Rabbi Yehoshua Weber - Parsha Like You've Never Learned It - Emor

60-70 years ago, was simple, not controversial, so sensible. I raised I I say a little doctor of the doubling at the place that I double in every morning. So, I mentioned it last year and it was like it was it was so difficult for some of the people there here the idea and it really was wasn't I I wasn't trying to be controversial. It really is what is Lag Ba'omer about. So, we raised with the idea that there was a plague that occurred during that block of time. Rabbi Akiva's students died. Seems like it was all divine. Some and you know, we were even specific about the plague, something affecting the throat, constriction of the throat, some type of diphtheria or asthma, something and it's all so clear-cut. Um and you have this holiday in middle of Lag Ba'omer because what happened on Lag Ba'omer? They stopped dying. And then they started dying the day afterwards. And the Ramah and Hagah were some people, you know, fast, you know, mourn the first 33 days, some people mourn the last 33 days or we're not sure when they died. Is that what these minhagim are about? And where does Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai come in? So, he died on Lag Ba'omer. There's a lot of things, but I think if you just step away from a literal reading and you recognize that the Gemara was written in a period of persecution. It was recorded the Talmud Bavli that we have was recorded in Babylon around the year 500. Now, persecution there wasn't so bad and it was taking place under the Parthians, Persians, Zoroastrians, very different religion. But at the same time the Talmud Yerushalmi was developing in Eretz Yisrael and that took place underneath um Christian control, right? Rome became Christian, right? By, you know, the year 4-500 the Roman Empire was Christian. It was it became Christian in the year 325. So, so Christianity defined the milieu. Okay, let me offer that introduction. The second piece of the introduction is is that I'm actually the ideas that I'm going to share tonight are actually not my own. They were developed by a person who was the president of the European Agudas Yisroel. I want you to see the background even before I show anything for Joseph Ershteiner. He lived from early 20th century to the year 2007. He is the sign of the famous English Donner family, a very rabbinic family, Yeshivish, Chareidi, you know, the real black and white Agudath Israel of America. He was the head of a very prominent school and he was the European president of Agudath Israel. He's the one who developed this article. Okay, we'll talk about him a little bit later as well, but I want, you know, to to share his background. Now, what is the starting point? The starting point is is that sometimes when a Gemara is written they can write things the way they happened. Sometimes they can't. Sometimes you're afraid of sensors, sometimes you're afraid of anti-Semitism, sometimes you're afraid of outrages. So, things have to be be redacted in a way in which it's not going to cause upheaval, pogroms, persecution. Where things can be recorded. So, um that's a little bit of background. Now, the story as we read it is a story of plague, factual story. And it tells you how they died. It even tells you how many students died. So, how many students died, right? You know the story, you raised with it. 24,000. Everyone knows 24,000 because that's the Gemara. What I'd like to show you is is that there's one version of the story in the Gemara in Yevamos that's the first source on the top of the page. We are Shnei Masrei Elu Zuga Talmidei Rabbe Akiva, Rabbe Akiva had 12,000 pairs of students. Mi Gavas ad Anti-Paris, these are cities at different sections of Israel, the north to south, different parts of Israel. Kulam Meisu B'Ferekha, they all died in one period. We don't tell you in the Gemara clearly when this is, but then we step and say, you know what? Mi Pesach ad Atzeres, from Pesach until Shavuos is probably when they died. Now, there's a Medrash Rabba which is really just as authoritative as the Gemara. Midrash Rabbah is a very early Midrash. It was written about putting to writing about the same time the Gemara was putting to writing. And the Midrash Rabbah tells us it's not There are more hands to be like, "Please, I'm yeah. Um it's not 24,000 students that died, it's 12,000." Now, this is a pretty significant change. Okay? Look at the Midrash Rabbah, source two. >> [snorts] >> Good base Halakhah talmidim of Rabbi Akiva may have been Paris. Kol me'ah per per Akiva, here 12,000 students rather than 24,000. Now, I'm going to start with the question right here. If, you know, a census is taken in the US and we give and and there's a population. Now, sometimes >> [snorts] >> a census will have varying numbers. It'll be 42,899,723 or 42,899,711. There'll be a variation. It's not going to be half. So, is this Gemara factual? One source, two periods written in the