The Development of the Torah Part 2 - Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Hillel shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Good morning, everyone. Last week we learned about the beginning of the Torah’s transmission: how Moshe Rabbeinu taught the people and how the Torah was passed on. We discussed how, so to speak, there wasn’t all that much to pass on: there was the Written Torah, the Torah scroll, and the Oral Torah—all the explanations of what needed to be done. We explained that the Oral Torah itself fell into five categories: a halacha given to Moshe at Sinai without a proof or a reason; a halacha given to Moshe at Sinai with reasons and proofs; the thirteen principles by which the Torah is interpreted; and the last two, decrees of our Sages and enactments of our Sages. We discussed how, throughout the generations, everything really worked in an orderly way, and that was how people learned. They didn’t record or write anything down. They learned the Written Torah, while the Oral Torah was passed from person to person. People sat and learned in yeshivos. We mentioned that they learned standing up. And so, through the generations, the Torah passed from one generation to the next, all in an orderly fashion. We also mentioned that the point when this continuity began to weaken, in a sense, was at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash. In other words, the First Beis Hamikdash was destroyed after 410 years, there was a 70-year exile in Babylonia, and after 70 years they returned. What happened then? They came back and rebuilt the Beis Hamikdash, but everything was somewhat less than it had been before. Five things were already missing from the Beis Hamikdash, and when it came to Torah study—which is our subject—things also began to weaken. There were 120 Sages known, as you know, as the Men of the Great Assembly. And here I want to ask you: how many judges are needed for a beis din?

02:16 Speaker 2 How many make up a beis din?

02:18 Speaker 3 Three judges.

02:19 Speaker 2 Three judges. First of all, three judges. How many are needed for a beis din that hears capital cases?

02:24 Speaker 3 Twenty-three.

02:24 Speaker 2 A beis din for capital cases has twenty-three judges. Okay? How many are on the Great Sanhedrin?

02:29 Speaker 3 Seventy-one.

02:30 Speaker 2 Seventy-one, good. Have you ever come across a beis din with 120 members?

02:36 Speaker 3 The Great Assembly.

02:37 Speaker 2 What? The Men of the Great Assembly numbered 120. That’s right; the Men of the Great Assembly did indeed number 120. Where did that number come from? The Sanhedrin’s seventy-one members are derived from the verse, “Hashem said to Moshe: Gather for Me”—meaning, gather for Me—“seventy men from among the elders of Israel.” Seventy men plus Moshe Rabbeinu makes how many?

03:00 Speaker 3 Seventy-one.

03:01 Speaker 2 Seventy-one. So the Sanhedrin has seventy-one members. Where did the 120 Men of the Great Assembly come from? What do you think? By the way, today the Knesset, the legislature, also has 120 members. Why? Because they call themselves the Knesset after the Great Assembly, and they have 120 members, just as the Men of the Great Assembly did—though, of course, there’s a world of difference between the two. But why 120? Who came up with that number? Besides, think about it: is three judges an even number?

03:36 Speaker 3 No.

03:36 Speaker 2 It’s an odd number, right? Is twenty-three an even number?

03:39 Speaker 3 No.

03:40 Speaker 2 Seventy-one?

03:41 Speaker 3 No.

03:42 Speaker 2 No. Why? Because a beis din has to have an odd number of judges. Why?

03:45 Speaker 3 So they can reach a decision.

03:46 Speaker 2 Very good, so they can reach a decision. If we had an even number and they split down the middle—twenty saying one thing and twenty saying another—we would never reach a decision. A beis din always needs an odd number. So not only did they change the number to 120, but it’s an even number, too. What’s the idea? What do you think? Any thoughts?

04:03 Speaker 3 Maybe they agreed on everything.

04:05 Speaker 2 What?

04:06 Speaker 3 Maybe they all agreed with one another on everything.

04:07 Speaker 2 A little louder, please. I can’t hear you.

04:09 Speaker 3 They all agreed with one another on everything.

04:11 Speaker 2 They all agreed with one another on everything?

04:13 Speaker 3 Yes, so that...

04:14 Speaker 2 Think about it: you have 120 Torah scholars, and no one has a differing opinion? How often do the bochurim disagree or argue during our classes here—“Yes, it’s this way,” “No, it’s that way”?

04:22 Speaker 3 [unclear]

04:23 Speaker 2 That’s a little hard to imagine. What do you think? Do you have an idea?

04:26 Speaker 3 Maybe there were so many Torah scholars that there was no chance they’d split fifty-fifty.

04:32 Speaker 2 He says there were so many Torah scholars that there was no chance they’d split fifty-fifty.

04:38 Speaker 3 There was no chance they would...

04:39 Speaker 2 You’re getting close, but think a little more creatively. Yes?

04:41 Speaker 3 At the time of the Men of the Great Assembly, maybe there weren’t such complicated halachic questions. So there were many great scholars, and even if they split in half, the Great Assembly would still reach a decision.

04:55 Speaker 2 Okay, that’s a good idea—one I hadn’t thought of. Very good. The suggestion is that they were great scholars then, and there weren’t so many questions on which they would disagree and need to settle a fifty-fifty split.

05:06 Speaker 3 There was no Gemara yet, so there was nothing to disagree about. They could...

05:09 Speaker 2 True, there was no Gemara yet, but there was plenty to disagree about. There were subjects and questions discussed in the beis midrash. Still, you’re offering good ideas. But I saw a wonderful idea in one of the books. It says something simple. We all read Pirkei Avos, right? Chapter 1: “Shimon Hatzaddik was among the remnants of the Great Assembly.” Right? That’s what it says. How nice is that? Wouldn’t you be insulted if someone said to you—Yosef Yitzchak, Menachem Mendel, Shlomo, each of you by name—“He’s one of the leftovers from the class”? Would that be nice? What does it mean that Shimon Hatzaddik was “among the remnants of the Great Assembly”? He was only one of the remnants. If that’s all he was, at least don’t say it! Doesn’t that sound like a slightly insulting title?

