The Sealing of the Talmud | Rabbi Anthony Manning | December 24th 2025

our sponsors um for uh today. I'll read out the sponsorship uh for the 24th here today. So the morning behav Mosha and Raisel Ysef May Marcus Lraha. These are the parents of Judy and Manakim Marcus and my shir is sponsored for the whole academic year. Leelu Nishmas Brownas branded and Zedic Ben Calman. Thank you very very much for those sponsorships. Um, very much appreciated. Um, and can I remind you please to turn off your phones which is something we always need a little bit of a extra zus on. Okay. So given that we it's very loud. Okay. I asked him to turn it up a bit because the people at the back said he was not loud enough. So I'll just stand back a little bit. Okay. Fine. The topic that we started last week which I would like to actually continue and conclude next week please God is is very central. We haven't really spoken about it very much which is the mitzvah of people talk about we have to have confidence in the rabbitic system. What do they really mean? Where is that coming from? We have to understand a little bit more what that is all about. Uh last week in the spirit of Khaneka we talked about a very important slice of that which was the second beta mikdash and the kaneka period and the time of the sanhedrin and the fact that much of our rabbitic hakic structure and process comes from that time. A great deal comes from that time. What I want to do today is talk move it forward to discussion about the Talmud. Uh and we've got a lot to do today. I'm going to try and actually squeeze a sheer and a half into one into one sh so that we don't go for much longer than next week. But next week I want to talk about something which I think is very rarely talked about is what is the aroo? Why is it so central? How did it come about? Do we really follow it? Do we not follow it? And actually that shar will be I think will reveal a lot of interesting you know undercurrents of the hackic process that we have today in the 21st century. uh and therefore it it it carries on from this year. There's a little bit of history involved. I actually like history a lot. I'm an amateur historian obviously not nothing like on the same level as Rabbi Wine Zakar and uh and certainly an academic historian but nevertheless we need to bring a little history in. So before we get into the sources on this week sheet let me give you a little bit of background. How do we get from last week's shar into this week's shar? So last week's shoe we talked about the Sanhedrin and the central authority of the Sanhedrin based on theim of the Torah says do not deviate from the words of the Sanhedrin. Follow their commands and that's why as we said last week we can say God commanded us to light Shabba's candles to light candles to do all the rabbitic mitzvah that we do because that is a delegated legislation from the Sanhedrin. Now it may not have escaped your notice that we don't have a Sanhedrin anymore. Um what happened to the Sanhedrin? So in very brief uh terms already by the middle of the second temple period the Sanhedrin was losing its hold on the people and that became very much part of what we call the Sinatam kind of process and there was schism and factionalism within the Jewish people. There was even a civil war. If you remember, the great-grandchildren of the Kashman, the original Kashman, Aristobus and Hukinus are actually killing each other with Jews, killing Jews in the land of Israel towards the end of the second temple period. And this caused a a breach, a period of the Halakic system where the Torah, the Gomorrah says it was like the Torah was turning into two Toras, a schism. Um in fact the Mishna says already from the time of Yosi Benozer and Yosi Ishiim who were the first of the Zugots they received from antiggonist of already from that period of time the Torah didn't work like it had up until then they did they'd lost what they called the eshkalot they who are the eshkalot um I once saw a sign for a very prominent thinker and uh and it said on the schul he put he'd passed away and he said that we've now lost one of the eshkalot and somebody came up to me and says like well was this guy a grapefruit seller what's going on with this guy but that's eshkalots okay and escalots the the Mishna says the escalot so the Quran says ishbo somebody who can enco encompass everything like a renaissance man we might say in this sense but that that came to an end and Rashi explains from that point onwards there was built-in makus people were not accepting the sack of the Sanhedrin There was what Rashi says was doi dupi remember from the asham doi doofi means two views two opinions makus and things were getting confused and lost to the point and and I haven't seen this explicitly but I think this is the case the next generation after those two was and he was the one that said you better get yourself a rabbi why why didn't anyone say that before because you had a rabbi it's the Sanhedrin Sanhedrin is everybody's rabbis but once the Sanhedrin is no longer unified then you have to say you get different I'm from Bhil I'm from B shama I'm from raika school I'm from rabies school and you end up with this divergent system now already by the time of hill and shami they realized that this was not going in a good direction once the bas mikdash was destroyed it was going in an even worse direction and they realized they needed to create a replacement for the Sanhedrin What is the replacement for the Sanhedrin? It's called the Talmud. That's what the Talmud is. What we call the Mishna and the Gumar. Let's call that together the Talmud is meant to be the replacement. They knew they wouldn't get a Sanhedrin anytime soon. Certainly one that worked properly. Therefore, they began that process already from the from the just before the hill and Shami of codifying of putting the oral law into text. Maybe it was an oral text at the beginning. The Mishna may not have been written down at the very beginning, but they started to produce what you and I now call and know as Mishnaote, little nuggets of codified concentrated law which put across the basic principles of Jewish law around which there was still a lot of oral law. 4,192 Mishna and there are people who memorize pretty much the whole lot meant to be very memorizable and they were the Mishna and eventually the Gammorra was the was the growing commentary around the Mishna. We'll see in today's sheet exactly how that's meant to work and at a certain point the Talmud was finished and the finished Talmud is what we now have as the Sanhedrin until we get a new one. That's why the Talmud looks like it looks. Rabbis across generations arguing