't happen and
it's very hard to understand how it happens.
But if it does happen, like in Alicia's case, what happens when
he dies? Does he get rewarded?
Or purgatory he's in. Purgatory.
Yeah. Well, it's a kind of stalemate,
I would say. This is a.
Purgatory would be to be in hell.
Yeah. This is this is saying not to
send him to purgatory, but just not to send him to Alamaba.
Yeah, he definitely doesn't get Alamaba right.
Yeah. But he doesn't get the opposite
either. But he doesn't get anything, so
it's kind of sad in a way. He just disappears, right?
Anyway. I think that's that's that's a
plausible answer. That's one answer the
storyteller wants us to entertain.
Well, it could be they kind of balance each other out.
He doesn't go to get him. He could have gone there.
He he'd look at all the sins he did, even if it's just Shabbat
and prostitutes and and so on. But but but no he wouldn't even
get that because of the power of Torah.
So it's already kind of hiddish, right?
It's more than you might have expected.
But then we have something else, Rebbe Mayer said.
When I die, I shall cause smoke to rise from his grave.
When Rebbe Mayer died, smoke rose up from Maher's grave.
Now it's a little difficult to understand what this means, but
I think what mayor is saying, what the storytellers are saying
here, is that, you know, this first answer was unsatisfactory
and it's better that he'd be punished and then be able to get
to Lam Haba. So Mayor said, we don't know how
this happens. Mayor dies and he goes to the
Angels, he goes to, you know, I don't know whoever's responsible
for. Yeah, right.
The mayor is suggesting that instead of letting it cancel
itself out, he should feel the full force of both.
Sides, yeah, the you should pay for the sins so that you can
enjoy along haba. Both sides are, yes, yes, OK.
It's not cancelling out. It's both, right?
It's both. We got to, we got to accept the
fact that he sinned, but he did learn Torah, right?
So I want him to to 1st pay off his sins so that he could get to
Alam haba, you know, and like how mayor did this, I don't
know. But again, this is just
storyteller. I think we're not supposed to
take this literally. Again, this is kind of narrative
theology. It's.
It's a way of. It's a way of.
Of. Of, of, of.
Of it's a way of leading us to theoretical and theological
ideas right now that we're trying to play with play with
the with the theological idea, OK.
Exactly now, Ravi, Yokonon said. Is it a mighty deed to burn
one's master with fire? One was among us, and yet we
cannot save him. If I were to take him by the
hand, who would tear him away from me?
When I die, I will extinguish the smoke from his grave.
So Rebhi Yokonon is not satisfied with this.
And I think this is like answer #3 by our understanding of how
stories work. That is, it's it's it's unfair.
It's it seems bad that a Torah scholar should be punished for
these sins. He after all, he knew Torah, He
was one of us, and we have to save him.
When you say he knew Torah, isn't the point more that Rebhi
Yokonon is saying that a person who learns Torah something
something had to be preserved within him through that learning
that he it? Could be, yeah, it could be
something like that. I mean, at least that's how I'm
understanding it. But they're saying that to, you
know, maybe externally there's certain things that you see, but
you know internally there there, there might be more from from
the sheer learning of Torah that is able to to instill in a
person. Yeah, I mean, I I don't know.
I mean, you could put it that way or you could just say that
the the merit for the Torah should ultimately benefit him in
some way and and should never be destroyed, even if he sins, you
know, Yeah, you could. You could do it in different
ways. I don't know exactly, but he.
But Rebbi Ochinan says I'm going to extinguish this smoke.
When Rebbi Ochinan died, the smoke ceased from the grave of
Lahir. He did it.
We have a little parenthetic comment explaining this.
The eulogizer, in other words, you know, the person who was
praising Revy Oakland on after his death said of him.
Even the guard of the gate, I think it's the gate of Gehennam,
could not stand before. You, our master, you were such a
great sage when you went to Alamaba, you actually walked
right into Gehennam where his grave was smoking, and you took
him out of there and got the smoke to be extinguished.
So kind of your merit helped him out.
So I think this is important too, because both Mayor and Ravi
Okonon are instrumental in ultimately saving Akhir.