06:00 Speaker 3 He was the 119th; he was the 121st.

06:03 Speaker 2 He was the 121st? No, there weren’t 121. There were only 120.

06:06 Speaker 3 He was the 119th; he stood to the side.

06:08 Speaker 2 There were 120, but not all of them took part in the discussions, and if there was an even split... You’re starting to get there. Go on, sharpen the point.

06:15 Speaker 3 Shimon Hatzaddik...

06:17 Speaker 2 Good, go ahead.

06:17 Speaker 3 He stood to the side; he was the 119th who...

06:19 Speaker 2 So is it nice to say Shimon Hatzaddik was “among the remnants of the Great Assembly,” as if he stood off to the side? First of all, that doesn’t sound very nice. Second, apart from him, we hardly find anyone from the Men of the Great Assembly mentioned in the Mishnah. So they mention only the remnants? What do you say?

06:32 Speaker 3 If they split fifty-fifty, they would bring him in, and he would decide it.

06:37 Speaker 2 So the suggestion here is that Shimon Hatzaddik was standing by as a backup, right? They didn’t include him. But why not? What were the criteria? Include him, make it 121, and that’s it. Why keep him to the side and bring him in for discussions?

06:48 Speaker 3 No, not keep him to the side, but if he was the 119th, he stood to the side.

06:51 Speaker 2 Okay, you’re saying—good. So I’ll explain now. When Ezra the Scribe came up to Eretz Yisroel with the Jews from Babylonia, a problem arose. Why? Whom do you now appoint to the Sanhedrin in the Beis Hamikdash? Whom do you appoint? How do you form a Sanhedrin now? Whom do we choose? If we choose only seventy-one Torah scholars, do you know what will happen? Say there are 100 Torah scholars, and we choose seventy-one. How many are left out?

07:23 Speaker 3 Twenty-nine.

07:26 Speaker 2 Twenty-nine. Good. What happens if the beis din, the Sanhedrin, convenes to discuss a very serious question and rules that something is permitted? Okay? What does it mean that they ruled? Fifty thought—no, let’s not say fifty. Let’s say forty thought it was permitted, and the other thirty-one thought it was forbidden. Okay? And how is the ruling decided? By what? By the majority. So forty said it was permitted, and that settles it. Thirty-one said it was forbidden, but that doesn’t change the ruling. The forty who said it was permitted prevail. Then those twenty-nine Torah scholars who weren’t included in the Sanhedrin come along. What will they say?

08:07 Speaker 3 That it’s forbidden.

08:07 Speaker 2 “If all twenty-nine of us had been included, we would have forbidden it.” And if we add those twenty-nine to the thirty-one, how many is that?

08:16 Speaker 3 Sixty.

08:18 Speaker 2 Sixty. It would have been sixty against forty, and we would have outvoted you. Understand?

08:24 Speaker 3 So he included all the—

08:25 Speaker 2 So what did Ezra the Scribe do? Very good. He brought all the Torah scholars into a council that was not the Sanhedrin, but a council of elders that he called the Men of the Great Assembly—the great Torah scholars gathered together. And what did that accomplish? After all, it still comes to the same thing: 120 people. So first of all, as you rightly said, there weren’t necessarily so many discussions that required all 71 members. And it’s possible that many of the 120—say, 80 or 90—agreed on one view. Okay, fine. In other words, perhaps there were situations where they didn’t need to ask such complicated questions or require such a major ruling from the Great Court; or even if they did ask, there wasn’t so much disagreement among the sages. But one thing was certain. Ezra the Scribe said, “If I want to unite all the Jewish communities around one institution, so that when we issue a decree, an instruction, or an enactment, no one will open his mouth and say, ‘No, that doesn’t work for me,’ what do we do?” We gather the rabbis from every community. How did there come to be so many rabbis? Do you know? Because when they were in Babylonia, they were scattered. Think about it: the Jewish people were exiled from the First Beis Hamikdash to Babylonia. You don’t go to the Babylonians who are exiling you and tell them, “Sir, I’d like to live on this street. I’d like to live here. I’d like to live there.” That’s not how it works. You’re thrown into exile. So what happened? They split into many, many communities, and the leading figures of those communities—the prominent, serious communities—came to 120 rabbis, more than 71. Now imagine each community returning with its rabbi, and you tell them their rabbi won’t be in the Sanhedrin. Then they

10:03 Speaker 2 won’t accept your Sanhedrin. They’ll tell you, “You’re nothing. You didn’t include my rabbi, so I’m not listening to you.” Ezra the Scribe says, “I’m bringing everyone in. All of them.” 120 Torah scholars. And then what? Do you know what happened? Pay attention. One of the Men of the Great Assembly—the 120th member—passes away. What happens now?

10:25 Speaker 3 119.

10:26 Speaker 2 119. Do they bring in someone new? No.

10:28 Speaker 3 No.

10:29 Speaker 2 They don’t bring in someone new. Member 118 passes away, then 117, then 116. Do they bring in someone new?

10:37 Speaker 3 No.

10:37 Speaker 2 They don’t. The number keeps going down. Whenever someone passes away, they leave the court as it is. The Men of the Great Assembly numbered 120, then 119, 115, 100, 98. The number kept going down until it reached what? 71. The 71st elder passes away. What do they do?

10:54 Speaker 3 Bring in another one.

10:55 Speaker 2 They bring in someone new. How do they bring in someone new? Ah, how do they choose now? There are rules for that. The Gemara explains how they bring someone in. Students would sit facing the court, facing the Sanhedrin, facing the Men of the Great Assembly. They sat opposite them in semicircles, arranged in order in these curved rows. Whenever someone on the Great Court passed away, the first student in the row would move into his place. He didn’t jump in on his own, of course; they appointed him, and so on. Another judge passed away, and they brought in the next one in line, and so forth. Yes, there were various criteria. We won’t go into all of them. That was one criterion. So what did this accomplish? Notice: every community listened to this council, and I’ll explain shortly why that was important. Now, what does it mean that Shimon HaTzaddik was “one of the Men of the Great Assembly”? Do you know what that means? Pay attention. Shimon HaTzaddik being one of the Men of the Great Assembly means—

11:55 Speaker 3 One of those who remained.