with each other. Sometimes people that didn't even meet each other meet in the Talmud. Why? Because it's meant to replicate the Sanhedrin where later views can overturn earlier views and they can argue with each other and produce out of that conversation a unified. That's why the Talmud looks like the Talmud looks. And it's a brilliant book. It's a synthesized book. We'll see what that means in a minute. And it's meant to be that multigenerational conversation of all the rabbis who used to be able to talk in the Sanhedrin and now talk in the Talmud. That's what the Talmud was and is. Why do we never get another one? We'll come to that. Why do we never need one before? Because we had a Sanhedrin. And the actual physical Sanhedrin itself was eventually abolished by the Byzantines even though it had ceased to have any real effects long before that. If you open up the Mishna, you see Rabi Aika says this and Rabbi Leza says this. Well, why didn't they just ask the Sanhedrin and they there just need to be two opinions. The answer is didn't work. Wasn't functioning. Okay, fine. Now, what I want to talk about today is what what is the line that closes the Talmud? And for us, that's so important because what differentiates a an orthodox sack, a ps which is based in an authentic discussion is the assumption that we cannot argue with the Talmud anymore. The Rambam says just like the Sanhedrin had the mitzvah of loy saucer so too whatever the Talmud concludes it concludes that is subject to loss we may not disagree with it because it's part of the fixed talikic system and the question is why who decided that why can't I just disagree with the Talmud if you open updic chuva they don't tend to write as many of these as they used to do but back in the old days when they were closer if you like to the more orthodox a classic system. They would analyze the Gomorrah and at the end of the analysis they would say well the conclusion of the Gomorrah is X but we the rabbitic assembly have decided we don't like that or we don't want that and we voted by you know 15 to 19 that we're going to override the Talmud and we're going to do something different that is the difference between classically an orthodox sack and a conservative sack. Conservative sack says the Talmud's very interesting but it's not binding and we'll do whatever we like and if we don't like it we'll change. Of course the reform don't have absurd because they don't are not interested in a hakic system in a sense it's more consistent within itself. They say okay fine the Gmorra is very interesting as a historical cultural document but it has no basis in any kind of uh legal sense. Okay good. So that's the reform conserv says it's interesting and it's and it's and it's influential but it's not binding. And the orthodox world says yes it is binding. We'll see in a minute where that that comes from. Of course, it's not always easy to know what the Gomorrah actually says, but it's not meant to be easy because it's meant to yield different results to different analysis because it's meant to be a flexible Sanhedrin. That's the point. It's it's not a it's not a it's not a bug. It's a what's the word? >> Feature. >> A feature. That's right. It's a feature of the Gomorrah that it's not clear. It's not a bug. It's a feature because it's meant to allow for those different answers being pulled out. Now with that haktama which should have been really a share in and of itself. Let's look at uh this issue. So on the first page I've given you a little bit of uh background historically of where we all were between the years 500 and 800. That's not an area of uh history that's so much studied. It's what in in secular terms called the dark ages. Um but for us we never had a dark ages. Too loud. Yes. My fault. I told them to turn it up. Okay. We never had a I'll just talk quieter. It's fine. I'll save my voice. We we we never had a dark ages. We had a period of the sealing of the Gomorrah and the Gaon which we'll come on to in a minute. So if you look here in Bavl, we were under the Persians and they were conquered by the Arabs in 637. In Erit Israel, we were under very crushing persecution under the Byzantines and they were conquered by the Arabs in 644. and everywhere else in Spain uh they were originally um pagan and then they were became Christian and they got particularly anti-Jewish. People might not realize that the Jews were expelled from Spain in the in the secular year 613. Easy year to remember, right? Meaning I'm not talking about 1492. 1492 was thousand years near later, 900 years later. But in the year 613 we were conquered by the newly Catholic Spanish. Um but then the Arabs conquered there too. France and Germany uh the Goths and the France the the Franks became Catholic and they threw us out also in 629. But the Arabs never conquered France. The Arabs have made two attempts which were unsuccessful to conquer Europe. um which won was the battle of uh T which was defeated the Arabs were defeated by uh by Charles Martell uh and stopped them from coming from Spain all the way into France and taking over Europe. Later on in the battle of Vienna, the Ottomans were stopped from taking over Europe from the other side. Although they took Eastern Europe, the Arabs were in charge of Hungary etc. Those two attempts by the Arab world to conquer Europe failed. But the the last 25 years the has succeeded. Uh, and now without having to actually fight against anybody, the entire Arab world has basically taken over Europe. And according to almost everybody I've heard over the last year or two, it's a it's a done deal. There's nothing to be done. And now Europe is basically going to be an Islamic uh state going forward 30 40 years. So what they couldn't do in the 7th century and the 15th century, they succeeded to do in the 21st century. So um but for us that was very important because Islam Islam enabled the Jews to then spread out across what became known as the Sparadic world. Meaning if the Jews were in Baba in Babylonia for hundreds and hundreds of over a thousand years from the first exile of Nebuchadnezzar all the way through to the 5th 6th 7th century they weren't able to spread out because you had the Babylonian empires the the Cisanian Empire and you had the Roman Empire. When those two things both broke down, that enabled the Jews from Baval to start spilling out all through North Africa and eventually to Spain and they became known as the Spardy community and developed their own Spartikhagim. No one quite knows where the Ashkenazim came from. It's a bit of a mystery. By the 9th 10th century, they popped up in northern Germany and France, a very small community. Very, very small