Clergy and Educators

ICJS Scripture Forum, 2004-2005
Session #8

Scripture Forum
Session #8
Goucher College
May 13, 2005

Text:
Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Rosh Hashanah 25A (trans-lation by Rabbi Charles Arian)
(Another time) two witnesses came and said, "We saw it (the new moon) at its appropriate time," but on the next night it was not seen. Rabban Gamliel accepted their testimony. Rabbi Dosa ben Horkinos said, "They are false witnesses. How do they testify about a woman that she has given birth, and the next day her belly is be-tween her teeth?"

Rabbi Joshua said, "I agree with you." [The implication is that their testimony is false, the new month has not properly begun, and thus Yom Kippur is actually a day later than the date proclaimed by the Sanhedrin.] Rabban Gamliel sent him (R. Joshua) a message: "I order you to appear before me with your walking stick and your purse on the day which is Yom Kippur according to your calculation."

Rabbi Akiva found him (R. Joshua) troubled and said, "I can prove to you that everything which Rabban Gamliel has done is validly done, as it is written, ‘These are the Festivals of the Lord which you shall proclaim’ (Lev. 23) -- whether at the right time or not, I have no Festivals but these."

He (R. Joshua) went to Rabbi Dosa ben Horkinos, who said to him, "If we are going to investigate the actions of Rabban Gamliel's court, we will have to examine the actions of every court which has existed from the time of Moses until now, as it is written: ‘and Moses and Aaron and Nadav and Avihu and seventy elders of Israel went up before the Lord’ (Ex. 24). Why weren't their names listed? To teach you that every group of three which has arisen as a court over Israel is equivalent to the court of Moses."

He (R. Joshua) took his walking stick and purse in his hands and went to Rabban Gamliel in Yavneh on the day which was Yom Kip-pur according to his own calculation. Rabban Gamliel stood and kissed him on the head and said to him, "Come in peace, my master and my disciple. My master -- in wisdom, and my disciple -- because you heeded my words."

Introduction:
   This text, which dates from around 130 C.E., deals with the question of what is to be done when there is a conflict in a community over a decision that has been made. The subject under discussion is a calendrical dispute.
   The Hebrew calendar consists of lunar months, each month beginning with the new moon. The calendar is fixed now, so there can be no question about when any given month actually begins. Moreover, the calendar is arranged so that Yom Kippur never falls on Friday or Sunday -- i.e., Yom Kippur cannot immediately precede or follow Shabbat.
   (The months in a lunar calendar are, of course, short-er than those in a solar calendar and add up to a 354-day year. If no adjustments are made to such a calendar, holidays that are to be celebrated in a par-ticular season would eventually shift and end up being celebrated at the wrong time of the year. Before the calendar became fixed, the court had to make a decision every year whether or not a month needed to be added to the year. Now the calendar is fixed in a nineteen-year cycle; seven of the nineteen years have an extra month. Since Easter in the Orthodox Church has to fall around the same time as Passover, the calendar used by Orthodox Christians works the same way as the Hebrew calendar. Muslims also use a lunar calendar, but their calendar is not fixed, which explains why Ramadan falls at different times in the solar year.)
   In ancient times, the beginning of a month was es-tablished by visual observation of the new moon. As is illustrated in the text above, witnesses would go to the Sanhedrin to testify to their observation. Then messen-gers would go out to spread the word that the new month had begun.
   This practice accounts for why holidays in the Dia-spora are two days long as opposed to one day in Israel. It was difficult to know if and when the messengers had arrived with the proclamation of the beginning of the new month. If the people in a community could not be sure which one of the two days was the proper one in which to celebrate the holiday, they had to celebrate it both days.
   If the reliability of the eyewitness testimony regarding the sighting of the new moon was disputed, there could be a difference of one day in the calculation of the date of a particular holiday.
   In the text to be studied there is a dispute between Rabbi Joshua and Rabban Gamliel concerning the day on which Yom Kippur would fall. (Rabban Gamliel was at that time the head of the academy.) Two witnesses have testified to having seen the new moon, but their testimony is suspect. Rabban Gamliel nevertheless ac-cepts their testimony. He may have known they were lying, yet wanted to declare the new moon for other reasons. Rabbi Dosa ben Horkinos labels the two men false witnesses, and Rabbi Joshua agrees with him. Rabbi Joshua believes, therefore, that Yom Kippur will actually fall a day later than the date proclaimed by Rabban Gamliel and the Sanhedrin. So Rabban Gamliel commands Rabbi Joshua to appear before him with walking stick and purse (i.e., violations of the holiest day of the year) on the day that Rabbi Joshua believes will be Yom Kippur.
   This is a public debate about authority between two significant religious figures. Rabban Gamliel is command-ing obedient submission on the part of Rabbi Joshua, ordering him to desecrate the day that he believes is Yom Kippur and to desecrate it in a public way.