11:56 Speaker 2 Think about it. What does “one of those who remained” mean?

11:58 Speaker 3 Shimon HaTzaddik was—

12:00 Speaker 2 Pay attention.

12:00 Speaker 3 He was one of the seventy, not one of the 120 who passed away, meaning—

12:05 Speaker 2 Once the 71st elder passed away, they brought in a younger man in his place, right? How did that young man feel, sitting on the council, on the Sanhedrin? Seventy people there were elders, distinguished people, and he had only just joined. Right? Now imagine the 70th elder passes away, then the 69th, then the 68th. Each time someone passed away, the younger group—which was small at first—grew bit by bit, until there were, say, 68 relatively young members and about three elders. What does “elders” mean? When had those three been appointed? At the original appointment of the Men of the Great Assembly. Ezra the Scribe had appointed them. That’s the meaning. Shimon HaTzaddik was one of the remaining Men of the Great Assembly. That isn’t a disparaging description; it’s a mark of honor. He was still one of those appointed when the Men of the Great Assembly were first established, not one of those who were, so to speak, simply appointed later to the Sanhedrin. Not “simply,” of course. But you understand what I mean?

13:06 Speaker 3 The first explanation.

13:07 Speaker 2 And why, huh?

13:08 Speaker 3 The first explanation.

13:09 Speaker 2 I didn’t catch that. Speak up.

13:10 Speaker 3 According to the first explanation.

13:12 Speaker 2 What do you mean, “according to the first explanation”?

13:14 Speaker 3 That there was...

13:16 Speaker 2 No, I gave one explanation. Ezra the Scribe appointed 120 Torah scholars in order to unite the entire Jewish people under the council called the Men of the Great Assembly. As the elders passed away, he didn’t appoint new members until the number reached 71. When members began passing away after that, new ones were appointed. Shimon HaTzaddik was one of the few who still remained from the original appointments.

13:37 Speaker 3 Why 120?

13:38 Speaker 2 Why 120? Again, to include all the leaders of the people in this council. And I’ll explain why in a moment. What, for example, did the Men of the Great Assembly establish for us? The prayers. What does that mean? In the past, a person would come to shul, put on tefillin, recite Shema, and so on, but wouldn’t say the entire Shemoneh Esrei. What would he do? He would say the first three blessings, which are praise of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the last three blessings, from Retzei through the end of Shemoneh Esrei, which are also praise of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, right? From the beginning of Shemoneh Esrei through “You are holy” is praise. From Retzei and “May our eyes behold” through the end is thanksgiving. The thirteen blessings in the middle—or rather, fourteen—are requests for healing, for a prosperous year, and so on. People would come to shul, and if everyone at home and in the family was healthy, a person wouldn’t say the blessing “Heal us.” He’d skip it. Why? He didn’t need to ask for that. What would he do? Move on. If he didn’t feel a need for—I don’t know—“And to Jerusalem, Your city,” I don’t know whether he needed that then, right? They had already returned to Jerusalem and so on. Different things. They prayed according to their needs, okay? According to their needs. For example, if someone wanted grain to grow in his field, he would say “Bless us.” But it wasn’t the familiar “Bless us” that we know. What would he do? He would turn to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and say, “Please, Hashem, give me blessing and abundance in my field; let it grow and flourish,” and so on and so forth. And how would he end the blessing? “Blessed are You, Hashem, Who blesses the years.” Okay? He would compose the wording of the blessing himself, but the ending,

15:20 Speaker 2 the closing formula, he would say in the wording everyone used. Everyone ended with “Blessed are You, Hashem, Who blesses the years.” One person might pray for a livelihood in one set of words, and another in different words. Fine, so what happened? The Men of the Great Assembly came along, looked at the people, and said, “Whoa, whoa, what’s happened here?” The Jewish people had spent seventy years in exile. Do you know what happened to them? Nechemiah describes the children of the exiles, those born in exile, and says that half of them spoke Ashdodite—a language still called Ashdodite—and the other half spoke... And that wasn’t meant as such a compliment, so those of you here from Ashdod, be careful. It was more of a rebuke. Half spoke Ashdodite, and half spoke, I think, Aramaic, he says. In short, they didn’t know Lashon Hakodesh; they didn’t know how to pray. So the Men of the Great Assembly came and—shh, one moment. The Men of the Great Assembly came, and what did they do? “We’ll put things in order,” they said. “We’ll compose one organized siddur for everyone.” They established the wording of the prayers, Kiddush, and blessings. They formulated everything for us and distributed this siddur, and the entire Jewish people accepted it. Notice: if the council of the Men of the Great Assembly hadn’t included those 120 sages, all of whom were leaders of the people, okay, not everyone would have accepted the authority of the siddur.

16:42 Speaker 4 The ruling.