community. We're talking millions of swardim and a few tens of thousands of Ashkanazim. The best theory that we have is that they came through Italy from Eritis and they came through Italy across the Alps up into northern France and Germany sometime in the 8th 9th century and they became the Ashkanazim. But they weren't really a force to be reckoned with until the Rashi and the Balatossphus which we're going to get to more next time. But you had the Spharadic community, you have the Ashkanazi community, and you had a few others as well. So let's get into the sources. You can read more about the uh about the actual history on your own time. Um number one, this is perhaps the most important source. The Gomorrah says about itself and we've never really looked at this before. Rebi the Rebossen Mishna. The end of the Mishna was Rebi Rebossi and Rebossen partners that edited and finalized the Mishna. We're talking around the year 200 just before Rav Ashi the Ravena. Ravashi and Ravina two Babylonian rabbis in the sixth fifth fifth end of the fifth century sofa they are the end of hor now it doesn't say sgara the first bit says sishna the second says sor what's hor ruling teaching they were the end of ruling we'll see what that means in a few minutes but somehow a line was drawn by ravashi and raina that became the talmud We'll see it's not as straightforward as that. If you look here, Rashmulhan Nagid who was writing in Spain later on actually the introduction of uh to the Talmud of Rashmid was probably not written by Rashmid. That's a whole academic discussion, but it was written around the same time. We're talking around the 11th century. So he says a similar thing, the two rabbis who really put together the Talmud Havash Ravina Vatam Ravashi Ravina and their editorial team. It was not just these two men and in those days that's when the Talmud was sealed was sealed. Now if you open up most from history books that's what you'll read in the time of Ra Ashi and Ravena the Talmud was sealed. The actual answer might be a little bit more complicated which we'll get to as we go through today. But what did that what did that statement mean? So let's have a look at this very important Rashi how Rashi understood this in number three. So Rashi says soft mission. What does it mean that Rebi Rabi Nasi and Ra and Ravnosen and Rebi Nosen sorry were the end of the Mishna? So he says number three soft tanim the end of the tanim the tanim are the rabbis of the mishnet period who we know and love rabbi aka rabi Ishmael and and be and be shami and all those people that make it into the mishna adhem until that final editing process again we're talking about the end of the the uh the second century adhes every rav was able to his give his opinion in the betrash again You might say, "Where's the san?" The answer is not working. It's there. It's not working. And the medium of whichever the was down those teachings separately. There were no fixed volumes of sedur in any kind of order in any ve sorry there's nothing there's nothing together organized in a in a in a way that the Mishna later became but this editorial team and they gathered together everything that had been said in previous generations the made order they made the Mak that we know and love. You open up a Mishna, what became known as Shass Shisha Sid Mishna. It's nothing to do with the political party, although it's a brilliant piece of branding. If you're going to say you call your political party shas, which of course means Shrevarat, the guardians of the Spartic uh tradition, you call it Shass people. Oh, Shass. We love Shass. We know Shass. It's brilliant marketing if you think of a name. Okay. uh they thought I don't know how much they they paid their marketing people to come up with that name originally but uh it's it's fantastic it does the trick so they finished this this and underlined here you'll see after them they only added a very small amount after the Mishna now you might turn around and say well how can that be the Mishna if it's all together in one book is is about this thin the Talmud is you You know the art scroll Talmud is about 85 90 volumes. You know a standard Talmud is six or seven or 10 15 volumes. What do you mean they didn't add much? They made it 25 times bigger. The answer is they didn't add much in terms of legal principle. Meaning the job of the Gomorrah is not to make new rabbitic laws. It's to analyze what the Mishna says. And like we said last week much of what the Mishna says was from the time of the Sanhedrin. It's not debated. It's not disputed. It's not separate opinions. Much is but much isn't and therefore the gammorra doesn't really add that much in terms of new ideas very important rashi so good so that's the Mishna we know the Mishna we love the Mishna everybody here should take an opportunity to learn Mishna Mishna also took on a very uh mystical and cabalistic uh role we'll see next week with Rayf Caro Ravio Caro had a magged we'll talk about his maggidd next week the maggid of a voice that spoke through his mouth which was a visitation of the the spirit of the Mishna uh why he was so in love with the Mishna that we'll talk about next week but that's that's a whole love affair which I'm not getting into now but let's get into the Gmorra so third line of number three what does it mean the end of ruling raashian ra end of the fourth fifth century am this was the end of the amorim the rabbis of the of the garra period the adher until then there was nothing called garra gammorra means teaching or finishing Al said there was nothing organized when a question was raised which was raised. What does the Mishna mean? A question was raised beta midrash in the betrash or or or a a question about shil of something that happened that needed to be answered maybe in monetary law or is or ritual law. What happened after the Mishna? Every rabbi later said, "I think the Mishna means this. I think the answer is this. I think that the response should be this. Midrash which were mostly in Bavl but also in Erit Israel. There was a Talmadi that was a an unfinished attempt to do this which they clearly had. They gather them all together. Okay, one second. And this is the genius. Rav Ashi and Ravina and their editorial team are sitting there in Babylon in Pum Pumpadisa in in sura and they have before them I don't know if it's written things but they have mountains of texts and they have a Mishna and they say okay we've got to decide which pieces of this analysis go with which Mishnas and we're going to decide and sometimes it's obvious because it's a direct commentary on that Mishna and sometimes it's not obvious it's a piece of financial advice marital