When the Rabbis Told Heaven “No” #rabbiorlofsky #torah #storytime

Rebbi Eliezer, he had an argument and a particular process whether the oven would be tamei or not. Rebbi Eliezer could not win over the other chachamim. And so, he was running out of options here. So, he says, "If I'm right, let this tree fly through the sky 50 amos." And it flew. Rebbi Yehuda says, "We don't pasken from trees." He says, "Let this river run backwards." And it ran backwards. He says, "We don't pasken from rivers." He says, "Let the walls of the Beis Medrash collapse in if I'm right." And they started to collapse. Rebbi Yehuda says, "You stay out of this." So, the walls didn't know what to do, so they were curved. They said, "You can always go and see the show." The walls were curved in. And finally, he says, "Let a bas kol, a heavenly voice come out and say that I'm right." And a heavenly voice comes out and said, "Halacha is like Rebbi Eliezer." Rebbi Yehuda gets up and says, "Lo bashamayim hi." That's it. God, you stay out of this. They asked Eliyahu, "What did Hashem say at that moment?" And he says, "My children have defeated me." I gave them the Torah. Even I can't change it. So, they took everything that Rebbi Eliezer said was taught and burnt it. And they put him in the cherem. Pirkei Avot says that if you were to take all of the chachamim and put him on one side and Rebbi Eliezer on the other side, he'd outweigh them all. Rebbi Eliezer should have said, "You know what? I'm going to open my own yeshiva." He didn't. He walked off the stage of history.