16:43 Speaker 2 the authority of the Great Assembly. Okay, is that clear so far? Now someone here is asking a good question: Wait, how did they reach a decision? There were 120 of them, after all. The answer, it would seem, is that, first of all, we’re not sure cases requiring a ruling even reached them at that level. The Gemara, I believe in Sanhedrin, says that people did not go straight to the Great Court. First they went to the court in their city. If the court in their city could not resolve it, they went to the court on the Temple Mount. If the court on the Temple Mount could not resolve the problem, they went to the court in the Temple courtyard. If the court in the courtyard could not resolve it, they went to the court in the Chamber of Hewn Stone. All right? They had to go through three or four courts before getting there. So it could be that all the issues had already been resolved by the earlier courts; we don’t know exactly what happened there. Yes, but when you issue a directive to the people, that doesn’t require a court ruling—you issue a directive: “From today, everyone prays from this particular siddur.” If you want to make a decision like that, you need the entire people behind you. Everyone, everyone, everyone. Because otherwise you won’t be able to make it work. All right, that was the standing of the Men of the Great Assembly. And Shimon HaTzaddik served as Kohen Gadol for, I believe, forty years, and he was among the last members of the Great Assembly, one of its leading figures. Um, the study—oh, this relates to how they themselves studied. How did people study in the time of the Men of the Great Assembly? I’ll read you what the Meiri writes here. He says: “When the time of the Men of the Great Assembly arrived, they recognized the beginnings of their own decline, and each would write down for himself what he had heard from his teacher.” In other words, the Men of the Great Assembly said: From Moshe Rabbeinu until us, everything was learned by heart, but suddenly they began to feel that still—

18:28 Speaker 2 small slipups were beginning to happen. There was beginning to be some weakening in Torah study. The Men of the Great Assembly said: We have to start writing things down for ourselves, in brief points, brief points. Not in too much detail—just short notes. But why didn’t they elaborate and make a book? Because they were still tremendous scholars. They didn’t need all the detail we have today, or even what they needed in the time of the Mishnah. They were tremendous scholars; they relied on their understanding and on their learning. It was just that there were certain things they were afraid of forgetting, so they wrote them down briefly, in little scrolls like that. Okay, the Men of the Great Assembly pass on. Shimon HaTzaddik—who came after Shimon HaTzaddik? Come on, chapter 1 of Pirkei Avos. Who came after Shimon HaTzaddik? Antigonus of Socho—that was his name. Antigonus came after Shimon HaTzaddik, and after Antigonus a new period begins, called the period of the pairs. What is the period of the pairs? What’s the most famous pair you know? Good, Hillel and Shammai. What other pair do you know who are always mentioned together? Shemaya and Avtalyon. You’re going from the end back to the beginning. Good, who else? Yehoshua ben Perachya and Nittai of Arbela. Who else? Who—who did you say?

19:46 Speaker 4 Yosi ben Yochanan.

19:48 Speaker 2 Yosi ben Yoezer and Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem. Good. Come on, who else? Rabbi Yehuda ben Tabbai.

19:55 Speaker 4 Shimon ben Shetach.

19:57 Speaker 2 Shimon ben Shetach. These five pairs are mentioned at the beginning of the Mishnah. How does chapter 1 of Pirkei Avos begin? “Moshe received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Yehoshua; Yehoshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets transmitted it…” Who were the prophets? Chaggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the last three prophets at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash period. They transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly—all 120 we spoke about. Ezra the Scribe and Mordechai HaTzaddik were among them. And after the Men of the Great Assembly, Shimon HaTzaddik was one of its last members. What does “last members” mean? As we explained, he was among the last of the older members still there, after all the younger ones had joined. After Shimon HaTzaddik came Antigonus of Socho, as the Mishnah says. After Antigonus came the period of the pairs, in this order: Yosi ben Yoezer of Tzereidah and Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem. Then Rabbi Yehuda ben Tabbai—ah, Yehoshua ben Perachya and Nittai of Arbela. Then Rabbi Yehuda ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach, Shemaya and Avtalyon, and Hillel and Shammai. In each of these five pairs, one served as nasi and the other as av beis din. The first one mentioned—Hillel, for example—was the nasi of the Sanhedrin; the second, Shammai, was the av beis din. Likewise, Shemaya was the nasi and Avtalyon was the av beis din. And here things started getting more complicated. Because what happens when the people have two leaders, and there are two study halls and disputes? Everyone takes a side. Right? Some of the students follow Shemaya, some follow Avtalyon, some follow Yosi ben Yoezer of Tzereidah, and some follow Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem. There were disputes like this each time. And the first dispute they had—pay attention, we emphasized this in the last class: there had always been disputes, but how were they resolved? By a ruling of the court, the Sanhedrin, according to the majority. Here a problem began. There began

21:51 Speaker 2 to be a major dispute, and it is described in the Talmud in a very, very interesting way. There are many interesting expressions surrounding this subject. We won’t go into all the details. There were some very interesting incidents and stories. The dispute was whether one may perform semichah on a korban on Yom Tov—whether one may lean on it. When bringing a korban, one has to lean on it, to press its head downward. Is it permitted to do that on Yom Tov or not? That was the first dispute. It reached the point where Shammai’s students closed off the Beis Hamikdash. They didn’t actually close it; rather, they blocked Hillel the Elder. They prevented Hillel the Elder, the nasi of the Jewish people, from bringing his korban and rebuked him, and he answered them. There were various interesting exchanges there, and that was how the dispute began. If someone asks you what the first dispute was that was not resolved by the Sanhedrin, pay attention: there had always been disputes, always, but they were always decided. We had a way to decide them: a majority in the Sanhedrin. Period. When did the problem begin, when they stopped reaching decisions in that court in the middle of the Second Beis Hamikdash period? A korban—semichah. Leaning on a korban on Yom Tov. Is it permitted or forbidden? That is how the dispute began. Well, why didn’t they decide it through the Sanhedrin? Wait a moment, the Sanhedrin still existed. Why didn’t they decide it? Huh? The Sanhedrin. Come on, let’s reach a decision. What was the problem? The answer is that the times were unsettled, as the commentators write. There were many troubles, a lot of turmoil. Gathering the entire Sanhedrin, sitting down formally to hear the case, discuss it, and think it through was not simple. It required an orderly, settled deliberation, and because the times were unsettled, they could not reach a decision on the matter. They could not gather the Sanhedrin to decide it. Then came Hillel and Shammai. Then came Hillel and Shammai. Hillel and Shammai also disagreed about—we spoke about this briefly in the last class too—three things or four things, depending on the version.