I think that's what this means. He got him out of Gahanam, he
got him to Alomaba. So it's not just Torah in and of
itself that is going to get you the merit, but it's also the
fact that you, you, you, the Torah that you taught, that you
innovative, that you created, was taught to other people and
you're not eating them. Carry on that Torah and and that
has a kind of living embodiment of Torah that ultimately saves
you. So Alicia is saved by his Torah,
but through his tamidium too. His merits are now belonging to
others because. He's.
Yeah, exactly. He's he's taught Torah.
So his Torah has gone beyond him, right.
And it's become part of Rebbe Mayer.
It's become part of Rebbe Okonnon.
It's been part of others. And and and that that merit
can't be lost is basically what the storytellers are saying.
So here's I think answer #1, you know their primary answer even
if the sage does sin. However, that would happen even
though it's hard to understand how a sage would sin.
And then if he, if he did not repent, but even if it came to
it that the sage became a Sinner, he lost his faith.
You know, whatever. He would ultimately get rewarded
for his Torah that would that would prevail, that wins out in
the end. That's how powerful Torah is.
But this and now in the next section, the story actually, I
think recapitulates this lesson for us.
This is how stories work, especially in oral cultures.
You know, they tell you the same thing in different ways to make
sure you heard the lesson. So the daughter of Akher came
before Rebihuda Nasi, right? So we're going to the next
generation, Akher's daughter, so his progeny and Rebihuda Nasi.
So mayor, student, spiritual progeny and physical progeny.
So we're we're recapitulating the same characters in the next
World, the next generation, she said to him.
My master support me. So she's poor, he said to her.
My daughter, whose daughter are you?
She said to him the daughter of Ather.
So he said, is there still his seed in this world?
He has no offspring or descendant among his people, no
survivor where he once lived. This is talking about the wicked
man in context. So Rabi Rabi Huda Nasi can't
believe that he would still have sons or daughters because wicked
people aren't supposed to have survivors and and he obviously
believes Akhir's wicked so he's saying good your father was
wicked. I I can't even believe that he
has surviving children, she said to him, My master remembers
Torah do not remember his deeds. I think again this sums up the
crux of the story. What are the rabbis saying Torah
prevails not deeds. Torah should be will be valued
more than whatever sins the Torah scholar might commit.
Fire came down from heaven and tried to burn Rabbi Rabbi Yuna
Nasi and it was almost tried to punish him for not being
sympathetic to the daughter, for not supporting the daughter
because, and for calling ah her wicked.
And then Rabbi Yuna Nasi wept and said if this happens for
those who dishonor Torah, how much the more so for those who
respect her, You know, you get a protective celestial, divine
fire ultimately, if you've learned Torah and then, you
know, become a Sinner, just respected it.
And so how much the more so with with those of us who, you know,
actually respect Torah, who didn't ever sin, you know, how
much should we be protected and favored and ultimately get
married? But you see how in this, this
recapitulates the whole story. Daughter asks for support, that
is, you know, some sort of reward or charity.
At first she's denied it, like Akhir was denied Alam haba, but
but then she's given it by virtue of Torah.
She says, remember his Torah. And here, you know, God has kind
of been persuaded by this point. You know, God comes down and and
Warren's Ravi Huda Nasi, you know, just like Ravi Ochinon
was, was able to put out this fire.
So, you know, this is basically the same story.
The same lesson with mayor's student and Akher's daughter.
In The next generation, Akher's Torah brings charity, you know,
support for his, for his daughters.
You know what's interesting too is you know that you can see how
this scene Harkins back a little bit to scene 4.
That's why I called it Four Prime.
It's also in the Beit Midrash probably that's where Ravi
Yehuda Nasi is. And you know, it's also a child.
Remember in four it was the Tommy Dean male children of the
House of study. Here it's a female child of of
Akher, right? But we sort of have some of
those elements, you know, coming back together and in in scene 4,
you know God was over and over rejecting Akher, and Akher then
brought death to the child. Either I would have killed you
or I killed you, but here God accepts the Torah of Akher
because. He brings life to the.
Child, yeah. And the Torah brings life to the
child. So a reversal of that scene 4,
you know, because the Rabbis are saying ultimately, you know,
they say after this climax in scene 5, Akher is is kind of,
you know, redeemed, OK, now the story doesn't end here, but the
next sections sort of step outside the narrative frame.