The discussion begins:

• Question: Is there anything in the law or in the tradition that prohibits a person from forcing someone else to act against his conscience?
• Response: The significant point in the discussion between Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Joshua is the distinction between public and private. When communal needs conflict with private (i.e., indi-vidual) needs, Judaism comes down on the side
  of the community.
• But what about not doing harm to your brother?
• Response: That situation is different: One makes a decision on the basis of someone else's need -- one individual to another, rather than an individual in opposition to a community.
• At this point there was a discussion of how the apostle Paul might address the disagreement be-tween Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Joshua (WWPS?). Martin Luther was also brought into the conversa-tion. The one point of agreement was that Paul would have opposed Rabban Gamliel's command as it is phrased. (Note: The chief difficulty in applying Pauline theology in this case is that Paul's remarks about Torah concerned the law as it related to gentiles. As such, these remarks cannot and should not be applied to an intra-Jewish debate about the law as it relates to Jews.)
• Remark made by a Christian participant: The
  way we bandy about the exercise of individual conscience without regard to a tradition is problematic. Conscience must have some reference to the needs of the community.
• Question: What is the relationship between the authority of the individual and the authority of the community? There needs to be an appropriate balance between both these things. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the primacy of conscience has to do with how one forms conscience. The Church's teaching has primacy. An individual cannot dissent without knowing what the Church teaches, trying to conform to what the Church teaches, and seeking the assistance of other people when there is a problem. If someone has gone through this process and finally dissents, then the Church cannot obligate him to violate his conscience. Such a process is the only way to have healthy dissent. There must be a mechanism to accommodate dissent -- dissent as a produc-tive and corrective voice -- within the community. Such a mechanism does not appear to be present in the discussion in the Rosh Hashanah text.
• Jewish response: This text is about human beings trying to determine God's will. What is surprising here is that Rabbi Joshua is the dissenting voice, given another text in which Rabbi Joshua figures prominently on the side of the majority:

We have been taught: Say a man made an oven out of separate coils [of clay, placing one upon another], then put sand between each of the coils -- such an oven, R. Eliezer declared, is not sus-ceptible to defilement, while the sages declared it susceptible. The oven discussed was the oven of Akhnai -- "snake" [so called be-cause it precipitated arguments as numerous as the coils of a snake].
   It is taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but the sages did not accept any of them. Finally he said to them, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let this carob tree prove it!" Sure enough, the carob tree was uprooted [and replanted] a hundred cubits away from its place. "No proof can be brought from a carob tree," they retorted.
   Again he said to them, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the channel of water prove it!" Sure enough, the channel of water flowed backward. "No proof can be brought from a channel of water," they rejoined.
   Again he urged, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the house of study prove it!" Sure enough, the walls tilted as if to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked the walls, saying, "When disciples of the wise are engaged in a halakhic dispute, what right have you to interfere?" Hence, in deference to R. Joshua they did not fall, and in deference to R. Eliezer they did not resume their upright posi-tion; they are still standing aslant.
   Again R. Eliezer said to the sages, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved from heaven!" Sure enough, a divine voice cried out, "Why do you dispute R. Eliezer, with whom the Halakhah always agrees?" But R. Joshua stood up and protested, "‘It [the Torah] is not in heaven’ (Deut. 30:12). We pay no attention to a divine voice, because long ago, at Mount Sinai, You wrote in the Torah, ‘After the majority must one incline’ (Exod. 23:2)."
   ... [Note: The paragraph omitted here will be reproduced below.]
   It is said: On that day all objects [that had been placed within that oven -- objects] R. Eliezer had declared clean -- [were pro-nounced unclean. Presently they] were brought and burned in fire. [After R. Eliezer's departure] the sages took a vote, excommuni-cated R. Eliezer, and asked, "Who will go and tell him?" "I will go," R. Akiva volunteered, "lest an unsuitable person go and tell him, and thus destroy the whole world." ...

• In this dispute God agrees with Rabbi Eliezer, but Rabbi Joshua cites Deuteronomy to make the point that the Torah is not in heaven, so it doesn't matter what God wants. Rabbi Eliezer is excom-municated and Rabbi Akiva -- who in the Rosh Hashanah text is sent to teach Rabbi Joshua --
  is dispatched to tell Rabbi Eliezer about the excommunication.
• Question: Does this mean that human authority is more important than God's will?
• As the story continues, there is concern about the impact that Rabbi Joshua's conclusion has on God [in the paragraph omitted above]:

R. Nathan met [the prophet] Elijah and asked him, "What did the Holy One do in that moment?" Elijah: "He laughed [with joy], say-ing, ‘My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me.’" [The text cited here and above is taken from The Book of Legends, edited by Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky, translated by William G. Braude, pp. 223-224.]

