Daf 3a (continued) - "On the Road"
Ein Yaakov
- The World of Talmudic Aggada
By Dr.
Moshe Simon-Shoshan
Lecture 6: Daf 3a (continued)
On the
Road
The first
section that we shall deal with serves as a bridge between the previous sugya
and the one that follows:
R. Yitzchak
b. Shmuel says in the name of Rav:
The night has
three watches,
and at each
watch the Holy One, blessed be He, sits and roars like a lion and says:
Woe is me,
That I
destroyed My house
and burnt My
temple
and exiled My
children among the nations of the world.
In this
section, R. Yitzchak b. Shmuel, in the name of Rav, repeats R. Eliezers
statement that portrays God marking the three night watches. However, these later rabbis add an
extra line. Whereas R. Eliezer
presents God as producing an inarticulate roar, R. Yitzchak records the exact
words that God utters as He roars three times nightly.
The result of
this addition is a radical transformation of this tradition and its depiction of
God. As we saw previously, R.
Eliezer portrays God as a cosmic force who is quite different than the God of
history who roars in the biblical source in Yirmiyahu. God, according to R. Eliezers
presentation, operates according to the eternal repetition dictated by the laws
of the universe, not according to the unfolding of human history. He roars from the heavens three times
a night at precisely the same points, without regard to what is happening to the
humans on the earth below. God
expresses Himself through a triumphant roar which transmits his power throughout
the nighttime heavens, while on earth it seems that the world is dominated not
by God, but by demonic powers.
In the later
Amoraic iteration of this tradition, God appears not as an inarticulate and
inevitable cosmic force who is far removed from human events, but as a
vulnerable being who mourns the historic tragedy of the Jewish people. He spends each night mourning His
destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and exile of His children. This is a remarkably human God, who
is prone to regret his actions and is emotionally involved with His home, His
city and His children on earth. This
God is clearly quite different from God as R. Eliezer portrays Him, and from the
rationalist of God of the Rambam and his followers.
This passage
also presents a different perspective on the nature of galut (exile), the
destruction of the Temple, and Israels dispersion among the nations of the
world. In the Bible, as in the
Yirmiyahu passage on which this tradition is based, galut is Gods
just response to Israels sins. In
rabbinic sources such as this one, however, we often find a different account of
galut. Any mention of
Israels sins is omitted. The
reasons for Gods decision to exile His people remain hidden. God may even have done something
wrong in sending Israel into galut.
Despite His responsibility and later regret for the galut, God
does not necessarily have the capacity to immediately end the galut. He is a prisoner of His own actions.
The
theological implications of this text are quite disturbing. How could any of the Rabbis have
believed that God is so fallible and vulnerable? Certainly, as we have
mentioned, there is little basis for such a God in the Bible. I am not sure how the Rabbis would
have responded to these concerns.
Perhaps the Rabbis believed in a multi-faceted God, who is at once profoundly
human and at the same time perfect and all-powerful. Such a God is arguably more complete
than a purely rational, transcendent God, because He takes part in all aspects
of existence being and becoming, permanence and change.
The
problematic nature of this passage was already noted long ago. The text presented above is based on
the manuscripts of the Talmud that we have received. The printed edition of the Talmud,
however, records a slightly different version, in which God says Woe to My
children because of their sins I destroyed the Temple
It seems that some
scribe or printer was disturbed by the texts implication that God is solely
responsible for the galut and now regrets His actions. So he emended the text so that it
places the blame for the galut squarely on the people of Israel and their
sins. God does not regret His
actions; rather, He regrets the actions of the Jewish people that forced Him to
unleash such a terrible punishment on them.
The Gemara
goes on to present a baraita which tells a story:
A It has been taught: R. Yosi
says,
I was once
travelling on the road,
and I entered
into one of the ruins of Jerusalem in order to pray.
Eliyahu of
blessed memory appeared
and watched
over me at the door till I finished my prayer.
B After I finished my prayer, he
said to me:
Peace be with
you, my master!
and I
replied: Peace be with you, my master and teacher!
And he said
to me: My son, why did you go into this ruin?
I replied: To
pray.
He said to
me: You ought to have prayed on the road.
I replied: I
feared lest passersby might interrupt me.