So I'm going to come back to them.
How did Remy mayor learn Toro from Akher?
You see, that's kind of a question.
And and then again, a Drash Rava expounded, the story actually
continues here in the final section.
So we'll do this first and then we'll go back.
So in the final section, we have Rava Barafshela came before
Elijah when came before Elijah Navi.
And you know, certain rabbis do have visits by Elijah Rava
Barafshela. So he's in the middle of bamray
period. So we're skipping, you know, a
few generations into the future. So he for however, comes before
you know El Yao and Avi. He said to him, what is the Holy
One, blessed be he, do it. So what is Sakharish Bharkar
doing? He said to him he recites
tradition from the mouths of all the rabbis, but he does not
recite from the mouths of Rabbi Mayer.
So as in many other stories and some sources, you know, even
there's the Yeshiva Shalmala and God is learning in the yeshiva
Shalmala and these reciting traditions and he's quoting
rabbis, but he's not quoting Rabbi Mayer.
So he said to him why the rabbi asked Elijah and Elijah says
said to him because he learned traditions from the mouth of
Akher. So again, this is kind of
recapitulating the whole question.
Again, it it, you know, is Alisha Benabuya because he
sinned and therefore lost his share in the World to come, is
he is his Torah somehow tainted? Is it corrupted?
And therefore did Reverend Mayer do the wrong thing by learning
Torah from ah, there. Now it's sort of a question that
we could ask, you know, again based on, you know, section two
or three here where Reverend Mayer was, you know, going after
him trying to learn Torah. So we're problematizing that a
little bit here, even though we got an answer in four and 5:00,
we we want to actually reinforce this answer by raising the
question again. Or maybe a kind of ancillary
question. Well, what about the disciple?
And what about learning from him?
So even if Alicia Menabuya is Torah ultimately prevails from
him, you know, saves him, should the disciple learn from him?
So it looks like no, because Hakadish Barkhlu is not reciting
Rebbe Mayer's traditions, which is a kind of death for Rebbe
Mayer. His Torah is not being passed
on. He's not being quoted so.
So the rabbi says to Elijah, So what?
Rabbi Mayer found a pomegranate. He ate the inside and threw away
the peel. You know, he says, So what?
Rabbi Mayer, he like a, like, you know, like a fruit, a
pomegranate. He took the Torah, the good
stuff, and he discarded the heresy.
If Alicia Benabuya was telling him anything wrong, he threw it
away like the peel. So he knew how to keep the
valuable Torah, and he knew to stay clear of any kind of
heresy. There are two powers in heaven,
whatever it was, that might have been problematic about a sinning
sage. And now Elijah says again, he
said to him. Now God says mayor, my son says
so. Immediately God starts quoting
Ravi Mayor, you're right, you you actually can learn Torah, at
least in this way. And he.
Quotes. Mayor in a Mishnah.
It's actually very, very rare to have a Mishnah quoted within a
rabbinic story, but it's interesting we find it here.
Sue came all the time, but Mishnah's pretty unusual.
We can have a like challenge for our audience.
Can you find others? Other stories of this type, you
know there are a couple. OK, so may or my son says when a
human being suffers, this is from Mishnah Sanhedrin, the
Sheena. What expression does it say?
I'm light in my head, I'm light in my hand if I'm san, and so on
account of the blood of the wicked who are killed, How much
so for the blood of the righteous that is.
Still, this is a very problematic Mishnah.
Again, it's not totally clear what it means about the Sheena
being light or pained. But basically the idea is that
God has sympathy for human beings, even the wicked.
You know, even when wicked people are killed, you know,
we're all selling elohim. So God has, you know, is is
pained about that. So, you know, here too, God
would be pained about Alicia or Mayor not getting their share in
the world to come. So ultimately, you know, Mayor
is rehabilitated here again, partially due to the thanks of
this Rabbi Rabba Bar of Shayla intervening on his behalf.
But you know, because of this, we now learn that, yeah, you can
learn Torah from a problematic sage, from a sinning sage.
