Rabbinic Courage and the Frozen Text

The Talmud discusses the identity of a Gavra Rabba, an exceptionally great person or Torah sage. It quotes a most remarkable observation made by the well-known sage Rava, who states: “How foolish are some people who stand up [out of respect] for a Sefer Torah, but do not stand up for a Gavra Rabba.”^[1]

When asked what is so exceptionally great about these men, Rava ignores their astonishingly vast knowledge of Torah, and even their outstanding ethical and religious qualities. Instead, he notes their power and courage to change the obvious and literal meaning of a commandment as mentioned in the Torah. This, they say, makes a man into a Gavra Rabba!

Who Is Really a Great Man

The example that Rava gives is very telling:

While the Torah commands the bet din to administer 40 lashes for certain offenses,^[2] the sages reduced them to 39. They recognized the power and authority vested in them to interpret the biblical text in accordance with the spirit of the Oral Torah. This authority gave them the right, even the obligation, to change the literal meaning of certain biblical texts if it became clear that a deeper reading of these texts called for such a move. In our case, they concluded that the number 40 could not be taken literally and should therefore be reduced to 39 – or even less, in case of need.^[3]

For this reason, Rava maintains that these sages should be respected even more than the actual Sefer Torah, the biblical text. After all, the text is only the frozen aspect or outer garment of the living organism, the essential Torah. It is only in the Oral Torah as explained by the sages that the real meaning of the text becomes apparent.

Still, this cannot be the full meaning of Rava’s statement. If the power of the sages is revealed in their willingness to change the meaning of a text (such as in the case of the number 39 instead of 40), one should ask the following: why didn’t Rava quote the first case ever mentioned in the Torah where the sages changed the specific biblical number to a lesser number, and use that to prove that they are great people?

Shavuot – from 50 to 49

It is well known that on an earlier occasion the sages changed the number 50 to 49. This was in the case of the Omer counting, when the Torah in Vayikra requires counting a full 50 days between the first day of Pesach and the festival of Shavuot, which would then fall on the 51st day.^[4]

After carefully studying the text, the sages reduced the number of these days to 49 and stated that the 50th day, not the 51st, should be Shavuot. It is remarkable that in this case Rava does not state that their willingness and courage to reduce the number of days made them exceptionally great men. This is especially surprising since it is the Talmud’s custom to always bring proof for a specific teaching from the earliest biblical source possible, never a later one.

In our case, the proof of the sages’ courage is learned from a verse mentioned in Devarim, at the very end of the Torah! This is perplexing. Indeed, why didn’t Rava use the earlier verse in Vayikra?

The answer is crystal clear. Changing the meaning of the biblical text, or reducing a number, is not enough for a sage to warrant the title of Gavra Rabba. One is a Gavra Rabba when one reduces the pain of fellow human beings!

When a sage finds ways, through biblical interpretation, to mitigate the legal punishment of another human being, only then can we speak of a Gavra Rabba, an extraordinarily great person. In our case of 40 lashes prescribed by the Torah when certain offenses have been committed, it is an act of mercy to find ways to reduce the offender’s sentence and administer only 39, or even less. Such initiative and courage shows absolute moral greatness.

But in the case of reducing 50 days to 49 so as to make Shavuot fall one day earlier, there is no evident alleviation of human pain, so Rava does not characterize the sage in question as a Gavra Rabba, however brilliant he may be.^[5]

Halachic Courage

This insight is crucial. The virtue and stature of the sages are not measured by their great learning but by their courage. Especially when dealing with human pain. Throughout Jewish history the great sages were prepared to look for ways to change the meaning of the divine text because they believed that this is what God expected of them when dealing with human suffering. Apparently, they believed that the text was deliberately testing them to see how they would respond and find a good argument or loophole to reduce the devastating effect of a commandment.[6]

Sometimes they nullified a commandment, as in the case of the ben sorer u-moreh, the rebellious son.^[7] They also abolished the death penalty, although the text required it.^[8] This approach explains many extraordinary cases where the sages even used far-fetched arguments to avoid the sometimes harsh pronouncements of the divine text, as when they were able to free a woman from the status of aguna,^[9] or a child from the status of mamzer.^[10]

No one understood better than the sages the danger of an inflexible, immovable text – even one that is divine. They saw it as their task to unfreeze the frozen text of God, because that is what brings the text to life and makes it humanly livable.

Today, few things are as relevant as this principle. When dealing with so many new halachic problems that touch people’s lives, we are in great need of talmudic scholars who will once again apply this remarkable approach of our sages. Those sages were proud when they found solutions to human suffering because they were convinced that this was God’s will.

Rabbinical courage – nothing less.

Questions to Ponder

1. In your opinion, what (if any) halachic situations exist today that would require a Gavra Rabba to alleviate human pain through reinterpretation?

2. Might there be some halachic issues causing pain to individuals that cannot be alleviated by reinterpretation? What might those be? Alternatively, do we believe that “where there is a rabbinical will, there is a halachic way” (Blu Greenberg)?

3. The essay suggests that those who reinterpret are driven by “the deeper reading of the text and its spirit,” which calls for such a move. What are the principles that the Torah is trying to advance, in your view? And how can we ensure that we are not simply subjectively applying our own personal views to the text, driven perhaps by secular Western thought rather than Torah values?

