- April 23, 2021 www.torahleadership.org

Can You Tell Me How This Rishon Read the Gemara? Rabbi Aryeh Klapper, Dean

On Berkahot 19b, Rav Yehuda in the name of Rav statesthat a However, this contradiction is easily resolved. A version of the person who discovers that their clothing contains shatnez must statement attributed by the Yerushalmi to R. Zeira is cited as an remove it “even in the marketplace”, meaning even at the cost of anonymous (presumed) beraita in the Bavli, apparently to challenge public humiliation. The rationale provided is that human wants and Rav. However, the challenge is actually a lead-in to Rav Sh’va’s needs are irrelevant in the face of Divine commands. gloss, endorsed by Rav Kehana, that the DON’T in question refers The challenges Rav with five Tannaitic rulings in to the prohibition “Do not stray from what they tell you”, which is the which halakhah is suspended for the sake of humandignity. Each source of Rabbinic authority. It seems easy to readthis gloss into challenge is resolved by distinguishing the cases; human dignity the Yerushalmi and contend that the Amoraic dispute whether the trumps Halakhah Type A but not Halakhah Type B. The result is case of the shatnez discovered in the marketplacerefers to that Rav’s statement remains legally intact but no longer stands for Biblically or Rabbinically prohibited shatnez, but both agree with anything philosophically coherent. Rav that one must remove Biblically prohibited shatnez at once. In the Vilna edition's version of this sugya, humandignity However, Yerushalmi Berakhot 3:1 (also Nazir 7:1) trumps rabbinic decrees, Biblical monetary obligations, and passive cannot be explained this way. violation of Biblical obligations. Other versionsadd or substitute The first ruling cited in the Bavli to challenge Rav permits a Biblical obligations that do not apply equally to all Jews, or that to accompany a mourner returning from a funeral even via a result from annullable vows. A reasonable holistic understanding path that involves corpse-tum’ah, which is forbidden to a kohen. perhaps found in Tosafot is that the sugya is intended as a vector – The Bavli resolves the challenge by asserting that tum’ah on a road each time a new issue comes up, the goal is to find a way to does not refer to an actual grave but rather to a beit hapras, a space distinguish it from Rav’s case without disturbing his ruling. The from which human remains have been removed but perhaps not philosophic import may be that G-d chooses to allow human wants fully. A kohen is only Rabbinically forbidden to traverse a beit and needs to override Divine commands, so that accounting for hapras. The Yerushalmi assumes this interpretation but then states them becomes the Divine command, but that we are obligated to that R. Zeira’s statement authorizes kohanim to accompany the recognize that this is neither a necessary nor an unlimited mourner even when that involves a Biblical violation. concession. After all, halakhah requires us to sacrifice our lives Recall however that some versions of the Talmud,supported rather than violate certain commandments! by many rishonim, contend that the Bavli also distinguished Keeping this balance in mind requires us to maintain Rav’s Biblical obligations that do not apply equally to all Jews from Rav’s ruling as an Archimedean point, an absolutely fixed position. ruling. The prime example is the prohibition against becoming Nevertheless, it might move. tamei via contact with a corpse, which applies only to kohanim. We .there is no can reconcile Rav with the Yerushalmi by contending that R“ ,אין עראי לכלאים Kil’ayim 9:1 states temporariness with regard to the prohibition against wearing Zeira’s statement refers to Rabbinic prohibitions and to Biblical kil’ayim (=shatnez). The Yerushalmi thereupon reads: prohibitions that do not apply equally to all Jews. If he was walking in the marketplace and turned outto be wearing This reconciliation exposes an apparent gap in the Bavli. Rav shatnez – Kehana defends Rav Sh’va for limiting the beraita “Great is human two Amoraim (dispute): one says ‘forbidden’, and the other says dignity in that it pushes aside a DON’T in the ” to Don’t ‘permitted’. Stray, and therefore to Rabbinic prohibitions. (Don’t Stray is also the The one who says ‘forbidden’ – it is a Torah matter; source of the Sanhedrin’s general authority over Biblicalhalakhah, The one who says permitted – along the lines of whatR. Zeira but in context Rav Sh’va does not mean to imply that one can defy said: the Sanhedrin for the purpose of sustaining humandignity. Maybe “Great is human dignity in that it pushes the DON’T mitzvah the people in the beit midrash who laughed at him thought that’s aside for a moment.” what he meant?) But if human dignity also trumps someBiblical obligations, Rav Sh’va’s interpretation seems unnecessarily narrow. The ‘permitted’ position seems to directly contradict Rav! So while the Bavli doesn’t say this outright, perhaps by the end of the sugya Rav Sh’va’s interpretation is inoperative. )ובגד כלאים שעטנז לא יעלה עליך( Reading the Bavli this way opens further possibilities. The מכאן תנן: fourth