23:37 Speaker 2 In the Talmud. Let’s say there were three matters on which Hillel and Shammai disagreed, but their students already disagreed on hundreds of matters, and things started getting complicated and chaotic. The students weren’t learning well enough, and with that we basically come to the end of the era of the pairs. Hillel and Shammai were the last. What happens after Hillel and Shammai? What era begins? The era of—no. The Tannaim, the sages of the Mishnah. The era of the Tannaim begins. It actually begins about a hundred years before the end of the Second Beis Hamikdash. What do the Tannaim do? Notice that these are different names—the Men of the Great Assembly, the pairs, the Tannaim—but they all do the same thing. What do they all do? They study the Written Torah, the Oral Torah, the laws given to Moshe at Sinai, and all the details—the five principles we explained. They all study the same thing. What’s the difference between them? From one era to the next, disagreements grow more and more because the Torah is not studied thoroughly enough. Good. Then Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi comes along and says: Gentlemen, there are terrible troubles. The troubles under Rome were horrific. Jews were actually being murdered there. Think about it: Jews are being murdered, and you don’t even have a way to defend yourself. Your mind isn’t free to study. Even if a whole week goes by without anyone being murdered and things seem peaceful, a person can’t just sit down and say, “All right, now I’m focused.” You can’t. To concentrate, you need a calm period. Do you understand? There’s a war now, right? So things seem calm, right? But if, G-d forbid, an alarm suddenly sounds somewhere—may it not happen—in a second it takes everyone right back. You understand? You lose your concentration. Now, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi was a good friend of the Roman emperor, Antoninus, with the whole story that you probably know. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says: There’s a window of time, a window

25:30 Speaker 2 of opportunity to create a special compilation of the Oral Torah. What will we do? We’ll take everything they learned apart from the Written Torah, which is already written in a Torah scroll. We’ll take all the laws given to Moshe at Sinai, all the laws derived over the generations through the principles by which the Torah is interpreted, and gather them into one book called the Mishnah. Yes, gather them into one book called the Mishnah. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi had peace and quiet, and he was also very wealthy. So he compiled one work that the entire Jewish people, scattered throughout the world, could take, sit down with, and study. How? Why didn’t we study the Mishnah before? One moment—we’ll explain that right away. We’ll explain it right away. Now notice: Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi did not write the Mishnah from scratch; he edited it. He edited it, compiled it, and arranged it. What does that mean? Some say this is a matter of debate, so I won’t state it categorically. But many great Jewish scholars, Rav Sherira Gaon among them, hold that Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi essentially edited the Mishnah. What does it mean that he edited it?

26:32 Speaker 5 He took the...

26:32 Speaker 2 He took—good—he brought all the sages into one study hall in Tzippori, and what we’d call it today is a simulator. He would bring up a halachic question, as it were; they would discuss it from every angle, settle it, clarify it, write it down, and do the same with all the other laws. Now, whose material did he use as the basis for the Mishnah? You all know the rule: an anonymous Mishnah—

26:57 Speaker 5 Rabbi Meir.

26:59 Speaker 2 Rabbi Meir. What does “an anonymous Mishnah is Rabbi Meir” mean? If no one’s name appears—if the Mishnah doesn’t say who said it—it’s Rabbi Meir. Who says it’s Rabbi Meir? Why have you decided that? The answer is that when Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi wanted to write the Mishnah, he said, “I need some basic material to start with.” He gathered all the private scrolls. Remember we spoke about those? The sages had private scrolls in which they wrote down laws for themselves. He took everyone’s scrolls and checked who wrote most clearly and concisely. On the one hand, it needed to be short, not lengthy texts that would have to be trimmed down. On the other hand, it needed to be clear enough, not so abbreviated that you couldn’t understand it. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi took Rabbi Meir’s material and saw: “Oh, Rabbi Meir wrote concisely but clearly.” So he said, “This is our basic material. This is Rabbi Meir’s booklet. We’ll work with it and gradually add more laws.” So Rabbi Meir’s material appears in the Mishnah without saying “Rabbi Meir says,” because when Rabbi Meir wrote it, he didn’t write “Rabbi Meir says.” He wrote the laws down for himself. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi then took it all and put it into the Mishnah anonymously, without a name. Whenever he added laws stated by other people, other Tannaim, he wrote, “Rabbi Yehudah says,” “Rabbi Shimon says,” “Rabbi Yosi says,” and so on. All right? That’s why an anonymous Mishnah is Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi finished editing, writing, and selecting the material for this work, and sent it throughout the Jewish world. Now you’ll ask: Wait, then why do we always

28:30 Speaker 2 see in the Mishnah—for example, in Tractate Sukkah it says such and such, Rabbi Yehudah says it’s permitted and the sages say it’s forbidden, right? Or in the laws of Shabbos: someone who does this or that, plants a tree—Rabbi Yehudah says he is liable to stoning; the sages say he is exempt, but it is forbidden. All sorts of things like that. Wait, you came to put things in order for me, right? You came to put things in order so everyone would follow the same Oral Torah. So why start giving me different opinions? Give me definitive rulings, clear rulings, without listing different opinions. You know what? Why did he include opinions? The Mishnah itself says why it chose to include them. I’m telling you this because I want you to understand: many, many people ask all sorts of questions about Judaism, about religion, or you yourselves may have questions about the Gemara or the Mishnah—things you don’t understand. Often we don’t understand things because we aren’t familiar with all the material. So this question—why Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi included differing opinions, individual opinions, in the Mishnah instead of simply ruling like the sages each time—is discussed in Tractate Eduyos. It gives two explanations. The first: imagine someone coming along a generation after Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. What will he say? “Oh, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi taught the Mishnah. Fine, that’s all very nice, but Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi didn’t know there was another opinion.” Do you understand? Someone might come along a hundred years after Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi and say, “It says here that the sages forbid it, but I received a tradition from Rabbi Yehudah, or Rabbi Shimon, or Rabban Gamliel that this is permitted.” Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says, “I’ll head off that claim.” What will he do? He’ll write, “Rabban Gamliel says it’s permitted, and the sages say it’s forbidden.” And if