Why, again, for the rabbis, Torah is that valuable?
Otherwise that Torah would be lost.
And we, you know, we had so precious.
It's like gold in that analogy. It's like the vessels of gold
and the vessels of glass. It is so precious we have to
hang on to every all our Torah, no matter where we can get it.
And if there was a rabbi who happened to be a, you know, a
sage who would then sin, we still can learn Torah from him.
So just like that, Torah will ultimately bear merit to the
sage, so the disciples should be able to access it, OK?
Professor, Professor, what do you make of this?
That the Sages were so that they gave ultimate premacy to to the
Torah even against sin as in the story, even against, you know,
heresy and sin Torah, still the are are always on top of there.
What do you make of this? Why do you think the Rabbis had
this? Well, the view.
Well, you know it's that's what that's the heart of rabbinic
theology. Talmud, Torah, connected
Coulomb. You know, studying Torah is the
most important thing for the rabbis.
It's more important than prayer. It's more important than all the
meets vote. They see it as fundamental to
literally to the structure of the universe.
Without the study of Torah, the, you know, they say in other
sources the the the cosmos disintegrates.
You know there's no point to the whole thing.
So it's a it's a it's a universe maintaining activity.
That's some we call it. We sometimes apply talk about
different religions that have these rituals that have to be
done to keep the the universe going.
And the rabbis think that's what tort is.
They love it so much. You know they think it's so
valuable. So that that's the heart of
rabbinic Judaism. I mean that that's that's how
they understand, you know, what? What God wants and and what?
And I think that it also shows how much they dearly loved the
Torah, meaning their love for the Torah, for for their
activities around the Torah with Darshanut and and and halacha.
Their love seeps through through the story because they're
willing to entertain it against, you know, evil and heresy.
And you know, for them, it's like you could see that, you
know it it wasn't just something they they did, It was something
that they lived, yeah, that they just saw as life. 100% And here
they're they're exploring just, you know how powerful it is and
whether you can either lose it or its merits.
All right, we'll wrap it up quickly because we're almost
done. Just to show you again, you
know, this nice structure. Remember in this scene, the last
scene, you have Elijah. He's another supernatural
figure. Remember the first scene we had
Metatron. So we have a kind of angelic
figure in both. In the first scene, Akher was
rejected by God and God's servant Metatron.
Metatron burnt out Alicia's merits.
In the last scene, the Torah of Mayer, who learned Torah from
Akher is accepted by God, who quotes this Mishnah ultimately
in his name and by God's servant Elijah.
So it's a kind of reversal of that first scene.
A nice parallel, but taken to the next question.
Not Ahir's rejection, but the Torah of Ahir's rejection,
right? The Torah of Ahir is not
rejected anymore. It is accepted as being part of
Meyer's Torah. Now in the sections I just
skipped, basically they just asked that same question that we
just answered in the narrative in section one.
That is, could a disciple learn Torah from a heretical or
tainted or sinning master? So here you could see in Section
3 it follows this section with the daughter and Rabbi and Nasi
that we read a minute ago. How did Rabbi Mayer learn Torah
from Akhir? Did not rob Abar Khanna say
that? Rabbi Oakland said what is the
meaning of for the lips of a priest God knowledge and men
seek rulings from his mouth for he is a malach.
Interesting we had that a couple earlier.
Master is similar to a malach of the Lord of hosts.
Then they should seek Torah from his mouth and if not, do not
seek Torah from his mouth. Only learn from a pious rabbi
only. Only learn from a rabbi who's a
messenger. You know of God, someone who's
doing God's bidding. So you can see this is this is
what we call a kind of non narrative comment or question.
It's not a part of the story itself.
It doesn't advance the plot, it's asking about the plot.
How did Rabbi had to Remi Mayer up there learn Torah from Akher?
And again, you know it's a beautiful structure because this
is 3 prime parallel to where Mayer was learning Torah from
Akher in the three dialogues between them and we get 3
answers, Rach Lucich said. Remi Mayer found a verse and.
Expounded it. Incline your ear and listen to
the words of the sages. Pay attention to my wisdom.
It does not say to their wisdom, but to my wisdom.
In other words, you could learn the Torah from them because
you're really learning God's wisdom.