same time, telling you markedly different numbers, 12,000, 24,000. What are the facts? There are no facts. It's the Gemara's way of saying a lot of people died. Why does it choose 12 and 24? So, if you're going to say a lot, what are you going to say? A gazillion, a billion, lots, many. Right. So, it could be 12 shvatim, but what's really interesting is is that we have to know how math works. We know how contemporary math works, right? We work with the Arabic system, which means when we count, we count to 10. And what happens when we reach 10? We go back and we count 11. You know, not every system works that way. It's so we're so accustomed to it that it's hard to imagine something else because that's what we know. Conceptually, the system can work to five, and then you can start a new system. If after five, you'll have 11, 12, 13 until you reach, you know, 10. And that will be then you move on to you could So, in Sumer, in Babylon, instead of counting to 10, they would count to six. Another truth is that made its way to England, right? Anyone Anyone here visit England? There's a six sixpence, right? You count the coins to six and then you sort of reach the Why sixpence? Because they would count to six and then they would start over again. Again, it's hard for the contemporary mind to absorb because we're so used to 10. But it could be 10, it could be 20, could be 11, could be six. In Bavel, in Sumer, the Gemara, which of course was where the Talmud Bavli was written, they worked with a six a numeric system of six. So So how did that work? What if it was What >> After six and then and then would be 11. 12, 13, 14, 15. >> What are the 11? Because it would be the next It wouldn't be our 11, but it would be the next What would they write after six? That's what I'm asking. So it would be the next symbol. Remember, they also didn't have They didn't have the Arabic symbols that we have. We have 10. It was like the Roman system or the Hebrew system where, you know, we work together with digits. We have a very, very sophisticated system where you have a zero and then we move on to the next flow. We have got 11, not just 11. Which we've developed recently. We didn't always have that. And [music] think about it. It goes up to tough. Look at old Hebrew calendars. It's not the Arabic system. We have the zero. It's a very different system, a more limited system. You can't go on and on. You can't go on to infinity. You can Tough, tough, tough. That's it. Ends at tough. The biggest Hebrew number is tough. >> Right. Nothing beyond that. How come to stay at zeros? You couldn't stay at zeros. That's not the way the numeric system worked. So, separate and distinct from that, we work within a system of 10s. Forget that. Our week is seven days. Not every society had a week of seven days. The communists, when they started, wanted to enact a 10-day week. Many ancient societies had the 6-day weeks. Just you know, it's the you know, Jewish life plays a great role in the world. And right. And the Christians absorbed our week and the Muslims absorbed our week. And people used to tell me you're a Christian because they're more important than than we give ourselves credit for. But but it doesn't have to be the way it doesn't have to be a week. It doesn't have to be the way the numbers. So we have no clue how many students died. Maybe 6,000, maybe 24,000, maybe 822. It's a lot. How do you say a lot? You say you say 12,000 or you say 24,000 cuz you always work with sixes. You don't want to just say six, you double it to 12. And if you're in a you're in a more exciting mood, you quadruple it to 24. But it's not about conveying a specific number because if it is, you have two authoritative sources that are in absolute contradiction. Again, when you start reading these things as fact, you end up in a really bad place because what are the facts? They can't be. If they were really counting the dead, that's too big of a divergence. It's just a way of saying a lot. Nothing more than that. Now why am I sharing that? >> [gasps] >> That's entree to the whole story. Reading the story not as a simple factual story, but as a little bit of a cover story. The Gemara was written in two places. It was written in Bavel. Now recording a story in Bavel, Talmud Bavli, that is about the Jews rebelling against the Romans, maybe that wouldn't have been such a big problem. But there were two streams of Gemara that emerged. Talmud Bavli in in Bavel, but Talmud Yerushalmi in Eretz Yisrael. Who ruled Eretz Yisrael when the Gemara was being recorded? The year 400. Rome. So we're going to put a story in the Gemara that not just we rebelled against Rome, we know that, but that our rabbis led the rebellion against Rome because who led the Bar Kokhba revolt? Bar Kokhba, of course, was the great general, but who was his religious leader? Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva was his religious leader, and how do we know that? The Gemaras are replete with discussions about that. Look at Turn the page, source 10. >> [clears throat] >> Rabbi Akiva Akiva, it was very controversial. A lot of Rabbis didn't support him. Yala was some Akiva, really should die. Um you will die, and your body will decompose, and grass will grow from it, and and still Mashiach isn't coming. It's not coming around the corner. They were very opposed to Rabbi Akiva supporting the Bar Kokhba revolt. Why were they so opposed to it? Because people are going to die. Rabbi Akiva believed we can rebel, and the rebellion will succeed, and we'll win an independent Israel. And what did the other Rabbanim feel? It'll It's not going to work, and everyone's going to die for no reason. So, you You know, if you think it'll succeed, it may be worth it, but if it's not going to succeed, what You know, it's a terrible thing. You're destroying the community. You're killing people. You know, we have the Gemaras about the second Khurban, right? The Gemaras in Gittin, some of the most well-known Gemaras in Shas talks about how the Khakhamim wanted to make peace with the Romans who besieged the city, but the what did the Biryonim familiar with that Gemara who said who insisted on fighting, and they burned the storehouses, and and they caused tremendous problems, and people died because of that. Khakhamim felt that that Rabbi Akiva was one of the Biryonim, that he shouldn't be rebelling. I mean, the language that's being used is very harsh. You're going to die, and your body will decompose. They were very opposed. They felt that they Rabbi Akiva was leading the community astray, and that thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people will die because of him. So, they opposed Rabbi Akiva very, very forcefully. But Rabbi Akiva felt he was right, and he encouraged his students to rebel. Now, the Gemara doesn't tell you here that he encouraged his students to rebel, but it tells you that he used to um carry his weapons. That Rebbi Akiva would carry Bar Kokhba's weapons. What does that mean? He was an old man at this point. It meant that he supported the rebellion, and he participated. And if he's participating, his young students participated. Now, now I know maybe some are learning in yeshiva to make the the army work. We're not going to go there, but um his students, many of them, maybe all of them, did what people do during a time of war. They fought. Right? So, maybe maybe instead of saying that they died because there was a plague, maybe it's the Gemara's clever way of saying they died because they rebelled against the Romans. The Romans cut them down, but we don't want to write that. We say that they rebelled, that they died because of a plague. I'm not sharing the idea. Rabbi Donner shares this idea. He wrote this article. But they had to say that because um they could be because this it would make its way back to Yerushalmi, and the Romans would read it, and it was just too much. Now, there are Gemaras that talk about the Khurban, but um and it talks about the devastation and the suffering. But this tells you that the rabbis, after rebelling twice and failing miserably twice, there was the uh you know, there was um once for sure, the Khurban of the Beit Hamikdash. But this is the Bar Kokhba revolt with the destruction of Betar again, being led by the rabbis. What are the Romans going to say when they see this? They're going to say that the Jews keep rebelling, and that the rabbis lead it, and the persecution will go go will be stronger. Now, what why did Rabbi Donner think of this? Because it just makes sense. Because if you think about the whole Lag story, nothing really really sounds right. Let's talk about the Menachem. Let's talk not about the Sefirah. Let's talk about Lag B'Omer. So, what is the story of Lag What is Lag B'Omer as we know it? >> [clears throat] >> Rebbe Akiva died. And because of that, there was tremendous light and that light filled the world. So, because of that, our kids run around with bows and arrows and they light bonfires because when he died, there was a light. And and that and and that's Does that make sense? What does it have to do with bonfires? And what does it have to do with bows and arrows? Let's change the story. Rabbi Donner access Josephus, right? Now, again, Josephus should be normative Jewish study. He wasn't such a good Jew. He was a Jew who was a turncoat. Um there were a group of Jews who met in a cave. They all um agreed to commit suicide so the Romans wouldn't capture them. He didn't want to die. Um he was the last one. Instead of committing suicide, he turned himself into the Romans. And he worked with the Romans. Was he an anti-Semite? He worked against the Jews. Could very well be. I I don't know. That you need somebody who understands Josephus. This is a matter of great debate about how bad he was. But he has the most extensive recording of Jewish history during the period of the Korban, during the period after the Korban into the