4. Among other examples, the essay refers to the nullification by two Talmudic Sages of the law by which the community stones a rebellious son. In that discussion, Rabbi Yehudah reasons: “If the boy’s mother was unlike his father in voice, appearance and height, he cannot be charged as a rebellious son. Why? Because the verse reads: ‘He does not hearken to our voice.’[11] As we see that they must be alike in voice, the same applies to their appearance and height. Hence, there has never been such a case and never will be. The law is written only for studying.”[12]

Meanwhile, Rabbi Shimon says: “Does the law indeed dictate that because this boy consumed some meat and drank some wine his father and mother shall deliver him to be stoned? Hence, such a thing never occurred and never will occur. It is written only for studying.”[13]

Though arriving at the same conclusion, the two Sages’ reasoning differs. What is the difference between their reasoning, and what might this teach us about various options for interpreting text?

Diving Deeper:

1)  R. Cardozo emphasizes that in order to be considered a great man, a sage must have compassion for human suffering. However, one could as well argue that a sage ought to possess qualities pulling in the opposite direction.

The Talmudic Sages state that “any Torah scholar who is not hard as iron is not a Torah scholar” (Taanit 4a); and some Rabbis read the story of the Akedah (the binding of Isaac) as Abraham passing God’s test because he was willing to suppress his natural compassion and parental love in order to obey God’s word. Moreover, some would argue that the job of a posek (halachic decisor) or dayan (rabbinical judge) is to apply the halacha objectively, without consideration of the human costs, “and let the law bore through the mountain” (Sanhedrin 6b).

a) Which seems more appropriate in your eyes when it comes to a great individual – compassion or iron will?
b) Which of the two approaches do you think is truer to the spirit of the halacha?
c) What role, if any, do you think human emotions such as compassion play in the interpretation and application of halacha?

2)  Even if we grant that a wise halachic judge must, in general, be attentive to human suffering, are there broader halachic considerations that might override such concerns in specific situations? For example, when Rabbi Tarphon and Rabbi Akiva declared that, had they sat on the Sanhedrin, they would never have sentenced anyone to the death penalty, Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel retorted that they would have thereby increased the number of murderers (Mishnah, Makkot 1:10). Can you think of other examples and cases where maintaining a social or moral norm, or upholding a different value, may require suppressing one’s instinct for compassion?

3)  One often hears invoked, in response to the demand for halachic innovation, the claim of “yeridat ha’dorot”, the decline of the generations, meaning that while the ancient Rabbis could engage in bold and innovative interpretation of the Torah, we are no longer permitted to do so. The rabbis of our generation, being spiritually and intellectually inferior to those of ancient times, lack understanding of the deeper meanings/intentions of the Torah and Talmud, and therefore have no choice but to hew to a more literal and conservative approach.

Do you view this argument as a meritorious form of halachic humility? Or do you rather think that each generation of rabbinic leaders is granted the right to halachic innovation, and should utilize it fully, since it must respond to the needs of its generation?

(To suggest a third, perhaps provocative, alternative: might we even consider today’s rabbis greater in some way than leaders of former times? If so, how? And is this indeed a provocative/risky question?)

4)  According to R. Cardozo, we need rabbis and halachic authorities who are not  “inadequate”: not limited to legal expertise, showing compassion for human suffering. If you were designing a curriculum for a rabbinical college, what would you include in your course of study in order to encourage your future rabbis to become “large minded”?

(Contemporary legal and political philosopher Martha Nussbaum teaches law school students that one very good way to broaden their imaginative sympathy is to read novels. Should rabbinical students be given a literary reading list, or required to broaden their sympathy by being shown, for example, the film Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem?)

5)  In present day Israel and elsewhere, rabbinical courts frequently comprise haredi rabbis hearing cases brought by non-haredi or even non-religious parties. Can a rabbi be capable of effectively judging persons if he does not understand or sympathize with their lifestyle or values? Is such understanding or sympathy a necessary precondition for hearing such cases, or is expertise in the law sufficient?

6)  One solution to the problems highlighted by R. Cardozo could be to restrict the scope of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s jurisdiction, for example, by introducing civil marriage into Israeli law or by removing the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over various religious matters (marriage and divorce, kashrut and so on). What do you think of this suggestion? Would it dampen the hostility currently felt by many Israelis towards halacha and Judaism? Would the increased freedom of choice, and competition between different rabbinical courts, lead to an improvement in the quality and responsiveness of the courts—or would it merely create chaos?

^[1] Makkot 22b.

^[2] Devarim 25: 2–3.

^[3] In earlier days, Jewish Law would sometimes demand physical lashes under very specific circumstances, but only if offenders would be able to endure them without risk to their lives. It therefore could have happened that the court would administer only a few lashes, since more would have created life-threatening conditions. See Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 420:1 and Shulchan Aruch ha-Rav, “Hilchot Nizkei Guf ve-Nefesh ve-Dinehem.”

^[4] Vayikra 23:15–16; Torat Kohanim, ad loc.

^[5] This idea is based on an oral teaching that was transmitted to me in the name of one of the pre-Holocaust Chassidic leaders whom I was unable to identify.

[6] See Nathan Lopes Cardozo, JewishLawasRebellion: A Plea for Religious Authenticity and Halachic Courage (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2018), chap. 27.

^[7] Devarim 21:18-21; Mishna Sanhedrin 8:4; Sanhedrin 71a.

^[8] Mishna Makkot 1:10.

^[9] Gittin 3a; Yevamot 122b.

^[10] Kiddushin 71a, 72b. See also the remarkable observation in Kohelet Rabba, Vilna ed., 4:1.

[11] Devarim 21:20.

[12] See Sanhedrin 71a.

[13] Ibid.