advice medical advice and they have to decide Okay, where's the most sensible place to put this in an order which makes sense to people? And they did that massive massive editing job. The Hiku Kushes and they the editorial team started asking questions that they put in the text um which they needed to answer and responses them and their team that were with them and they put that into the Gomorrah. We'll talk about this in a minute. Anyone who learns Gomorrah, you know, a question was asked or a challenge was asked. Mehu, all the the the voice of the Gammorrah. Now, when you're learning Gammorra, there's like a there's a a voice. There's an editor's voice that's leading you through the Gammorrah. It's saying this is a problem. This is a question. Here's the answer. Who is that? Who's that voice? It's not one of the opinions. It seems to be the the editor that the the the narrator is taking you through and asking you and leading you on this journey says Rashi that's the editorial team they put those questions in and they put all the answers in but based on what what what they had in front of them. Okay, those people who'd ask questions, they hadn't been organized in the way and Ravidi decided on putting them in. And anyone who's ever learned any Talmud will know that it's a it's goes off on tangents, but there's usually a a systematic kind of thread of uh sort of stream of consciousness as you go through the Talmud that was put there on purpose. So the Talmud is not a book that fell into our laps from heaven. It's a book that was put together very systematically in a very uh manufactured if you like way by Ravashi Ravina and his team and we'll see later people as well. Um and they put together that material and they included everything before. Now how do we know that that's binding? So I've brought you a whole bunch of different sources far ashen it is axiomatic that whatever the conclusion of the Gomorrah is that could be debated and is debated it's binding. Let me just give you three or four different examples. the rash Rash's grandson here number four if it's not in the follows this opinion we never rely on the Mishnas that's a very important point Mishna is not Mishna is a collection of different opinions of the but it is not a even on those few occasions where the Mishna says drum roll and the is x we don't usually follow it The Gomorrah decides what the is says the says the but the statements that are ruled by the that's what we certainly rely on here those two names again since ordered and put them together they're the end of ruling that's what we definitely rely on course we You're not able to come up with anything new now. You can tell me what you think the Gomorrah says, but you can't argue with the Gomorrah. He's talking about the rabbis of the Gomorrah. Whatever they said, that's what we do. The rash the reigash from the school of the number five this is the binding because it was only written after a lot of analysis took him very carefully oh over many generations that's interesting because up until now we've really only had ra and raashi said no no no this was a multigenerational task before them maybe even after them just want to see was just one Second and it went through a number of editions ashi put together multiple editions during their lifetime of the gar until the final edit was made and it's telling us basically whatever we have to do that's what they said. Yes sir. First of all, the bar rarely after all the discussion rarely tells us what happened >> rarely and when it does by the way say and the is almost always that's put in later by the gaim and it's not the original text because that's the point the the garra doesn't want to come to clear conclusions. It wants to present you with the arguments and the analysis and you're meant to work out the conclusions why >> we'll get we'll get that that's that's next week's Okay, that's next week. What do we do with all of this analysis? So that was the remash. We don't argue with the number six when all those died of which the final ones was finished. Everyone who comes after the all we're trying to do after the Talmud is work out what does the Talmud mean? What does it say? What's his conclusion? You may not add to the Talmud. You may not take away from the Talmud. You see, those words are what we usually say about the Torah, about the mitzvah. You may not add to mitzvah. You may not take away from mitzvah, says the Rambam. That's the Talmud. Now, it's fixed. It's oral law. Yes, sir. And yet still there's the uh there's the round the tour and the rift and the round etc who might not might not agree what the actual >> of course if the rabb completely accepts it you might not agree with the next on what the gmorrah means but whatever the gammorra means based on your analysis that's what you have to do okay but of course built in is the idea that it means multiple things that's the whole idea of replacing the sanedra and there are more says the same thing the villagon look number seven of course the corollery which we'll see is later than the gar you can argue with number seven says the cracker more of him next week I want to suggest to you if a particular thinks or feels inb talking about and people in his generation feel and think and they feel they can prove it from the analysis that the den is not like the previous generations meaning the who's in the 1500s. So if you come along and analyze the and you disagree with the rabbis of the 1400s, the 1300s and the 1200s and the 1100s, then it's it's a it's a it's an open field. You can argue with anyone you like as long as it's not something which is clearly in the garra says because the garra we won't argue we won't add and we won't take away and we certainly won't argue because ravena and ravashi is so far so comes along the again we'll look at this next week in more detail and says well actually it's a double-edged sword you can't argue with the garamra >> but you can argue with everybody else everyone after the Gomorrah meaning he doesn't seem to feel that there's a kind of like a an impermeable membrane between any other postk later and any other the Gora is the only line you can't cross but anyone else's analysis just because I'm later doesn't mean I can't argue with somebody earlier and this came up last week but don't we find that the later Rabonim do not argue with the earlier abonin says the says the no love dfka not necessarily the only line we can't cross is the Gomorrah and we'll see this becomes a difference of approach next week in the Sparok and the Ashkanazi. The Sparim are much more likely to draw later lines that they feel they can't cross. The Ashkanazim are reluctant to do that. They