He said to
me: You ought to have said an abbreviated prayer.
Thus I then
learned from him three things:
One must not
go into a ruin;
one may say
the prayer on the road;
and if one
does say his prayer on the road, he recites an abbreviated prayer.
C He further said to me:
My son, what
sound did you hear in this ruin?
I replied: I
heard a Divine voice, cooing like a dove, and saying:
Woe is me
that I destroyed My house
and burnt My
temple
and exiled My
children among the nations of the world!
And he said
to me:
By your life
and by your head! Not in this moment alone does it so exclaim,
but thrice
each day does it exclaim thus!
And more than
that,
whenever the
Israelites go into the synagogues and schoolhouses and respond: 'May His great
name be blessed!'
the Holy One,
blessed be He, shakes His head and says:
Happy is the
king who is thus praised in this house!
Woe to the
father who banished his children,
and woe to
the children who were banished from the table of their father!
This story is
complex on both the formal and thematic levels.
On the formal level, the story is narrated by its protagonist, R. Yosi. R. Yosi, however, does not present
his story in a straightforward chronological manner. Rather, he narrates his story three
times, each time filling in details that were missing from the previous
versions. We marked these three
sections A, B and C.
In section A,
we get the basic outline of the story.
R. Yosi goes into the ruin to pray, and Eliyahu appears and watches at
the entrance until R. Yosi finishes his prayers.
Though the story is told in the first-person, the narration seems
objective. We see only what an
outside observer would see. As such,
we do not have access to the characters motivations. We do not know why R. Yosi decided to
pray in the ruin. Neither do we know why Eliyahu comes to stand guard at the
door. We can, however, already
speculate regarding the characters motivations.
R. Yosi may have gone into the ruin simply in order to find a quite place
to pray, much as, in the pre-cell phone days of ubiquitous pay phones, people
used to duck into telephone booths in order to pray Mincha undisturbed. However, these are not ordinary
ruins; they are the ruins of Jerusalem, a few generations after the Romans
destroyed it. Perhaps there was some
spiritual significance to praying in Jerusalems ruins in those days, just as we
pray at the Western Wall.
Eliyahus
positioning himself as a watchman at the door suggests that there is some
element of danger in this ruin. This
should hardly come as a surprise.
Even in our modern context, old, abandoned buildings are considered dangerous
places. From a cultural perspective,
they are what anthropologists call liminal spaces or, to use another technical
term, they are nisht a hin und nisht a her. They stand at the margins of
civilization. On the one hand, they
are a product of human civilization. On the other hand, they are no longer
really part of that civilization.
They are inhabited by people who are at the margins of society: squatters,
criminals, and others involved in illicit activities, as well as animals that
make their homes in proximity to human settlement. These structures provide shelter, but
not complete shelter, and they are prone to collapse. Ruins liminality may also extend to
their marginal position between the natural and supernatural. Old, abandoned houses are often
thought of as haunted by spirits or demons.
In sum, ruins are places of danger because of their marginal position in
the human landscape.
The next two
sections of the story each record a dialogue between R. Yosi and Eliyahu in
which R. Yosi narrates more details of his entry into the ruin.
The first
conversation deals with R. Yosis motivations for entering the ruin. From this conversation, we learn that
R. Yosi entered the ruin because he sought a secluded place to pray, away from
main road and the interruptions of potential passersby. Eliyahu berates R. Yosi for this
decision, saying that he should have said a shorter prayer by the roadside
instead.
In the second
conversation R. Yosi tells us what transpired while he was inside the ruin. In the original telling of the story,
the reader effectively remained outside of the ruin with Eliyahu. R. Yosi sought privacy in his prayer,
and he is not disturbed even by the readers gaze. Now that he has finished praying, R.
Yosi reports to Eliyahu and to the reader that he heard a Divine voice in the
ruin God mourning for His lost Temple and His exiled people. This time Eliyahu responds, not with
rebuke, but with further elucidation, telling R. Yosi about other instances in
which God makes similar declarations.
This rather
unusual narrative strategy, in which each subsequent retelling of the story
fills in various details, plays an important role in the thematic development of
the story. Like many rabbinic
stories, this narrative combines both halakhic and aggadic elements. Our story
is distinctive because it divides the halakhic and aggadic elements into two
different sections. The first
dialogue deals with the halakhic aspects of the story, while the second one
deals with the metaphysical aspects of the story.
