What the Talmud
Teaches is what we need now.
Rosh Hashana
5779
September 10,
2018
Temple Beth
Jacob of Newburgh
Rabbi Larry
Freedman
Almost a year ago in November, the
Forward published an article in their ongoing series of asking various rabbis
the same question. This time they
asked 27 rabbis, “What is the one lesson Jews today need to learn from the
Talmud?”[1]
Seems like a simple enough answer. No doubt each rabbi will pick a favorite
quote and expand upon it. Sure
enough Rabbi Rachel Timoner from the Reform Congregation Beth Elohim wrote in
with this:
Today, when Nazis and white supremacists
are on the march, immigrants and Muslims threatened, people with disabilities
mocked, Sanhedrin 37a calls out to us urgently: “Adam was created alone… so one person will not say to
another, ‘My father was greater than your father’… And to tell of the greatness
of the Holy One blessed be He, who stamped all people with the Stamp of Adam,
the first [human] and not one of them is similar to another. Therefore, each and every person is
obligated to say, “The world was created for me.’”
This is a classic quote and truly a
foundational way Judaism organizes itself. At the very heart of the mitzvot regarding how we treat each
other is the notion that we are all equally children of God, equal in our place
among the great family tree of humanity.
We can criticize each other’s behaviors but there can be no place for
any suggestion that one type of person is any less than any other type of
person. From this it follows that
since no type of person or we might say class of persons is any less than any
other, that means we have an obligation to create laws and systems that insist
on fairness among all, equal justice for all, equal civil liberties for all,
equal access for all. We simply
are forbidden to exclude people based on who they are.
So that’s a good one.
The Humanistic Rabbi Adam Chalom from the
International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism offered this: “I am partial to ‘do not say one thing
in the mouth and another in the heart’ (Bava Metzia 49a) as a call for personal
integrity.”
Some rabbis offered an assessment of
Talmud as encouraging Judaism throughout the centuries. One rabbi said that
while one can certainly learn wisdom from any number of sources, there is
something particularly moving from a “deep and honest study of our own sacred
literature.”[2] Very nice.
Conservative Rabbi Scott Perlo from
Washington, DC’s Sixth & I Congregation offered this:
“That being a good, decent person
requires a lot of thought. We’re
American and we’re influenced by the strain of American Protestantism that
claims that goodness comes from the heart and a person
has to follow their conscience in order to do what’s right. But it’s not that easy! The Talmud is full of examples where
what’s right isn’t clear at all…
The Talmud believes that the moral intuition has to be trained, and it’s
right!”
I do think he’s on to something
here. People sometimes treat
Judaism as an ethnic extra-curricular but at its heart, it is trying to teach you something, it is trying to impress upon you morals. Failure to listen means a failure to learn. We do not believe that you can just
pick up morality in the street. It
is something to be cultivated.
So far, so good. All very nice. But the real surprise came from the
Orthodox world because these rabbis chose to focus not on a quote but on the
very nature of the Talmud, what it is when you open it.
A quick history: Talmud is two parts. The Mishna is the oral law passed down
from teacher to student as a memorized extremely large document. Yehuda ha-Nasi, born around the year
135 in the Land of Israel worried that the mishna was being forgotten, that the
Roman Empire was limiting study and so he began the process of having it all
written down. After he finished,
rabbis from the years 200 to 600 more or less, added commentary on that
law. And so what we have is law
surrounded by argument to decipher what the law means and how to apply it in
various situations. That’s called
gemarah. Taken together we have a
large numbers of rabbis arguing with each other over the course of
centuries. The Talmud is the
written record of these legal arguments and Talmud study is the continuation of
this legal arguing. But here let
me remind you that arguing in this case is not name calling but offering an
idea, an opinion, an actual fact and having others parry with their own idea,
opinion and actual fact.
And this is why Orthodox Rabbi Avram
Mlotek, co-founder of Base Hillel writes this:
“The idea of a Talmud itself is the
greatest lesson Jews may learn from its vast text. We live in a time where we often speak only within our echo
chambers of shared backgrounds and perspectives. We often do not encounter those with whom we passionately
disagree. The Talmud records a
plethora of dissenting voices, conversations and practices. This is because the Sages understood there
was a value to respectful discourse and exchange of ideas. We have lost the capability to engage
with the other and when we do it often resorts to antagonistic language
especially on the blogosphere where the human being is removed from the
conversation. Judaism reminds us
that our words have the power to create and destroy and the Talmud teaches us
this with every page.”