Bar Kochba revolt cuz he lived then. And he was always quoted. And Donner Rav Donner again, president of of the European Agudah points out that in Josephus, there's a story that there were were battles during the Sefirah period between the Jews who were rebelling, Rebbe Akiva's students, and the Romans. There was one day in which the battle was very successful and we prevailed. Generally, we lost. They were larger, we were weaker. I mean, we had you know, we'd been defeated so many times, it was sort of a hopeless rebellion. But there was one day of great victory. And what was that day of great victory? You know the day. Lag B'Omer was the day of great victory. And so back then Lag Baomer was celebrated as a day of great victory. And how did they celebrate Lag Baomer? By running around with bows and arrows because that's what soldiers did. By lighting bonfires because that's what armies did. It was simply a day in which you celebrated prevailing in war. Nothing more than that, nothing less than that. Now, does it make sense to say that the war took place Dafqa during Sefirah? For sure. When do people wage war? Let's not talk about Lag Baomer, right? What happened to us historically during Sefirah? Sefirah is a time of mourning. Why is Sefirah a time of mourning? Not just because of Rabbi Akiva's students, what else happened during Sefirah? The pogroms, the crusaders struck during Sefirah, right? That's recorded. What else happened during Sefirah? Tach vetach, the persecutions of 1648-1649 took place during Sefirah. Why does everything take place during Sefirah? Now, could be it has a it's a time with a bad karma. But logically, practically, why do bad things take place during Sefirah? So, what do what did the Polish peasants do all winter? Did they go on rampages in the winter? Why not? Because they couldn't get out. I mean, you couldn't travel on the roads because the roads were full of snow, right? So, you cooped up all winter, okay? When are you when are you going to release all that pent-up energy? In the spring. And frankly, you're going to go ahead and travel more in the spring than the summer, especially in Israel, because in Israel the summer is very hot. You're not going to go out to wage war. And you're not going to wage war in the winter because there were rains, you can't move. So, spring, the crusaders happened during the spring because the crusaders happened when Europeans traveled through Europe on the way to Israel. Now, could be some traveled during the winter and some traveled during the summer, but a disproportionate amount of traveling took place during the spring because the climate tolerates it, because you were cooped up all winter. You had the two factors coming together. The autumn fall might tolerate it as well, but you don't have that passion after being cooped up all winter. So, the Crusades, many of the cities were leveled, Jewish communities were leveled during Sefirah. Well, if the Crusaders waged war during Sefirah, and Chmielnicki's followers waged war during Sefirah, could be asked students waged war during Sefirah as well. It's just so logical. If indeed Lag BaOmer was a day in which we prevailed, bonfires and and bows and arrows, are we going to record this in the Gemara that will eventually seen be seen by the Romans who ruled us, telling them that the rabbis encouraged rebellion even after we'd lost the first rebellion? Of course not. Are we going to forget about it completely? Of course not as well. We'll create a little bit of an elliptical. We'll cover it. We'll We'll We'll We'll present the story not quite the way the story happened, which lets you leads you to think that you're not really sure if stories are exactly the way they're told. You know, the story of the Hurban, we know the story from Gittin, and what is the story? The Rabbanim all wanted to give in and make peace, and they wanted to get along with the Romans. The Biryonim are the ones who wanted to rebel. Was it as simple as that? Maybe not. Maybe we wanted to present it in a way that's not going to cause us damage. We're living under Roman tutelage, what are we going to do? We can't record the fact that the Rabbanim are the ones leading the rebellion. Now, could be the Rabbanim who wanted to make peace, and the Biryonim are the ones who made trouble. Could very well be. But, Rabbi Dunner is telling you clearly that the that the Rabbi Akiva story, the story of Rabbi Akiva's students, is not the way it's presented. Our Rabbanim were leading rebellion, but we didn't want to record it, so we gave it a different flavor. Is that maybe true of the first korban? I don't know. He doesn't go there. >> Is it possible that 24,000 is Rabbi Akiva's students and 12,000 were people that died during the war? Because one version is Yud Beis Elef Talmidim, Yud Beis Elef Talmidim Hayu L'Rabbi Akiva, and the other is Shnayim Asar Zugos Talmidim Hayu L'Rabbi Akiva. They both say Talmidim L'Rabbi Akiva. Exactly the same