they end up a little bit doing that in the 20th century, but they're reluctant to do that. And the Raar is saying that very very clearly. In fact, we see very much from the Gmorrah itself. Um and the the the the Yamchel Schlomma who is the Lura a cousin of the Ra actually brings this down here in his commentary and we'll see much more from him next week. Number eight. Normally we don't like over their own. Yeah. the early ones take priority and even though that's the time the case until from onwards that's a very important phrase the follows the later people why might we prefer lateronim over earlier because the lateronim have an advantage they've seen everything that the earlier rabonim have and the earlier rabonim have not seen the later ones by definition. So says the the Marashal the Ramshell the Ramshell Schlommo actually we we favor a little bit like the Ramos said we favor the later authorities because the later authorities have more perspective they have more understanding are they necessarily bigger not necessarily we'll come to Udorus in a minute but you've got this kind of dwarves on the shoulders of giants image that is brought down a lot even if the later generations are smaller in their own abilities they stand on the shoulders of the earlier generations and therefore they have a wider panorama which is a very important idea and therefore we see that very clearly which lead which reads leads to a question which is if anyone's opened a page of Gomorrah one of the most fundamental realities is the Amory don't argue with the tanim yeah if you the the way you defeat an argument by a by an amora in the garra is to say look there's a bryer against you it can't be right so he could bring another bryer that says well this bryer agrees with or this. But you can't argue with a tanner. It's like the knockout blow. The tanime are against you. Okay. Okay. I give up. Why? Why do they give up? Let turn around and say, "Well, we're later. We We have a broader panorama. Why can't we disagree with the earlier authorities?" That's a very important question. And that's actually raised by the Rambam's commentary here. Look at number nine. The KZF Mishna. Who is the Kesv Mishna? Also Rav Ysef Car. We'll see him much more next week with the with the shar says as follows. He's commenting on the Rambam because Mishna is the raos car's country on the ram and he says as follows on the ram's comment that a later authority a later Sanhedrin could always overrule an earlier one because we need them to have that flexibility. He says as follows the the Rambam learns from here number nine we see that later tanim disagree with earlier tanim yeah you never see come along and say oh behella before me or or rabna zakai is before me I can't disagree with him you don't see that anyone can disagree with anyone within the strata of the Mishna. So too, he says, the amay. And so too, later am argue quite happily with earlier amashi who is very late will happily take on rather and abaya who are much earlier. Why? Why? Why do they do that? The ina so why does why is that why does it stop after the why don't they later argue with the Amor because we see on every page of the shas every page of Gomorrah you ask on the amra from a bryer or from from a from a mishna from a bryer why don't the later am turn around and say well I don't agree with this Mishna I think differently they can't say that why not why have you drawn a line and this is so critical the answer according to the ram is it should be that the later authorities have free reign to disagree with anyone before them. So why can't they the I want to suggest he says as follows from the Mishna onwards the people accepted it was a national acceptance that we agree that we were we're not going to disagree with that earlier strata and this is the same thing that happened when the Gomorrah was sealed from the time that it was sealed. So why is the Mishna binding on the Gomorrah? And why is the Gomorrah binding on us? For the same reason that the Sanhedrin was binding because we accepted the authority of the Sanhedrin. Remember we said at the end of last week, if the people turned around to the Sanhedrin and said, "No, no, no, no, no. That's just a gazer too far. That's too ownorous. we can't cope with that. It has no standing. Why can't the courts just say, "Hey, we're the rabbis. You're the people. We tell you what to do. You don't tell us what to do." No, it doesn't work that way. The people have to be behind the process. So, says the Mishna, just like the people underpin the authority of the Sanhedrin. So too, the people decided, the people, who are the people? The educated rabbis and the people of Bavl who came after the Mishna. We're not going to argue with the Mishna. And so too, the people decided, we're not going to argue with the Gomorrah. Now, again, who are in the people and who are out of the people? What about the Kites? The Kites came later and they say, well, we don't want we we're not part of those people. We're different people. We don't want to we don't want to to accept the authority of the Gmorra. We want to make our own Gomorrah. So, why are the Carites wrong and and we're right? Because AmIrael as a whole decided. And where are the Kites now? There's no Carites now. I mean there are a few but there's there are a few here a few there in Tel Aviv and in Russia and whatever but the car just kind of just ended up not part of the haki process. So there is a kind of hashkah as to how this works. The people decide you know like the gammorra says if the community aren't prophets then they're trainee prophets. We take the mass intuition of the Jewish people very very seriously and that's why the people accepted the Mishna and the people accepted the garra. Yes sir. >> If I understand correctly that there was no such red line between the sun and the tanim correct it was absolutely accepted and wasn't only that the public by poll or surveyently known that you could not be called. Is that correct? >> Correct. Because the the the next source number 10, which we're not going to do again cuz we did last week, says you're not allowed to be on the Sanhedrin. But that only works when people accept it. Meaning the Zak M the one person that says or two or whatever, I don't accept the sack of the Sanhedrin. He has to be put to death. >> But what happens when the whole system breaks down? We had a total system breakdown in the end of the second temple. So all the Sanhedrin going to put everyone to death. They stop putting anyone to death. Why? because the whole thing was out of control and that's why they realized they needed to make a new system. That new system is called the Mishna and the