30:12 Speaker 2 someone comes along a hundred years later and says, “But I heard from Rabban Gamliel that it’s permitted,” I’ll tell him: “There you are—Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi knew that and wrote it down. Rabban Gamliel says it’s permitted, but in the end the sages ruled that it’s forbidden.” Or they reached the conclusion that it’s forbidden. So Rabban Gamliel’s opinion does not prevail. Do you understand? This heads off attempts to challenge the Mishnah. The second reason for recording an individual opinion alongside the majority opinion is for difficult circumstances. What are difficult circumstances? Times of pressing need, decrees, and the like. In some circumstances, halachah permits relying on an individual opinion. Even though the halachah follows the majority, there are situations in which it permits relying on the individual. But how will we know what that individual held? Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says: We have to write his name, and that’s why his opinion was recorded. He says it’s permitted; the sages say it’s forbidden. During a time of decrees, they can rely on Rabban Gamliel, who says it’s permitted. All right, those are the two reasons. Things started getting complicated already in Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi’s time. Sorry, before that: Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi finishes writing the Mishnah. Now think how many collections of laws were left around him—rulings he hadn’t included in their original wording. In other words, he took Rabbi Meir’s Mishnah, saw a law written there, and said, “Oh, I already have this law in here.” But wait—that law also appears in Rabbi Yishmael’s writings, in Rabban Yochanan’s, and in this person’s and that person’s. What do you do with all that material? Do you just put it away in storage and leave it there? So Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi effectively says, “Gentlemen, I don’t need all that material. Please clear my table. Only the Mishnah I compiled is what we’re distributing.” What about everything else? Bar—outside. That’s why it’s called a baraisa. Because bar

31:49 Speaker 2 In Aramaic, it means “outside,” something external. A baraisa is something external. What does that mean? It is, so to speak, outside the Mishnah. You understand? That’s what baraisa means. So what do we do with all the baraisos? Put them in genizah? In principle, yes, but not exactly. Rabbi Chiya comes along—Rabbi Oshaya, sorry. Rabbi Oshaya and Bar Kappara come along, two Torah scholars. They were students of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. They took all the baraisos that Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi had left out—that is, had not accepted into the Mishnah. Now pay attention to why he didn’t accept them. Not because they weren’t correct.

32:22 Speaker 6 They were too long.

32:24 Speaker 2 Rather, either they were written at too great a length, or their wording wasn’t polished enough, or he already had the same material in the Mishnah from someone else, so he didn’t take another person’s version. Does that matter? Rabbi Chiya says—Rabbi Oshaya and Bar Kappara say, “We’ll take everything and gather it into a book called the Book of Baraisos.” And why is that important? Do you know why? Because two hundred years later, when the Amoraim who studied and compiled the Gemara had trouble understanding the Mishnah, what would they do? They would open the baraisos. The baraisos were sometimes worded differently, in ways that were easier to understand than the Mishnah’s concise wording, because the Mishnah was written very briefly. They would look at a baraisa and bring proof for their understanding of the Mishnah. That’s why you often find in the Gemara, “Tanya nami hachi.” What does that mean? “A baraisa teaches this as well.” Why bring me proof from a baraisa? We only go by the Mishnah. No—because sometimes the baraisa explains things, and I can see that this is how the Tannaim understood them earlier. Okay? The problem is that already in Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi’s time, people were beginning to have trouble understanding the Mishnah. Why? Because, little by little, the level of—well, you know how it is—keeps declining, and people could no longer understand the Mishnah’s concise language. Sometimes you look in the Gemara and see ten pages of Gemara on a single line of Mishnah. And from that one Mishnah, the Tannaim understood everything. So think how extremely concise it was. Rabbi Chiya says to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, “Wait, wait, wait. People already don’t understand the Mishnah you wrote. We have to write

34:06 Speaker 2 a commentary on the Mishnah.” You understand? Already in Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi’s generation, they began writing an explanation of the Mishnah. What was that explanation called? Tosefta. Okay, the Tosefta is rather like the Mishnah. You’ll hardly see it today; it’s hardly used. It appears at the back of the Gemara volumes. The Tosefta is essentially Mishnah, in the same style of language, but written in a more explanatory, clearer, more accessible way. Okay? Those are the three works: the Mishnah, the first work; the Tosefta; and—

34:40 Speaker 6 Baraisa.

34:40 Speaker 2 Baraisa. The baraisa is what remained of the mishnayos, what wasn’t included in the Mishnah. The Tosefta is an explanation of the Mishnah. The Mishnah is the Oral Torah as it is. By the way, do you know Tractate Tefillin? Yes? Have you heard of Tractate Tefillin? There is no Tractate Tefillin in the Mishnah. It’s among the minor tractates. Is Tractate Tefillin in the six orders of the Mishnah?

35:03 Speaker 6 No.

35:03 Speaker 2 Why isn’t there a Tractate Tefillin? Why isn’t there a Tractate Tzitzis? Have you thought about that? There’s a Tractate Berachos. Why isn’t there a tractate—what?

35:11 Speaker 6 It was obvious.

35:13 Speaker 2 Excellent. So both of you are right. Since it was a halachah given to Moshe at Sinai and obvious to everyone, because these are everyday things, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi didn’t compile a tractate on them. And I’ll give you some homework here. We’re in Chanukah, right? Is there a Tractate Megillah? You know Tractate Megillah?

35:28 Speaker 6 Yes.

35:28 Speaker 2 What is Tractate Megillah about? Which laws?

35:31 Speaker 6 Which day...

35:32 Speaker 2 Purim.

35:32 Speaker 6 Which day...

35:33 Speaker 2 Right, the laws of Purim. Excellent. Is there a Tractate Chanukah?

35:37 Speaker 6 No. No. No. Shabbos.