story, just doubles the number. The numbers uh don't make a difference. It's just a way of saying, and just the way there are Gemaras that tell you 60 trillion Jews died during Makas Choshech, or uh it's just just one of those Gemaras. We're just trying to say a lot. And the those a lot Gemaras were only six or 12, six or 12, because those were the numbers that people worked with. This is Dayan Dunner's reading. Okay. I actually photocopied, you know, a section of his article, um source five, um cuz it's really really important. Now, um suddenly, this will lead to sort of understanding a lot of Gemaras, but I think it's really important to know who the man was and where he lived. I may be wrong. Um you know, we all have our perspectives and and feel free to sort of, you know, offer another perspective. I have found, in the limited small life I have, that the most interesting people are people who've lived in different worlds. I think one of the great tragedies of modern of contemporary Orthodox life is that, you know, we're afraid of our kids interfacing with the world. >> [snorts] >> There are big barriers. I mean, some sections of the community, you know, isolate so so much, but there's a lot of isolation. And for good reason, I mean, the norms, the culture, there are lots of reasons. But what's happening is is the kids are growing up with one set of ideas, and they're not There's no There's There's no back and forth. There's no what philosophers call a dialectic. I offer an idea, you offer an idea, I offer an idea, there's a back and forth, and something is refined. There's really very little of refining of ideas going on. Now, you'll say that happens with Gemara back and forth, but it's back and forth within a box. The show does this, the show does that, the show does but in terms of larger life-based ideas, there's very little of that. And I understand why the community went there. Um but the downside is is that I just don't know that we're a community that's really so good at this point at developing novel ideas. We can go back and forth about, you know, you know, the London so that how you how you split a callus. But novel ideas, interfacing, um real dialectic, um real debate, I don't think our community is good at that at this point. I think it's actually really quite deficient. Um Rabbi Donner lived between worlds. He lived in a city that produced one creative mind after another. And that city is Danzig. Danzig was a city on you heard of Danzig. In contemporary Polish, Danzig is called Gdansk. Um it's a region. You have Germany. But the Germans were, you know, a really large population. Germany during the Middle Ages really had There was a crisis there, an economic crisis. And a lot of Germans left Germany. And what they did was they went east, they went to Poland, they went to the Ukraine, they went to Russia. They went to especially Lithuania. And you had a lot of Germans scattered in these areas. They were called Volksdeutsche. The Baltic barons had a lot of Germans. Um when Hitler and made his way into the area, many of the Germans rallied behind them, Volksdeutsche. They supported him. Um you had so much so that pre-war Germany, it's so long ago that we sort of forget what the map looked like, but pre-war Germany, you had Germany, you had Poland, but then you had another piece of land that was also called Germany. And you had an area called the Polish Corridor separating it. There was a city Gdansk or Danzig in German that was a German city, but it was right but it was German-Polish, right? Because the it during um um up until the end of World War II, it was owned by Germany. Then, you know, after things were redrawn after World War II, that area became totally Polish. But, you had you had a place where you had a melding of different populations. You had Germans surrounded by Poles. My This is just conjecture. This is just sociology. There's nothing rabbinic about this. Um, is that when people live in societies like that where they're interfacing with different people, you have an intellectually richer world. Let's leave um, um, Rabbi um, Donner aside. He He was Kalinin Grad. It's the same thing. Same area. Um, the Tiferes Yisrael or a Rabbi Lipschitz wrote the Tiferes Yisrael on the Mishnayos. Also very creative. Um, he just wrote pieces that were always a little out of the box, controversial. He was >> [snorts] >> criticized harshly. Um, he He wrote um, a whole piece at the end of of Mishnayos in Nezikin that that is there in every Mishnayos unless when people get really You go to a really from shul before they put it on the shelf, they cut it out cuz they don't approve of it. But, when Darwin wrote his work on evolution, he thought it was the best thing in the world. He says, "This proves all the midrashim that I've been struggling with." So, that was his approach. Now, again, you can like Darwin, you cannot like Darwin. I don't think the contemporary community likes him, but he