The resulting narrative contrasts between halakhic and aggadic approaches
to prayer.
Taken on its
own, section A of our story may be seen as a halakhic exemplum, a type of
rabbinic story in which we learn a legal lesson from the actions of a rabbi. R. Yosi leaves the road and enters a
ruin in order to pray, and Eliyahu comes and watches over him. This seems to suggest that R. Yosis
behavior was proper, and it is appropriate to pray in a ruin.
However, with
the second scene, the entire nature of the story is transformed. R. Yosi is no longer an exemplar of
proper conduct, but the object of Eliyahus rebuke. Eliyahu informs R. Yosi that his
halakhic considerations were incorrect, and he should have remained on the road
and prayed an abbreviated prayer.
Now the story takes on the form of another standard type of rabbinic story, the
case story. In this type of story, a
rabbi or rabbis evaluate an event or action done by others and then make a legal
ruling determining its halakhic status.
In this case the rabbi who evaluates the situation is none other than
Eliyahu himself, who is qualified to overrule the decision of a mere mortal,
even a great sage like R. Yosi. Yet
because the individual in question was a great rabbi, even if his position was
ultimately overruled, his actions still retain an element of legitimacy. The story contrasts the views of R.
Yosi and Eliyahu, ultimately ruling in favor of Eliyahu.
The storys
halakhic discussion deals with a series or related issues that revolve around a
central question: To what extent is prayer an all-encompassing experience of
direct relationship between the individual and God, which shuts out the outside
world and its demands, even when doing so endangers ones life? And to what
extent should the individual modify the way he prays in order to accommodate the
demands of his social, political, and physical reality? These are issues that come up
throughout the first chapters of Berakhot, both with regard to the
recitation of the Shema and with regard to the Shemoneh Esrei. These issues often come up when a
person needs to pray on the road, rather than in his home or in a house of
prayer or study. In these
circumstances, a person has limited control over his environment, and the
demands of the outside world are more likely to intrude on his private
conversation with God.
I would like
to take a quick look at some of these relevant texts in order to place our own
discussion in a broader context. The
first text is later in the first chapter of Berakhot. Mishna 1:3 deals with the debate
between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai regarding the proper posture for the
Shema. Beit Shammai hold that
one must lie down for the evening Shema and stand for the morning
Shema, in accordance with the verse When you lie down and when you rise.
Beit Hillel, in contrast, focuses on the
words, when you go on your way, understanding them to mean that one can say
the Shema in whatever posture one finds oneself. The Mishna then records the following
account by R. Tarfon:
R. TARFON
SAID:
I WAS ONCE
WALKING BY THE WAY
AND I
RECLINED TO RECITE THE SHEMA
IN THE MANNER
PRESCRIBED BY BEIT SHAMMAI,
AND I
INCURRED DANGER FROM ROBBERS.
THEY SAID TO
HIM:
YOU DESERVED
TO COME TO HARM,
BECAUSE YOU
ACTED AGAINST THE OPINION OF BEIT HILLEL.
This story is
remarkably similar to ours. Here
too, a rabbi tells us how he found himself on the road and placed himself in a
dangerous situation in order to pray in the optimal manner. In this case, the danger is not one
of place (the ruin), but one of time: at night it is dangerous to be on the road
because of the presence of bandits.
This recalls the concerns about the dangers of the night that we have previously
seen referred to in the Gemara. In
both stories, the rabbi is rebuked for his dangerous behavior. Though the cases are quite different,
both stories conclude that one should not endanger ones life for the sake of
proper prayer (at least in these situations).
Next, in the
opening mishna of the second chapter we read:
IN THE BREAKS
[BETWEEN THE SECTIONS OF THE SHEMA]
ONE MAY GIVE
GREETING OUT OF RESPECT AND RETURN GREETING;
IN THE MIDDLE
[OF A SECTION]
ONE MAY GIVE
GREETING OUT OF FEAR AND RETURN IT.
SO R. MEIR.