Talmud because the Sanhedrin had ceased to be a system because the people were all fighting and killing each other. You can't have a transmission of terror when all the Jews are killing all the Jews. So they needed to they needed to have a new system. What we have today is is beautiful by comparison. Barak Hashem we have people who really disagree with us with each other and and and even delegitimize each other which is not good. But it's not like we don't have the same kind of breakdown as the second temple period. The Nitsie, by the way, warned. The Nits warned in the late 1800s. Even if you get all the Jewish people back to Erit Israel and everybody goes back, you can't guarantee that it's not going to just spiral back out of control again like it did at the end of the second temple period. So, we got to keep our eye on the ball. And at the moment, I think we're doing pretty well as a Jewish people. Okay? We sometimes get a bit of help from the outside when the non-Jews turn on us and and and hate all of us. And that makes us all feel more connected and okay I wish it didn't have to be that way but but that that helps as well you know the old saying if the Jews don't make kdish the non-Jews make havalah you know so one way or other we'll be separate separated from the other people okay fine so what was this acceptance we we see this misha the people agreed we're not going to argue with the garra so I want to bring you three different approaches which I think are absolutely fascinating about why this actually took took place. Have a look here on page number three. So, Rashiron, Rashiron wrote a very important letter. He was one of the Gaonim living in the 10th century. He was the father of Rafhai Gaon and he wrote a an eerret. He wrote a letter about the development of the halafic process. And in this letter of Rashuron, it's available in English translation. It's very worthwhile reading. He says, here's the story so far, the story until the 10th century. And he explains very straightforward that there was a decline of the generations. They just passed a place that they just didn't feel they could go back. Number 11. Because Rebi who put the Mishna together saw such diversity in the teachings of our sages even though they all shared the same underlying principles. He feared that these teachings would not endure and proliferate and loss would ensue. He saw that the heart was diminishing. The wellsp springsings of wisdom were being blocked up and the Torah was disappearing. As Rabi says in the hearts of the early ones are like the entrance to the ulam but the hearts of the later ones are like the entrance to the who were the early ones Rabi ka who were the later ones bin sham you read generations are going down so too he says number 12 when the mission was concluded and rebi died the capacity for learning lessened and they had to collect their talas to recite it in a uniform version they also included in their tal things which would have been unnecessary for the earlier sages those earlier sages whose capac capacity for learning was great had not needed to have all these concepts explained but after the earlier sad sages wisdom decreased as we learned at the end of sot since Rabbi Aka died the wellsp springsings of Torah have been blocked and the same situation existed in the time of rebi we passed a point that we just couldn't argue anymore we're just too small number 13 along came the next generation of the heart was diminished certain matters that had been clear to the early sages were not clear to us etc now in this generation these matters became subject to doubt and they had to establish them in the Gomorrah with an exact wording. In each succeeding generation, the heart became diminished. As Rabokan says in Auban, he uses all these metaphors. Our generation is like the eye of a fine needle. Meaning nothing goes through it. Yeah. You teach them and nothing goes in. It's like trying to thread a needle in the dark. Also, Abayas said, "We're like a peg in the wall." With regards to Gomorrah, you know, you try and stick a peg, a soft peg in a hard wall, just falls down. It's just not going in. Rather said, we're like a finger in wax as regards logic. How hard is our logic? How firm are our foundations? Well, take your finger and push it in a piece of wax. That's as good as our logic is. We can't do it. Rashi said we're like a finger in a pit as regards forgetfulness. Like a big hole. Meaning the later generations really felt that they were less able than the earlier. Now we sometimes we somehow have to work this in to what we said before but the later generations are higher. They they they see more. We follow the later generations cuz they they have the So how we going to square these two things? So what we're going to end up saying according to Rashuron is yes within a strata the later people have authority to disagree with the early ones. later tanim over earlier tanim later amarime over earlier amarime later raon and later over earlier but there's certain things happen in the Jewish world which are just sort of cataclysmic catastrophic and then afterwards everybody turns around and says okay things things are just never going to be the same again and this is where history kicks into this process for example the Spanish expulsion there was an almost an overnight reality that the world will just never be the same again the black death. We're going to see next week. The Black Death was a very important watershed. After the Black Death, the communities were decimated. 25% of all Jews in Europe died. 25%. Now, even more non-Jews died because maybe different, you know, standards of hygiene, maybe not. And he said, but then of course the Jews were blamed for everybody dying. So, Jews were killed because less of them died. But one way or the other, can you imagine if, god forbid, one in four people that you ever knew just ceased to be there within a space of three years? It's a it's cataclysmic. So the later generations turned around and said, "Okay, you're right that we stand over on the shoulders of giants, but this is different. This is just different now." Where you going to draw those lines? What are those events that make it is the Holocaust one of those events that like, oh, everything's different now? is the founding of the state of Israel one of those events that whatever went before is different now how are you going to read that in retrospect you see that you don't always see that on the on the morning very few people woke up one morning and said okay yesterday we were tanim but today we're all Amoray it's not like that you know we were shown him and we're now when you look back through Jewish history you see how somehow the the the hashkah the god's hand in history you know these things will never be the same again I Again, I don't know if that affects in any way, but we found I think everybody feels that after October 7th, you know, whatever happened before, we don't know which direction things are going in. And maybe they'll go in a direction which is great, but it's never going to be the same again. So, where how are you going to read this into the halafi process? That's very exciting. Yes. >> You see the historical decline turning around now? There's 60,000 people still. >> Good. Good. I guess yes, it could be. It could be. meaning things go down but that doesn't necessarily mean the later people are not able to do more than the early until you reach one of these watersheds and then okay so now it's different >> can never return it back >> uh well we will get a Sanhedrin back but that's like a whole new thing yes >> after the black death Judaism went up in in eastern Poland >> yes but that that the explosion of population amongst the Ashkanazin really happened quite a long time later it really happened in the in the 17 and 1800s that you had a relatively small Ashkanazi population that suddenly became like jumbo population and now you think well if you who's bigger Ashkanazim faradim so people usually think oh Ashkenazim my biggest right in the 11th century was completely the opposite which is why we have all these Ashkanazi genetic problems because all Ashkenazi Jews they think are descended from the same four or 500 fertile women that lived sometime in the mid300s and we kind of kind of bottlenecked into I need to go on a little bit. So that's the decline of the generation says the Rambam. I have a different answer, a brilliant answer, a fascinating answer. And I'm going to read it all inside, but I'm going to leave you to read some of it on your own. Maybe read a little bit here. Um, go to page number four, says the Ramb. I have a different answer. It's not the decline of the generations. Ra represented the end of an era of transmission of why and whenever whatever they decreed whatever they introduced that spread that caught on the people accepted it. wherever they lived because the Jews were focused in Bavl. What those Jews said was accepted by the broader Jewish community. If you look at a snapshot of the Jews in the year 500, 400, they're in Bavl. Oh, there's a few Jews scattered in Spain and a tiny community in France and a small community in Italy, but everybody's in Bavl. Therefore he says as follows the bas of and after of who wrote the garra the mayo and it was finished in the time of his children of his son the Jewish people were just scattered all around the globe they came to the very edges of the world what's the edge of the world the end of the world terror England England's the end of the world. There's nothing else after England. You fall off the edge of the sea, right? You fall into nothing. Okay? No one knew about America in those days. Okay? So they they went to the farthest islands and the whole world just became so much more of a war scenario. They were conquering Arabs and conquering Goths and Visigothths and Vandals and everyone's going nuts basically in what we call the dark ages. But there was so much uh so much fighting and no one could travel. You could get around in the second century. You couldn't get around in the seventh century. You get your head chopped off by some Viking or before the Vikings, some goth who's coming around the corner with a meat cleaver. Okay. But Gasos, there were bandits everywhere and therefore Torah went down. In order for the people to accept, there have to be peace. There has to be some element of coherence and the Jews just couldn't get it together in these big yeshivas tens of thousands thousands like they used to be there were little communities scattered remnants little bit in Spain a little bit here a little bit there they were learning whatever they'd got from the rabbi I'm trying to work out what the is. But you never had a situation again where the Jews came together and they could all communicate with each other. And therefore, that's why the Talmud was sealed. It's geopolitical. It's cultural. It's the reality of the dark ages. We just couldn't argue with the Talmud because we're now all over the place. That's very interesting. It's not the decline of the generations per se. It's the reality of the physical spread of the Jews in the world. Now, if that's the case, are you going to turn around and say, "Well, maybe that's changed now." Now, number one, all the Jews in the world are basically in two places. They're in Israel and they're in America. And there's like small scattering. Okay, France is still a significant Jewish population, but it's basically Israel and America. And not only that, it doesn't matter where anyone in the world is. I have a piece of black plastic that can speak to every other person in the entire world who has another piece of black plastic in their hand. So what what what way are we scattered? Anyone can check anything with anyone everywhere. We're all on mass WhatsApp groups and email groups. Are you going to turn around and say, "Well, according to the Rambam, we should be making changes in now. We shouldn't be just accepting the way it was because it's a new reality." According to Shiragon, is it like you're out of your mind? You think you're greater than the rabbis of previous generations? It's a ridiculous suggestion. According to the Rambam, I don't know. It's not about level. It's about communication and we now have that communication and I think that this actual argument is one of the things which is used by some people more on the fringe of the hakah orthodox hakic discussion who are arguing people maybe like rabbi laser burkovitz and maybe like rabbi cordo who are making arguments such that now we live in the reality that we live in some there have to be they can be some changes changes that we couldn't do before we can do now I don't think that's a mainstream view but it's coming from it's coming from here. Um the other suggestion which is made um and really you know that everything comes to a stop if you make this suggestion is that no it's not about the the geopolitical reality or even about the decline of generations. We have a tradition that Jewish history works in 2,000year slots. I didn't bring you the original Gomorrah but it's the Gmorra in uh Abodar. I believe that says that the first 2,000 years are chaos and the second 2,000 years are Torah and the third set of 2,000 years are the days where Messiah could come but that the end of Torah Torah ended as it were download of Torah in the year 4,000. So let's plug that into reality. Look here in Rab Zakaria Fendel who um I don't think he's alive anymore but he was he wrote a lot. Rabbi Fendel from Ster I think is a relation of his somehow and he says as follows number 16. It is of an interest to note that the compilation of the Mishna which represented a major turning point in the process of terror transmission took in 3948. This is almost also precisely 2,000 years after the birth of Abraham in 1948. Jewish years it's easier to remember, right? 