Torah Study Blog

Strict adherence to the Torah is simply not possible. Not because we are not believers, or we are too busy, or we like to eat bacon and shrimp. No. A significant part of the Torah is about sacrifice in the one-and-only Temple in Jerusalem; the Temple which was destroyed in 70 CE.

Even so, Rabbi Jaech freely admitted to us that if the teachings of the Torah were all she could follow, she could not subscribe to those teachings. The people who were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA last week were in a place they felt safe to worship God and to follow God’s law in the best way they knew how. Yet they were brutally murdered. How does that make any sense?!

The Jewish religion we practice today actually originated from the teachings of The Rabbis. When we say, The Rabbis, capitalized, we mean the rabbis whose teachings were preserved in the Talmud starting in the 2^nd century CE. The earliest teachings were labeled the Oral Law and it was believed by the faithful that, along with the written law of the Torah, the oral laws were given to Moses who passed them along to sages in his community. Each subsequent generation of sages passed the information along, and the sages eventually became known as rabbis.

When we study the Talmud and subsequent writings of Jewish sages, like Rashi and Maimondies, we are struck by their concern about community life and how we stay together, and not about theology. The Talmud and other writings preserve our greatest Jewish thinkers struggling with how to advise their followers how to live jewish-ly.

In Temple times, if you had committed a wrong you would bring your offering to the Temple and have the priests offer it up to God in order to get expiation. Now that the Temple was destroyed, the rabbis taught that people have to take their prayers directly to the gates of heaven.

Rabbi Jaech used this week to focus on what the sages taught us about the power of words. From the Talmud, Rabbi Hisda taught that, “All the gates of Heaven are apt to be locked, except for the gates of prayer for victims of verbal mistreatment.” And Rabbi Abbahu said that God was particularly affronted by the sins of, “verbal mistreatment, robbery, and idol worship.” It does not say God is particularly affronted by adultery or even murder! But verbal abuse is so heinous that God himself would mete out punishment for those who had been verbally abusive.

The Talmud contains a story about Rabbi Eliezer digging in his heels to prove a point, and the final wrap-up shows us how words matter:

Rabbi Eliezer declares that the oven of a community member is kosher. But the other rabbis declare the oven is not. Rabbi Eliezer, in an effort to prove God is on his side, causes a tree to move, a river to change course, and the walls of the building they are all sitting in to quake. Rabbi Eliezer obviously has great power – so he must be right! Right?

But, instead, Rabbi Joshua stills the walls and the voice of God enters the argument, and Rabbi Joshua actually talks back to God! Rabbi Joshua announces that the sages are engaged in a dispute about halakhic (Jewish) law and paraphrasing from Deuteronomy he says the Torah, “is not in heaven. We pay no attention to a divine voice because, long ago, at Mt Sinai, You wrote in the Torah, ‘After the majority must one incline.’”

And what did God do when spoken back to? According to the story, God laughed with joy and in agreement with Rabbi Joshua because his “sons” had finally learned so much that they got the better of God. Rabbi Joshua basically said to God, “Stay out of this! We are trying to figure out how to live here!!” It’s the moment when your children become adults and take responsibility for their own actions.

To the great embarrassment of Rabbi Eliezer, everything Rabbi Eliezer had declared kosher was now in question. The rabbis excommunicated Rabbi Eliezer because he behaved obstinately, but someone had to deliver this bad news. How do you break bad news to someone? How do you find the right words?

Rabbi Akiba, a sage who was known for his extraordinary sensitivity, offers to deliver the news, “lest someone inform him inappropriately and thus destroy the entire world.” Rabbi Akiba treats Rabbi Eliezer with great respect and tells Rabbi Eliezer in the kindest of terms – indicating that the other rabbis remain his companions. The story leads us to believe that Rabbi Eliezer repents and is able to rejoin his community.

Words can harm, and words can also be used to heal. Vile words can destroy someone’s world. We cannot change the behavior of others, but we can monitor our own behavior and try our best to use words in a way that does not bring down others.

As a point of information for our community: At 9:54 am on Saturday, November 3, we had a moment of silence for the people murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. A note of condolence was sent on the behalf of our community by Rabbi Jaech to the Tree of Life community.

misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter