This week, in a double portion we have the last of Moses’ speech to the people. One very well known passage from this week’s reading is this one:
11. For this commandment which I command you this day, is not hidden from you, nor is it far off. 12. It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? 13. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? 14. But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. [Deut 30:11-14]
The phrase It is not in heaven, from Deuteronomy 30:12 is the key element in one of the most known, but often misunderstood stories in the Talmud. The first bit of the story occurs in Mishnah Kelim 5:10, which is a ruling about a type of oven and whether it is spiritually clean or not:
If an oven was cut up into rings, and sand was inserted between each pair of rings, R. Eliezer rules: it is clean; but the sages rule: it is unclean. Such an oven is known as the oven of Aknai.
The R. Eliezer of this portion is R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus. The best summary given of him can be found in the Perkei Avot:
If all the sages of Israel were in one scale of the balance and Eliezer b. Hyrcanus in the other scale, he would outweigh them all. [2:8]
Yet Eliezer, the teacher of such powerhouses such as R. Akiba did not have such kind words for his comrades and students:
R. Eliezer said: Let the honor of you friend be as dear to you as your own; and be not easily provoked to anger; and repent one day before thy death. He also said: Warm yourself before the fire of the wise, but beware of their glowing coals, that you would not be singed, for their bite is the bite of a fox, and their sting is the sting of a scorpion, and their hiss is the hiss of a serpent, and all their words are like coals of fire.[2:10]
Why such bitterness against his colleagues? It has to do with that oven. What happened during this debate is recorded in the Gemara to Baba Metzia:
It has been taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but they did not accept them. Said he to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let this carob-tree prove it!’ Thereupon the carob-tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place — others affirm, four hundred cubits. ‘No proof can be brought from a carob-tree,’ they retorted. Again he said to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let the stream of water prove it!’ Whereupon the stream of water flowed backwards — ‘No proof can be brought from a stream of water,’ they rejoined. Again he urged: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let the walls of the schoolhouse prove it,’ whereupon the walls inclined to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked them, saying: ‘When scholars are engaged in a halachic dispute, what have ye to interfere?’ Hence they did not fall, in honor of R. Joshua, nor did they resume the upright, in honor of R. Eliezer; and they are still standing thus inclined. Again he said to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let it be proved from Heaven!’ Whereupon a Heavenly Voice cried out: ‘Why do ye dispute with R. Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the halachah agrees with him!’ But R. Joshua arose and exclaimed: ‘It is not in heaven.’ What did he mean by this? — Said R. Jeremiah: That the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because Thou hast long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, After the majority must one incline. R. Nathan met Elijah and asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour? — He laughed [with joy], he replied, saying, ‘My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me.’[Baba Metzia 59b]
Most will look at this story in terms by R. Jeremiah’s comment and R. Nathan’s Elijah conversation. It is not in heaven is the clincher. The majority of scholars decide what are the rules, no matter how iron clad the argument is, or how much divine intervention is staged. R. Nathan’s epilogue paradoxically indicates that even God delightfully agrees with this.
The president of the court at the time was Eliezer’s brother-in-law R. Gamliel II. What happened next, yet often not told as part of the story is very significant, all of which had to be led by R. Gamliel:
It was said: On that day all objects which R. Eliezer had declared clean were brought and burnt in fire. Then they took a vote and excommunicated him.
In one day, over the cleanliness of an oven, a man’s life and career were destroyed. Formers students would not talk to him not respect him – no one would. His wife Imma Shalom, Gamliel’s sister, was put into a difficult position. Though losing a lot of status herself, she tried desperately not to let her husband pray to God about the hurt he felt about this one incident, that divine retribution would harm her brother. One day, she wasn’t able to prevent him,
[On her return] she found him fallen on his face [in prayer]. ‘Arise,’ she cried out to him, ‘thou hast slain my brother.’ In the meanwhile an announcement was made from the house of Rabban Gamaliel that he had died. ‘Whence dost thou know it?’ he questioned her. ‘I have this tradition from my father's house: All gates are locked, excepting the gates of wounded feelings.’
Before his death, Gamliel would suffer in a similar situation. Yet again, wounded feelings would appear, and again two from The Oven of Aknai incident would be in the center of it, though R. Gamliel and R. Joshua butted heads many times. After several insults against R. Joshua over a period of time in such matters, and some outrageous autocratic behavior in the courts, Gamliel was ousted from his position as head of the courts. R. Eleazar b. Azariah was appointed head. At one point Gamliel was even locked out of the building. Some of his rulings were overturned, and several issues were railroaded through. Gamliel, who despite these stories is usually known as quite the gentle soul even to his servants, does apologize to R. Judah and is for the most part restored to his position. [Berachot 28a-b]
This was a generation of superheroes of halacha, of Jewish law as formulated into our own time. They created a system that had the authority by majority to rule on matters of religious observance, and that such power was greater than imminent divine revelation was a great innovation and probably one of the most significant survival traits of Jewish thought since that time. Their names are attached to the major rulings found in the Mishnah. Yet they were fallible humans with feelings. Since R. Eliezer is not mentioned during the ousting of R. Gamliel it may be hard to place the two stories in sequence, or if the bad feelings and grudges from one effected the other. Yet one has to wonder. Here, and elsewhere in the Talmud, we have stories of Rabbis and hurt feelings. Even legends are human in the Talmud. Like any other two fallible people Rabbinic masters hurt other rabbinic masters too.
There are two sayings from these sections of Baba Metzia I try to remember. Ironically one from Eleazar b. Azariah, the Man Who replaced Gamliel after his ousting:
Since the destruction of the Temple, the gates of prayer are locked… Yet though the gates of prayer are locked, the gates of tears are not.
Ima Shalom said in the name of her father (i.e. Shimon b. Gamliel) :
All gates are locked, excepting the gates of wounded feelings.
The oven of Aknai is not just about the legitimacy of rabbinic authority and the formation of Halakah. It is not just about it is not in heaven. Instead, it is about the end of that passage, But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. How we do Torah and the commandments are just as important as how we express our thoughts and emotions in our words. All must be good when it comes to words. Hurting people with our mouth and heart is just plain bad, even for the sake of Torah.
The gates of repentance will open soon. We are told that those gates are about the repentance of our transgressions against God. They do not help against the continually open gate, the gate of tears, those transgressions against the hearts of our fellow human beings. The gates of bad feelings need closing in a different way. Like R. Gamliel, we close them by asking for forgiveness of those we offended. The greatest sages of all time were fallible enough to hurt those around them, even family. How much more so people like us! Like the Rabbis, in things we think seriously matter, we are even more fallible to hurt others. In our passion for a cause or a belief, we might even be blind to it being offensive. In my experience, I known I’ve been offended like this on occasion. Yet such experiences and the Oven of Aknai remind me I’m not immune either, I’m sure throughout my life and my enthusiasm for many of the things in my life I’ve offended or hurt someone. Although I have learned a lot about a media such as this one, I still make mistakes right here in my words I write every week. Like every year at this time of year, I need to stop, think about that for my writing and my life, ask for forgiveness, and try better next year.
So If I have offended you this year for any reason whether I know it or not, please forgive me. If you offended me, I forgive you too.
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