On Rules And Breaking Rules: A Story From, Of All Things, The Talmud: “The Oven of Akhnai”, from the Babylonian Talmud, circa 59 BCE, reframed by A. Goblin.
Observant Jews have a lot of rules and laws—there are 613 Laws in the Torah, and countless rules and ruling passed down (and still argued over) centuries later.
There was a debate of whether a kind of clay oven (I know nothing about clay ovens, but apparently this one was made with separate clay tiles with sand between them can become ritually impure. Look, we Jews CARE about these laws a lot; but while we’ve made copying the Torah exactly so important that a Torah can cost more than two new cars, as every piece is done by hand and every piece must be perfect…we also spend a LOT of time interpreting them. And arguing about them. This is normal.
What IS known is that by Jewish tradition, the Time of Prophets has passed. God, as you may have noticed, does not interfere much in human affairs, which is good, because it would probably conflict with all the various Gods we worship. (Although the commandment isn’t “Though shalt have no other Gods besides me”, it is, “Thou shalt have no other Gods BESIDE me. Which is how I can attempt to serve Hashem AND P’tah at the same time; but then again, I’m slightly mad, so who knows?)
So God gave us the Torah, one of the first sets of rules and laws we know (but after the Code of Hammurabi, for example), and we argue about it—I mean, we follow it as best we can, but it’s very clear that we have to make our own interpretations; no Prophet will come to tell us what to do.
It is a fascinating example of strict order, argued into glorious (if theoretically logical and orderly) Chaos.
A dude named Rabbie Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (that is, Elizer, son of Hyrcanus—and what kind of Jewish name is Hyrcanus, anyway?) argues it is clean; the entire rest of the group, all learned Rabbis, the Chcamim or “sages”, say it is impure.
Eliezer becomes frustrated. He says, “If I am correct, and the halchah agrees with me, then let me prove it; let that tiny carob tree will shoot out of the ground as if it had lived a hundred years and grow tall and strong!”
And immediately, the carob tree SHOOTS up (some say it flew out of the ground in all its multi-ton glory) to a full-grown, somewhat ancient tree.
And the Rabbis look at each other and look at him, and say, “Look, Eliezer, that’s cool, but a carob tree doesn’t prove a point of law.”
So Eliezer said, “If I am right in my interpretation, this great stream, which has flowed next to our schuul (Synogogue) for hundreds of years will suddenly reverse course and flow backwards1” And the mighty stream slowed…stopped flowing…and then, with quite a lot of surprise for the fish, the stream visibly flows BACKWARDS. And has done so to this day.
The Rabbis were shocked. But as they calmed down, one said, “Okay, that’s really impressive, but it doesn’t prove a point of law, either.”
Rabbi Eliezer, who may have had a temper or may simply have been frustrated by the rejection of his logic, spoke in a stentorian voice and said, “I am correct, and the very walls of this Temple will bend inwards and crush us all if I am wrong!”—and
Lo, the walls began to bend inward. The Sages did not react with calm; they all panicked, until one, Rabbi Joshua (pronounced “Yo-shew-ah”, should you care, stood up and said, “Walls! Stand thy ground!”
And the walls froze. Unable to disobey Rabbi Eliezer, unwilling to embarrass Rabbi Joshua, they remained bent; and should you visit that house of learning, you will see the walls are still bent. This proves the story is true, if only we can find that particular place of learning.
Reb Eliezer, completely fed up, shook his head, and now it was his turn to call out a mighty call, “If my interpretation of the halacha (the law) is correct, then may it be proven by Heaven itself.”
Whereupon a great voice, not booming at all, yet heard loudly, clearly, and with great force by all and sundry present, even the children in the kindergarten next door and the cats which were mysteriously hanging around, rang out, “Why do ye dispute with Rabbi Eliezer? He is correct in every way.”
And a certain Rabbia Jeremiah stood up, then, as all others except Elizer sat there, trembling to be so near the Divine Presence. He said:
“O Lord, you gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai and then you left us to decide. So decide we must. The Voice of God does not prove what is needed—the human interpretation of the law which has been our burden and our blessing for thousands of years.”
So the oven was ruled impure, and, in Heaven (for The Name is everywhere, but His Presence is restrained to a faraway place from mankind, surrounded by the heavenly host)—the Lord God could not stop laughing. “My children have defeated Me!” he kept exclaiming, with delight. “My children have defeated Me!”
The moral, for Jews and non-Jews alike:
Once something is given to you—a thought, an idea, an assignment—it is yours. You may govern your whole life according to it; and while you may change because of, say, threats of death (as with forced converts, for example)—what is given to you is yours. It is your responsibility; it is your power. It is very specific Order, argued over millennia as each generation must decide the Truth, or Close Enough To The Truth To Count, for themselves.
____________
If you enjoyed this, do check out my Amazon books.
I mean, the Dwarves worship P’tah, who mostly said, “Work, create, and build”. They’ve had to interpret the rest for themselves; and look at all they’ve made and created.
So it goes, Barukh Hashem. So it goes.
Comments are closed.