52 years after this date was the end of the fourth millennium which the sages refer to as the culmination of the two millennia of Torah which began when Abrainu began to disseminate Torah at the age of 52 in the year 2000. So the year 2000 to the year 4000 were the years of Torah because he goes from Abraham to the end of the Mishna number 17. Actually the two millennial Torah came to a close shortly before the death of Reb's greatest Talmud Rav in 407. meaning it doesn't quite work because the Mishna was put together a little bit before the end of 4,000. But he says look at Rav Rav is the last remaining remnant of the Tanim. While Rav was one of the earliest Amarim, he was the clo the last godle who also had Tanetic status. Rav Tana. Every now and then we pull out like a trump card. When Rav argues with someone, we say, "No, Ra Rav, how can he argue? Rav's like a Tana." Rav is the last person in history that you could call one of the tan. And when did he die? The year 4,000. So he wants to say that it's not about geopolitical realities or about the decline in the generations. It's a simple mathematical number. After the year 4,000, there is no new Torah. And the year 4,000 is the end of the Mishna. And we saw in Rashi, the Gomorrah doesn't really add much. The Gomorrah just explains. The Gomorrah just elucidates and analyzes. It doesn't add new Torah. So there's nothing to talk about now. Of course, we can't add new Torah when the Sanhedrin comes. Okay. Messiah, Sanhedrin, all bets are off. Yes, >> Mr. Bell was 2448 when the Torah was actually given. >> Good. Good. So, you're saying it doesn't really work. Why are you starting from Ara? That's that's like pre-Torra. I hear that. That's the reason why this maybe is a you know there's a challenge to this idea since when did we start the count of Torah from Ara? It's not Torah as we know it, you know. It's it's like life. It's life, but not as we know it. It's Torah, but not as we know it. Okay, fine. Let me leave you with one uh very interesting uh well, two interesting things. First of all, I'm going to read I leave you to read page five on your own. This is a uh an extract from a long essay from Ravme Trivets. Rava Tribz Schlita is a Rav in Harov. If you ever get a chance to meet him, learn from him, read his writings, he is the mo one of the most phenomenal thinkers of the 21st century without any question. I had the great source to learn under him for quite some time when we lived in Arnov. Um and uh he he writes in a number of places but he's engaging here the view of David V professor David Weiss Salivi. Now I haven't mentioned him yet but if anybody here has studied any academic Talmud they'll say that David Weiss that professor David Weiss Al Salivi uh who was for many years in Colombia different places he says no he doesn't think Raf ashi and Ravina Ravina were the people who put all of the the the arguments together he thinks that sofh means the end of like but all of the back and forth the shackle of Ataria that comes in the Gomorrah says Salivan. He came later. He came in the next 200 years in the 500s and the 600s and maybe the 700s. And he even gives a name to those people the stamim. Calls them the stamina. They put the stam gamora in place. And therefore he wants to say ravashin raa is not the end but it's the beginning of the end. It's the be and there are there are sources for this as well. The idea that looking number 19 um says going here after there wasn't like clear absolute ruling they were theim and they wrote commentaries they weren't they weren't harah but they were close to harah and Rabbi Tribz wants to argue well that's really what hivy saying all of the back and forth in the Gomorrah was put together by this that last three, four, five generations who finished off the Talmud. Actually, I'm not sure a great deal turns on it. You know, if you turn around and say the Gomorrah was finished in the fifth century by Ravashin Ravena or if you turn around and say the Gomorrah was finished in the 8th century by the the the Savarim or whatever. I mean, no, nothing really turns on that. It's, you know, no one's going to be Apicyus arguing one way or the other. But it is interesting and I've brought you Rav Tribbitz's proofs and you can read the whole essay that he basically agrees that this last couple of hundred years uh the seventh and 8th century maybe slightly into the 9th was the effective end of the Gomorrah. One thing is for sure nobody writes a commentary on the Gomorrah until around the 10th century which is very interesting. Nobody actually has like down the margins of the sites. And I brought you on page number six something which I this is your homework for next week. Okay, that I've brought you uh the 500 years between when people do start making commentaries on the Gomorrah with people we call the rishonim and I've divided up into five centuries and I've divided it up into three columns. The sparadim in Spain, North Africa, the Ashkenazim in France and Germany and Provence which is of course a very important southern France community. Now again there were more. they were the Yemenes. And I'm not getting into all of that now, but these are the three main groups of commentators. And what we're going to do starting next week is we're going to very I'm going to bring you through five generations of development in about 10 minutes. Okay? But it'll be fine because you'll have already prepared it beforehand. Um, and and the key and the key names that you need to be focused on here are the people that I've put in in in uppercase letters, which are the people that we'll see going forward. Because next week, next week, what we're going to see is how the how the changed the landscape of forever in the 1500s and what he did and why he did it and how that worked. And that'll be, I think, a fascinating analysis. Um but first we we're going to do this in the first 10 minutes and bring you you know cover those 500 years and understand what happened to the Torah by the 15th 16th century that needed some some new developments like that. So I hope that was of interest and next week we'll finish this off and then we'll move into other areas. Please go.