RABBI YEHUDA
SAYS:
IN THE MIDDLE
ONE MAY GIVE
GREETING OUT OF FEAR
AND RETURN IT
OUT OF RESPECT,
IN THE BREAKS
ONE MAY GIVE
GREETING OUT OF RESPECT
AND RETURN
GREETING TO ANYONE.
This passage
presents a dispute between R. Meir and R. Yehuda about situations in which the
obligation to interact with a person who approaches you conflicts with the need
to say the Shema without interruption.
The Mishna deals with a series of situations of varying seriousness. The lowest level of seriousness is
the common passerby, the sort of person that R. Yosi, in our story, is concerned
will interrupt his prayer. R. Meir
forbids even returning a greeting in this case, while R. Yehuda permits
returning a greeting between paragraphs.
In the next situation, one of honor, one is confronted by ones social
or political superior. In this case, R. Meir and R. Yehuda disagree on the
extent to which one may interrupt.
Finally, in the situation of fear, one may endanger oneself by failing to
greet a certain person. In this
case, all agree that one may even initiate a greeting. Once again, the normative position is
that the need for an exclusive engagement with God during prayer does not mean
that one may or should endanger oneself by ignoring threats from the outside.
Next, in 4:4,
the Mishna explicates the abbreviated prayer mentioned in our story:
R. YEHOSHUA
SAYS:
IF ONE IS
TRAVELLING IN A DANGEROUS PLACE,
HE SAYS A
SHORT PRAYER,
SAYING:
SAVE, O LORD,
THY PEOPLE THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL;
IN EVERY TIME
OF CRISIS
MAY THEIR
REQUIREMENTS NOT BE LOST SIGHT OF BY THEE.
BLESSED ART THOU, O LORD, WHO HEARKENEST TO PRAYER.
Here we find,
once again, that one sacrifices an optimal prayer experience, by cutting ones
Shemoneh Esrei short, in situations of danger. Physical existence takes precedence
over developing the life of the spirit.
However, in
the beginning of the fifth chapter, we find another perspective:
ONE SHOULD
NOT STAND UP TO SAY TEFILLA
SAVE IN A
REVERENT FRAME OF MIND.
THE PIOUS MEN
OF OLD
USED TO WAIT
AN HOUR BEFORE PRAYING
IN ORDER THAT
THEY MIGHT CONCENTRATE THEIR THOUGHTS UPON THEIR FATHER IN HEAVEN.
EVEN IF A
KING GREETS HIM [WHILE PRAYING]
HE SHOULD NOT
ANSWER HIM:
EVEN IF A
SNAKE IS WOUND ROUND HIS HEEL
HE SHOULD NOT
BREAK OFF.
This
mishna, which takes its cue from the pious men of old, sees prayer as an
all-encompassing experience in which one shuts out the outside world entirely so
that one can concentrate on ones encounter with God. No temporal power or threat, even a
king or a poisonous snake, should interfere with Gods demand for total
attention. (One should note that the
Gemara greatly moderates the implications of this mishna, rejecting the
notion that one should risk ones life rather than interrupt ones prayers.)
In summary,
we see two competing notions of prayer in the Mishna. According to the first approach,
which we may call halakhic or normative, prayer is a ritual obligation whose
demands must be balanced against other social, moral, political and halakhic
concerns, not the least of which is keeping ones physical body intact. The second approach, which is largely
rejected except for in the last passage that we cited, may be called a mystical
or ecstatic form of prayer. In this
view, prayer is all-encompassing, and God demands the individuals total
attention. All other concerns,
including concerns for life and limb, must be blocked out. This position may come together with
the belief that no harm will come to a person who is genuinely engaged in prayer
before God.
To return to
our story, R. Yosi seems to represent this mystical approach. He enters the ruin in order to avoid
the interruptions of the open road, allowing him to pray a complete and
uninterrupted Shemoneh Esrei.
At first it seems that his approach is vindicated, because Eliyahu protects him
from harm during his prayer. In
fact, as we learn from the second part of the story, Eliyahu actually advocates
the normative, halakhic approach to prayer.
One cannot place oneself in danger in order to have an optimal prayer
experience. One should, rather, have
an inferior, abbreviated prayer experience when out on the open road. Prayer is not a complete escape from
the cares and requirements of daily life.
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