35:39 Speaker 2 Is there a Tractate Pesachim?

35:40 Speaker 6 Yes. Yes.

35:41 Speaker 2 Tractate Rosh Hashanah?

35:42 Speaker 6 Yes.

35:44 Speaker 2 Almost every festival got a tractate. Suddenly Chanukah disappeared from Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi’s radar. There is no Tractate Chanukah.

35:52 Speaker 6 Why? Moshe Rabbeinu?

35:53 Speaker 2 That can’t be it. It’s rabbinic—but Purim is rabbinic too.

35:56 Speaker 6 It’s obvious; you need to read it.

35:59 Speaker 2 Obvious? Isn’t it obvious enough to you that you have to read the Megillah?

36:02 Speaker 6 We’ve already mentioned one.

36:05 Speaker 2 Chanukah was mentioned on a single page in Tractate Shabbos, page 21b. That’s it. In the Gemara, not the Mishnah. No law of Chanukah is mentioned in the Mishnah. What’s going on here? What do you say?

36:16 Speaker 6 Because if so, a lot of things aren’t mentioned. What—on which day did they start lighting the candles?

36:20 Speaker 2 How long is Chanukah? How long is Purim?

36:23 Speaker 6 One day.

36:25 Speaker 2 So Purim got the special treatment: Megillah, Tractate Megillah, its own independent tractate.

36:29 Speaker 6 And Chanukah got nothing.

36:31 Speaker 2 And Chanukah got nothing.

36:31 Speaker 6 Chanukah has many laws. That could fill another tractate.

36:32 Speaker 2 “There aren’t many laws”? There are loads of laws of Chanukah. There are fifteen sections in the Shulchan Aruch—no, Purim too. Fifteen sections in the Shulchan Aruch on the laws of Chanukah. I think there are fewer on the laws of Purim, perhaps seven, if I’m not mistaken. So why was Chanukah left out like that?

36:47 Speaker 6 Purim too.

36:48 Speaker 2 Huh?

36:51 Speaker 6 Purim has a lot of stories. Purim has a lot of stories.

36:52 Speaker 2 No problem. Include them—make a Tractate Chanukah, put plenty of stories in it, and include its laws too.

36:59 Speaker 6 There aren’t many stories.

36:59 Speaker 2 There aren’t many stories about Chanukah? There are lots of stories about Chanukah.

37:02 Speaker 6 Chanukah doesn’t have a megillah.

37:03 Speaker 2 There’s a book called—

37:04 Speaker 6 Chanukah isn’t quite... no, not like that.

37:07 Speaker 2 No, they didn’t institute the reading of a megillah on Chanukah. On Chanukah they instituted lighting candles. So bring—

37:12 Speaker 6 Yes, you can’t make stories about it.

37:14 Speaker 2 About what?

37:16 Speaker 6 There is a megillah for Chanukah.

37:17 Speaker 2 There is a megillah for Chanukah, right. So the Gemara could have included it. There is Megillas Chashmonaim, the Book of Maccabees; there is Megillas Antiochus. There are Jews who read the Chanukah megillah, by the way. Granted, the Rabbis didn’t institute it, but still, it counts. What do you mean? They certainly could have included it in the Gemara. Why did Rabbi Yehudah—

37:32 Speaker 6 Make it into a story.

37:33 Speaker 2 Then make a tractate of one chapter, or two or three chapters, like Tractate Shekalim. A short tractate, with the laws of Chanukah in brief. What’s the problem? There are enough laws. I’ll leave that as homework for you for now, because I want to finish this subject. We’ll leave the homework. Once Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi—one moment—once Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi began writing the Mishnah, and of course I didn’t mention the obvious reason he did so: after all, it is forbidden to write down the Oral Torah. Everyone knows the principle, “It is a time to act for Hashem; they have violated Your Torah.” There was no other choice; otherwise the Torah would be forgotten among the Jewish people. So: Mishnah, baraisa, Tosefta. Once Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi opened the way, notice that there are various works by Tannaim that you know. For example, Midrash Rabbah, Bereishis Rabbah, was compiled by Rabbi Oshaya, a student of Rabbeinu HaKadosh. There is Mechilta DeRabbi Yishmael, with explanations of the Chumashim of Shemos, Vayikra, Bamidbar, and Devarim. There is Mechilta DeRashbi, which Rabbi Akiva compiled. There is Sifrei, a halachic midrash on Bamidbar and Devarim, also compiled by Rav, who was a student of Rabbeinu HaKadosh. There is Sifra, a midrash on Vayikra, also compiled by Rav. There are various works of Tannaim, of Amoraim—Tannaim who compiled them—compiled immediately after Rabbeinu HaKadosh. Now, before we move on to the next period, the period of the Amoraim, notice that Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi essentially closes the period of the Tannaim. He wrote the Mishnah and brought the period of the Tannaim to a close. That’s it. From here on, it’s the Amoraim. I’ll speak about that in a moment. Let’s mention one more point here. All right, we’ll get to it in a moment. The next period arrives: the period of the Amoraim. What is the period of the Amoraim? All the students of Rabbeinu HaKadosh, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, are no longer considered Tannaim, with one exception. Who is that one? Rav.

39:30 Speaker 2 Of Rav it is said, “Rav is a Tanna and may disagree.” What does “Rav is a Tanna and may disagree” mean? The rule establishes—excellent—the rule establishes that an Amora cannot disagree with a Tanna. What is an Amora? An Amora is someone from the students of Rabbeinu HaKadosh onward. Why is he called an Amora? From the word “one who says”—he says things. What does that mean? He states and explains the words of the Tannaim. That’s what Amora means. Now understand that the Amoraim were no ordinary people. Everyone whose name is recorded in Shas, everyone whose name you see written in Shas, could, at a minimum, bring the dead back to life. Okay? The condition for getting into Shas, for being recorded there, was the ability to revive the dead.