challenge in the Bavli to Rav is from the ruling that an אין עראי לכלאים. elder’ need not trouble to pick up and then return a lost object‘ ובירושלמי פליגי אמוראי אי דרבנן הוא או דאורייתא that is beneath his or her dignity, despite the Biblical prohibition אם אדם הבין בשוק שהבגד שהוא לבוש יש בו כלאים – You must not look away. The solution is that the case of lost objects פושטו מיד למ"ד דאורייתא, can only be generalized to monetary prohibitions, and not as far as ולמ"ד דרבנן - עד שיגיע לביתו. Rav’s case of shaatnez. The fifth challenge, fromthe obligation for וי"מ even a nazir and kohen gadol to bury someone who dies without דכ"ע אית להו דאורייתא, relatives, is resolved by distinguishing between passive and active ומ"מ משום כבוד הבריות דוחה, וימתין עד שיגיע לביתו. violations. Many commentators note that not picking up a lost ואי ק"ק object is also a passive violation. This means that the distinction דהא אמרינן דגדול כבוד הבריות שדוחה לא תעשה - ה"מ בשב ואל תעשה, אבל between monetary and ritual obligations is no longer necessary to בקום ועשה – לא!? .defend Rav. Perhaps that means it too is inoperative וי"ל At least at first glance, this would be a stringency. The most דה"מ כבוד המת, straightforward understanding of the Talmud is thathuman dignity אבל כבוד הבריות דחיים - דוחה ואפילו בקום ועשה overrides all monetary prohibitions, whether active or passive. This וכן פר"ץ. outcome seems practically implausible, and various methods have been proposed for evading it. But saying that the monetary/ritual “A garment of mixed kinds shaatnez must not go upon you” – distinction has been cast aside may be the simplest. Based on this verse a Mishnah (Kil’ayim 9:2) teaches: We can decide instead that reconciling Rav and the Yerushalmi There is no (leniency of) temporariness regarding (the wearing in Berakhot/Nazir is unnecessary. The Yerushalmi believes that of) kil’ayim. human dignity can override even active violations, whereas the And in the Yerushalmi, Amoraim argue whether this (ban on Bavli maintains steadfast allegiance to Rav, and the Bavli’s momentary wearing) is Rabbinic or Biblical. allegiance is sufficient to make our own halakhic position if a person realized while in the marketplace thatthe garment they immovable. are wearing contains kil’ayim – Please note that even this extreme reading of theYerushalmi they must remove it immediately according to the opinion that it is would not open a free-for-all in which every individual could Biblical, decide for themselves what violated their dignity, and in which but according to the opinion that it is Rabbinic – (they may wait) even the slightest violation of human dignity wouldjustify violating even the most severe Biblical prohibitions. What it would do until reaching home. instead is stimulate the development of a carefullycalibrated and But some interpret nuanced system. For example, halakhists working from the Bavli that all opinions hold that it is deoraita, have already distinguished between major and minor dignity but regardless, because of human dignity it is pushedaside, and violations, or between the dignity of many peopleand that of they may wait until reaching home. individuals (this is also supported by some texts of the Yerushalmi), But if you find this (interpretation) a little difficult or between temporary and long-term suspension of halakhah(also because we say that “Great is human dignity in that it pushes aside supported by the Yerushalmi ). They have also specified the a DON’T” – conditions under which an ‘elder’ can look away from a lost object, applies only when in a passive case, but not in an active case?! and distinguished between cases where the relevant human dignity One can respond: cost is accidental or essential to the halakhah. For example, the That is only true with regard to the dignity of thedead, halakhah sometimes mandates public humiliation as a punishment but the dignity of living human beings – pushes (Biblical for sin! All these distinctions and regulations and more would be prohibitions) aside even actively. needed in an alternate halakhic universe based on the Yerushalmi’s So interpreted R.Z. (Note: I don’t know to whom this refers.) rejection of Rav. The “Some interpret”, and the mysterious R.Z. quote the What doesn’t seem possible is to read the Bavli as rejecting Bavli’s final distinction between active and passive, but then claim Rav. Nonetheless, at least one medieval reader appears to have that it applies only to the dignity of the dead. Butthat distinction done so. I’ll provide the text as found in the Peirushim uPsakim shel Rabbeinu Avigdor HaTzarfati # 187 and also in the Tosafist was introduced to explain why human dignity does not trump anthology Moshav Zekeinim to Vayikra 19:19, with my translation. halakhah in the case of Rav, who is dealing with thehonor of the (Note: There seems to be great uncertainty or even controversy living!? In fact, Rav and the Yerushalmi seem to be discussing the about the identity of the relevant R. Avigdor.) same case, so how can one even imagine reconciling them?! I look forward very much to your creative explanations.

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