• The point is that God wants His children to grow up and assume responsibility. They should open the books and study; they should struggle over the meaning of the text so that they will know what to do, rather than expecting God always to reveal things to them.
• Objection: The will of God is embodied in halakhah. We don't want to divorce God from the ongoing life of the community. It's more complicated than an obvious reading of "My children have defeated Me." I have the same problem with reading Green-berg. Finding a way to articulate God's will is the big issue. God has ongoing activity in guiding the community. The thrust in this text is to go with the community when it diverges from God's will. One can make the argument that whatever is decided ultimately is God's will.
• Response: How do we know what God's will really is? We [only] know what the text says.
• But the text is a dispute about authority within a community.
• Every judgment involves interpretation, and I
  don't see that in this text. To what degree does this discussion allow for personal conscience and honoring disagreement?
• This is a dispute between authority and con-science: Rabban Gamliel does not give Rabbi Joshua leave to honor his own conscience.
• In the third paragraph, the word "you" in the phrase "you shall proclaim" is second person
  plural; so "you" can be read to mean the community.
• Comment: In the end Rabbi Joshua conforms to Rabban Gamliel's will, so the latter's speech -- "come in peace, my master and my disciple. My master -- in wisdom, and my disciple -- because you heeded my words" -- is disingenuous. Where is the critique that comes from God? People have to be open to authority, but authority has to be open to critique. This text teaches in two directions: Authority is right to say what it wants to say; authority pats the individual on the head when he accedes to authority even when doing so violates his conscience.
• Objection: In the end Rabbi Joshua has a different perception. Rabbi Akiva teaches him something that allows Rabbi Joshua to respond in a different way, to privilege the community over personal belief.
• Rabbi Joshua may have come to understand or ac-cept that he is part of the "you all," but it is not clear from the text that Rabbi Akiva had that impact on him. Rabbi Joshua goes to Rabbi Dosa ben Horkinos, who had originally disagreed with Rabban Gamliel, after Rabbi Akiva spoke with him; so Rabbi Joshua seems not to have been con-vinced by Akiva.
• Rabban Gamliel says, "you heeded my words," not "you figured it out."
• To what does "wisdom" refer -- that Rabbi Joshua came to the right decision or that he knuckled under?
• It refers to both these things.
• There are always two narratives: the official narrative (that of power and authority) and the unofficial narrative. I want to hear the latter.
• What the text conveys is that Rabbi Joshua
  is correct about the interpretation: You're
  correct, but you have to bow to the voice
  of the community.
• The voice of the less powerful speaks to power, is correct, and power takes no notice of the truth?
• The exercise of power and authority determines what is the truth.
• The one who has the power makes the decision. Nevertheless, [the decision] makes it O.K. if you celebrate the wrong day.
• The community can't make decisions if voices go in many directions.
• In Judaism there is no individual autonomy.
• There are different ways of understanding how a community relates to itself (individual autonomy versus tradition and authority). Individual auton-omy is partly cultural, that is, people can choose to disregard authority.
• I read the text as empowering. The structure comes from us, not from God. Those in authority can change.
• God approves and endorses our communal process, so we don't have to worry about being wrong. The community has the power to create authority.
• That's one side of the text, but there is another side that raises a question: Who cares if a minority voice is [merely] included in the text? [That is, the Talmud preserves both sides of a dispute.] I need to know the community can hear a minority voice and do something with it. How does the minority voice participate in the community? How is the minority voice empowered to help make reforms?
• The structure is human, therefore broken, and people get hurt.
• Authority and power will never make room for the minority.
• The minority voice does get heard, but it happens very slowly. To cite one example, Conservative Judaism, which considers itself bound by the rab-binic framework (as opposed to Reform Judaism, which does not), ultimately changed its stance
  on the issue of the ordination of women.
• Paragraph four is problematic. It seems like reckless hyperbole: If you allow this, then . . .
• But here the decision has been made: The new moon was declared by the court in authority.
• The decision has been made, and we have to live with it.
• I'm uncomfortable with having theological decisions being made by majority vote.
• Rabbi Dosa ben Horkinos is a shmo; he changes his mind. I also see Rabban Gamliel in a different place at the end of the text. He recognizes wisdom in the minority voice, and he has more respect for Rabbi Joshua.
• I want [Rabbi Joshua's position] considered as a legitimate reading for all of us who have had our heads patted and been sent on our merry way.
• Dealing with power always requires a hermeneutic of suspicion.
• Can leadership structures become so tyrannical that there is no other choice than to walk away? Yes. The text could have been happier. I agree that Rabbi Akiva convinces Rabbi Joshua. Akiva attempts to teach him; Rabban Gamliel does not.
• What recourse does the minority have against power? In paragraph four there is a mechanism
  for change. One needs to be patient and find a legitimate way to effect change within the community.
• That doesn't solve the problem for me. This ap-pears to be an issue of gender, but I think it is
  an issue of power. More often men are in positions of power. The triggers for me are (1) "[he] kissed him on the head," and (2) "because you heeded my words." These words color the whole text for women: "You are a good and faithful daughter because you have heeded the teaching of the Church." The experience of being a minority voice that is dismissed illumines and colors the reading of this text.
• What I hear from feminists is that I don't know what it is to be oppressed. This rules out partici-pation in the other's experience, and it rules out overcoming the very problem that women are trying to overcome.

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