40:08 Speaker 6 What does that mean? That he tried to—

40:10 Speaker 2 Not that he tried; that he had the ability to revive the dead. They wouldn’t kill someone and say, “Go on, revive him now.” That wasn’t an entrance exam, right? The rabbi holding a sword, slaughtering someone, and saying, “Revive him for me.” But—what were you asking?

40:22 Speaker 6 A Torah scholar, the six orders.

40:25 Speaker 2 No, no, no. No, no, no, no. Besides, he had to know all six orders of the Mishnah, of course. So he had to know all six orders, Sifra, Sifrei, and a few other books. But he also had to be able to revive the dead. Right. Rav, the first of the Amoraim, goes down to Babylonia and begins spreading Torah there, begins spreading Torah there. Did you want to ask something?

40:43 Speaker 6 Was it once that simple to revive the dead? I mean, whenever people died, could they just revive everyone, and that would be that?

40:49 Speaker 2 No, he didn't—again, being able to revive the dead means he had the spiritual power to do it, not that he would now—he may never have revived anyone. He didn't go—

40:57 Speaker 6 To cemeteries, and see all the non-Jews as though they'd gotten up.

41:01 Speaker 2 So what? He's asking me a good question here. He's saying, what? If they could revive the dead, then come on, let them go to cemeteries and wake everyone up. So the thing is—the question comes up in the Gemara. There's a story with Rav Nachman and so on. He encountered dead people; we won't go into the whole story. He went—they don't have permission to get up. That's the catch, so to speak. I can tell you they once tried to do it, too, right? Since we're already talking about Rabbeinu Hakadosh, let's go back for a moment to the time of the Tannaim. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi worked out with Eliyahu Hanavi what could bring Moshiach, what could bring down rain, bring Moshiach, and so on.

41:31 Speaker 6 Three questions.

41:32 Speaker 2 So he told him to have Rabbi Chiya and his sons stand up to pray. And by the way, Rabbi Chiya used to mispronounce his prayers. Did you know that? If I'm not mistaken, he would switch the letter hei with ches—hei for ches and ches for hei. It all got mixed up for him because he was Babylonian, Babylonian. I don't quite remember where he was originally from, but the words would get mixed up for him, and they made him the chazzan together with his sons. And sure enough, when he said, “He causes the wind to blow,” the wind blew; “He brings down the rain,” and it started raining. He got to “He revives the dead.” The Gemara says all the dead wanted to get up. This really happened. But the Gemara says that they quickly investigated in Heaven who had revealed this secret, and they found out it was Eliyahu Hanavi. So they gave him lashes and immediately sent him to—ah, ah, that was Eliyahu Hanavi, I think, if I'm not mistaken.

42:13 Speaker 6 Yes, that was Eliyahu Hanavi.

42:14 Speaker 2 Eliyahu Hanavi, I think, yes. They told him to—in short, he came down in the form of a fiery bear and passed between them, disrupted the prayer, and that was the end of it. If they had closed their eyes, there's probably a chance they would have managed to raise all the dead. So... But no, that wasn't the point. In any case, what exactly was the role of the Amoraim? Notice that the role of the Amoraim was to explain the Mishnah. Now, that's not what we think of today, when we read Gemara with Rashi's commentary. When the Amoraim compiled the Talmud, how did they expect you, and every one of us, to study it? Knowing at least one entire order by heart. That's how they understood it: at least one entire order by heart. How do we know? Rav Nissim Gaon writes that there are places in the Gemara where you see it ask, “What is the difference between them?” There is a dispute—or not a dispute. Two Tannaim say the same thing. What's the difference between them? They're saying the same thing. The Gemara says, “The case of Rabbi Bruna is the difference between them.” Rabbi Bruna's case is the practical difference between the two views. And then you say, wait, which Rabbi Bruna? Where's Rabbi Bruna? Who mentioned Rabbi Bruna at all? They haven't talked about Rabbi Bruna in the last twenty pages. Where is Rabbi Bruna? And that's it—the Gemara stops there. Do you know where Rabbi Bruna is? One tractate ahead. One tractate ahead. They probably figured that, at most, you'd ask your rabbi what this Rabbi Bruna is about. He'd tell you to look in the next tractate, and then you'd understand. You need to study that entire order. In other words, within Seder Moed or Seder Nashim, they sent you from one source to another without telling you where to find them. They had mercy on us

43:59 Speaker 2 and didn't send us from one order to another—from Moed to Nezikin, or from Nezikin to Nashim, and so on. Within a single order you have, say, eight or ten tractates, and you have to know them all by heart. And so, the Rambam says, this was why the Talmud remained a closed book until Rashi's time: if you came to study a page or two of Gemara, you had almost no chance of understanding it, because the Amoraim assumed you already had knowledge and a very, very broad perspective in your learning. In any case, for 280 years, the Amoraim worked to explain the Mishnah. At the end of the Amoraic period, after 280 years, Rav Ashi and Ravina came along, and what they did was create the Babylonian Talmud. That is, they did the same work as Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi: they took all the teachings and discussions from those 280 years, gathered them into a book, and arranged them by topics in relation to the Mishnayos. And the Rambam concludes that whatever the sages of the Talmud—that means the sages of the Mishnah, the Tannaim, and the sages of the Gemara, the Amoraim—ruled, the entire Jewish people must follow forever. No one is exempt from the authority of the Talmud. Everyone must be bound by it. After the Amoraim came a period of about 186 years of the Rabbanan Savorai, the Savoraim I mentioned earlier. They essentially added nothing, so to speak; they just edited the Talmud a little and added a few discussions. There are discussions in the Gemara that weren't written by the Amoraim; the Savoraim edited them somewhat, but not too much. And after the period of the Amoraim and that short period of the Savoraim, we come to the era of the Geonim, which is an entirely different period. With Hashem's help, we'll talk about it in the next class. That's the continuation of

45:48 Speaker 2 the unfolding of Torah.