Talmud, as a concept, reminds us that
passionate argument can retain its decency. Talmud reminds us, indeed all Jewish study reminds us, that
excited engagement with the text may incur raised voices but only because of
the urgency of finding a true, logical, convincing answer that can pass muster
before others and can stand up to intellectual scrutiny. Talmud offers a model for how a society
can argue honorably amongst itself.
And what do we have today? We have arguments based on snark and
conclusions based on wishes. We
have sarcasm and insult that passes for wit with people congratulating themselves
on their ripostes and rejoinders.
And worst of all, we have a willing rush
to reject objective fact. We have
high-falutin nonsense that convinces us not to believe objective science. We embrace the dumbing down of
ourselves convinced that if it’s complicated, then it’s probably not true.
We are in a bad place right now in this
country because we are giving up decency and thoughtfulness. And we are doing this on purpose. We are standing down from our very
basic civic job of being an intelligent informed citizenry. We are letting ourselves be mesmerized
by internet graphics and TV production values and radio hysterics and we do
this happily endangering our very democracy.
People say to me all the time, “Thank you
for your service,” when they find out I’m a chaplain. It’s very nice but misplaced. No doubt the troops do sacrifice with their deployments and
talented people truly do amazing things but it is all in the support and
defense of the Constitution. Our
service is just to protect our country.
Your service is far greater.
Your service is to make yourself an informed citizen and this is far more
crucial. Your service, to vote, is
far more crucial. Your service, to
push back loudly, vocally against foolishness and stupidity and neo-Nazis and
white supremacists and emergent fascism, that is far, far more important. Members of the military defend
the country. You determine the nature of the country. Your service is far more
important.
There are troops leaving their families
to do their jobs in Afghanistan for six or eight months. The only sacrifice they ask of you is
to put down the crank emails and read a newspaper. The only sacrifice they ask of you is that you be a member
of an informed citizenry with actual facts from actual sources, not some
conspiracy theorist from a corner of the internet. The only sacrifice they ask from you is to support a free
press the same way you support the troops because it too is on the front lines
of preserving our democracy. Will you do that? Can you make that sacrifice?
One last rabbi. Orthodox Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz from Uri l’Tzedek: Orthodox Social Justice. He writes:
Perhaps the most important lesson we
learn from the Talmud is that everything matters – how we speak, what we eat,
how we spend our money, and even our thoughts. It is easy to fall into a mindset that the ends justify the
means, or to listen to only one opinion about matters of importance. But the Talmud’s expansiveness reminds
us over and over again that the thinking process matters. Indeed, the sages don’t recite dogmas. They constantly engage in argumentation
to agitate for a new understanding, which in turn brings new opportunities for
light and truth in every moment and encounter.
Reform Jews may not know a lot of Talmud
but we have inherited the passion for study, the respect for scholarship, the
insistence that arguments be made with logic and have a factual basis. We have inherited the idea that our
faith is not off limits to questioning.
We embrace our heritage that insists nothing is off limits and
everything matters and everything can be subject to scrutiny with respectful
passion. This year, as we enter
into the period of introspection, let’s do more than think of our obligations
to our fellow but also our obligation to truth and facts and civic
responsibility. Let’s remember
that the glory of our Talmud and of all Jewish learning is a desire and respect
for good, helpful discussion. Let
us reject loudly ignorance and hateful speech and dogma and propaganda. Let us be the ones who will stand up
for our country and remind everyone of the value of the heritage of honest
debate found in Talmud and Jewish learning. Then, we may just push back the ever-growing assault on the
soul of our country and we can be truly a light to the nations.
[1] 27 Rabbis on
One Lesson Jews Should Learn from Talmud, The Forward, November 21, 2017. https://forward.com/opinion/spirituality/387998/one-lesson-jews-today-should-learn-from-the-talmud/
[2] Gil Student,
Orthodox, Editor of TorahMusings.com
No comments:
Post a Comment