You're not learning the sages wisdom.
Their Torah is OK, it doesn't get corrupted.
Rabbi Kanina said from here, take heed daughter, and note
incline your ear. Forget your people in your
father's house. In other words, you can take
heed and incline. Your ear to the good stuff.
But forget your father's house, that is, forget the sin or any
bad stuff. And and then again, there's
another little comment here we're not going to worry about.
And when Remy, when Rob Dimmie came up from Eretz Israel, he
said, they say in the West, eat the date and throw the people
away. You know, take the Torah, the
good stuff and throw the bad stuff, the heresy or something
problematic that he's teaching you away.
It's basically what Robber of Shaila said in the story.
So what Reverend Mayor found a Pam around it?
He ate the inside and threw the peel away?
Right. Threw away the peel.
Same answer. Tommy is able to separate out
the valuable Torah from any kind of heresies.
He's not going to get corrupted, not going to get confused, and
so on. And then we have another kind of
tradition thrown in here, again related to the same question Rob
expounded What is written? I went down to the nut Grove to
see the budding of the veil, get a kind of puzzling verse in the
Song of Songs. Why are the words of Torah
compared to a nut to tell you that just as a nut, even though
it's dirty with mud and filth, it's inside, it's not soiled.
So to a sage, even though he sins, his Torah is not soiled.
OK, so basically the same. Answer There could be a.
Sage who goes astray. But the Torah is going to be
pure. It won't be tainted, it won't be
corrupt. And therefore a disciple could
learn it, as we see in the last section, Rabbi Mayer learning
Alicia's Torres ultimately defended.
So you know, I think the Boggly, the Boggly is a sophisticated
text. We know that.
And it's it's not giving us easy answers.
So it's concerned. About certain issues about.
Learning Torah from A from a, a, a rebbe, you know, a master
who's who's violating certain things or espousing certain
heretical views. But ultimately, you know, I
think it gives an answer that follows pretty logically from
the answer. The first question, you know,
does the Torah of the sinning sage ultimately save him and
prevail and have enduring and inviolable merits?
Yes, it did. It does.
Well, then you, a Ptolemy, should be able to access that
Torah, learn that Torah and just separate it from the from the
heresy or the problematic ideas. Because that Torah is so
valuable and we want him to learn it.
And you know, in that way the Torah is preserved and passed
down. But but it's not easy, right?
The Bible, he's not saying this is simple.
It's it's dialectical a little bit.
It's going back and forth. It's raising problems with it.
How could mayor do this? At first, in fact, Ravi Hooda
Nasi rejects Akhir's daughter In First Elijah says that God is
not quoting Ravi Mayor. So again, you know it it takes
some work to get to this position.
But I think ultimately the Bhavli has given us a pretty
clear answer of what the Bhavli rabbis think by constructing
this. This figure of Alisha.
Menabuya, like you asked at the beginning, to answer a question
of concern to them. The ultimate power of Torah.
The ultimate, you know. Merits you would get for
studying. Torah.
Whatever else happens in the meantime, it's almost like they
want to tread lightly on the. Subject.
But they want to make sure that at the end you have no doubt as
to what their position is. Yeah, that's that's quite they
want they. Want you to know it's not simple
and it's tricky, but ultimately this is where the the the chips
are going to fall, you know? This is so fascinating now.
I'm going to be. Honest, I do not remember it
right now because it's been a while since our previous
podcast. I don't remember exactly the
Yuushalmi's total vision. Are you able to just maybe just
really quickly tell us just the overall picture of what the
Yuushalmi was aimed at and how it different?
It's different from this whole unpacking of the Babli.
Well, the Urshami has a certain amount of.
Overlap with the Bob Lee, but it's also a little different.
First of all, in Urshami, remember there were really two
separate stories. There was one that was just
trying to interpret the Tosefta and that portrayed Alicia in
very, very negative lights, a Sinner, a killer and
collaborated with the Romans. And then a new story started
which was a little different, and that the second story was
more similar to the Bodley. It also tried to construct a
figure of a of a sinning sage. The Yersami though didn't have
the whole Metatron business. It went about constructing it
differently and in multiple ways.
His father had a bad intention, his mother inhaled idolatry.
He had a spiritual crisis with the Saadi Klaralo you know, so
it it it also is working very hard.
In a way, the bodily solution was much more elegant with
Metatron to figure out how you could get someone to lose their
scooyote, their merits, and therefore be stuck and not get a
llama buck. But Yerushalmi got to that .2.
Ultimately their you know, Alisha Benabuya rode his horse
and had that same horse riding scene, but it was outside the
temple on Yom Kippur. So it was really an act of
terrible rebellion and that's when the verse said you know you
can't repent anymore, so. It was.
You can see the parallel in the Bhavli.
It moved that the Bhavli did it to the Heavenly temple and to
the Metatron episode, but it it the Yoshami came to that same
point. Now we have a sage who's a great
master of Torah and Yoshami too. Alicia Benabuya knows more Torah
than mayor. He remembered traditions that
mayor had lost, you know the Cuban traditions.
And ultimately when when he died, he is able to be redeemed.
At first smoke comes on his grave, but ultimately it is
extinguished. So the Yoshami comes really to
the same answer is the Bob Lee, although it goes about it in
different ways and it doesn't really get into the whole thing
about the Torah of Alicia and Reverend Mayer, you know, in
quite the same way. OK.
This is absolutely fascinating and eye opening and important.
And you know, I wonder. I wonder.
How many agadot? That you've gone through,
because I'm sure you've gone probably all of them.
How many times do you see Agadot as structured so neatly in a
literary unit with with chiasms? How often do you come across
that? Yeah, I mean you find it
surprisingly. Often, I mean that a lot of the
rabbinic stories have these very, very clear structures.
They're not all chiasmic. I mean chiasms are.
They're not uncommon. You find them, but you sometimes
find more, you know, tripartite structure like we do in in in
children's stories like Goldilocks, right.
You know, too hot, too cold, just right.
You know, often you have the kind that's very common and
that's common in folklore and that's like across the world,
you know, that's so you have three, you have sometimes seven
part structures, can have two-part structures, but you
know, in. 9 out of 10 stories I would.
Say there is a deliberate structure some sometimes you
just can't figure out the structure and it looks like the
story is doesn't hang together well and who knows what
happened. But in in most cases you know
you you should pay attention to the structure and and try to see
how the parts then relate to each other.
Amazing. Amazing, amazing.
Thank you so much this was. Really.
Very enjoyable. All right.
Well. Thank you for having me.
And. Yeah, yeah.
I almost wish there was more to this.
Story 'cause I could, I could do this for more hours.
So yeah, so I mean, there's a lot more.
I didn't go into everything. You know, like I said, you could
look at Alon Goshen Goldstein's book.
You could look at the chapter in my some some of these stories or
in the article like have it on my website and maybe we'll find
a way to get this text or source sheet connected to the YouTube
video so the audience can have it.
Although I guess you could always access this on Safaria
too. So anyway, yeah that would be
great, that would be great. And you Also you.
In the beginning you mentioned that the dissertation that you
did on the Sukkot, why Sukkot and that all?
Yeah. So that that was published as a
book called the. The history of Sukkot in the
Second Temple in rabbinic periods.
So the dissertation was. Written into.
You know, I revised it and published it and so is it in
print? I think it is in print.
Still, I think you can get it on.
Amazon. But if not, they're used copies
all over the place. OK, cool.
OK, very good. Very good.
OK, great. Thank you so much.
You are you mentioned to us off camera that you are working on
another book. So we hopefully we'll, we, we
would love to have you on for that new book.
God willing. Yeah.
So that book is going to be called.
How? How To?
Read a comedic story and yeah, when that comes out, we will.
We'll talk about it. Great 'cause we never like to
say goodbye in this podcast. We.
We expect the constant. Thank you so much, Professor.
We know your time is valuable. We appreciate it and we hope
that the audience gains a lot from this three-part series that
we've put out. And you know hopefully we'll it
will it will resonate well. OK.
And then again thank you for. Having me and thank you for all
you do in in disseminating Torah and and making these videos and
making it accessible. So thank you.
Thank you. Yes, Sir.
Cool. Thank you.
Yeah. Hey, guys.
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