loved him. He thought This is amazing. This proves midrash. And he wrote a whole piece on it. And again, it's there. Just open a um, contemporary Mishnayos and you will see in back there's something called Drushos Chaim written by him. But, it's just indicative of the way he thought. He was just out of the box. He was open to ideas. And he wasn't the only one. I think I think that a culture like that allows for that. My limited experience, you'll hear um, baalei teshuvah, um, geirim, people come from outside the box sometimes have the most interesting insight. And sometimes, um, my wife noticed it actually, that the lectures that I like to listen to online, one after another, all didn't always live [clears throat] within our community. I I didn't know that. It was like, "Ooh, I like this guy." Um didn't live in our community always. I like that guy. It because you're not bound by the norms, because you've seen other ideas, and that allows you to evaluate and over creativity. I think so. Maybe that's why he has the He um there's creativity here. But what's really interesting is he published this as an article. He published this in in the '30s, well before the war. He becomes a prominent rabbi in England in the Karaites community, becomes president of the good It's not an It's not an issue. I think today ideas like this do are an issue. They They're just difficult for people to hear, because well, that's what the Gemara says. Well, he says, "Of course that's what the Gemara says, but there are sociological factors, there are economic factors, and know the world." Um and well, the fear is, "Once you say this to this Gemara, you'll start doing this to other Gemaras." And his response to that, "Yeah, you should do this to lots of Gemaras, and then suddenly you'll find richer, more relevant ideas instead of facts that are just facts that don't seem to be actually factual, and that don't have any bearing on my life, because of What does it mean? Okay. Um But once you have that And again, you can go through his piece here. He's This isn't implicit, it's explicit. He's as explicit as can be, and and and he just doesn't seem to be struggling with it. Just seems to be so obvious and sensible. Okay, I'll only Here, I'm second para- second through paragraphs. Another reason, a simpler reason, is here. Rabbi Akiva Eiger coming back to Ziba have you have a day in his mission. When he had a good give you a good moment. He was a supporter of our cause, but and he was also an educator all over the country, all over the world, actually. And then when if there's a war, so what he did is He called He called all of his students to to fight, because when a war that's what you do. You go you fight war. Well, you days are you feel Bar Kokhba mode he had a large army having many of his students. That will be the killer even though they had some success eventually the Romans prevailed so on and so forth and many of Rabbi Akiva's students died. We don't know the numbers. The numbers are just a statement. The next >> and they could have been soldiers also. They were soldiers, yeah. His I mean what do you do during a war? When there's a war you fight. Okay? The next paragraph government there were many wars and gradually the enemy prevailed. There was a war where the Jews did succeed that's Lag B'Omer and that was a Yom Shevo Lam Yeshua Hashem. Akadosh Baruchu showed and and then he pointed out another one from Posner I name I don't know. The times of year Lag B'Omer is the source. You celebrate Lag B'Omer because of this and then he brings down a little bit further in that here but brings a little bit further that a dean in Josephus they bring that the Lag B'Omer was a day of celebration because they prevailed in war. Now, did Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai die? Maybe. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in all probability was a soldier too. Right? Now, he survived because but why was he hiding? Because the Romans were chasing after him. Right. And why were the Romans chasing after him? Because he was against them. Now, suddenly there are going to be Gemaras that that show you that they were really different attitudes towards dealing with the Romans. Now again, with the Nazis it's not going to work. They're out to kill you. The Romans not necessarily. The Romans persecuted us but they it wasn't Nazi Germany where they were killing all of us. They maybe wanted us to succeed because the more successful we are the more taxes they have, right? They [clears throat] lived off the taxes of the people they controlled. So you had lots of Jews who supported them. So much so that some prominent rabbonim worked for them in in as security officials. Let me come to a a surprising of our okay. Um 16, okay, this is going to be at the end of it see you, okay? Now, before you see this Gamara um again, I can just I can talk about life experience, you can talk about yours. I have found that people who are sort of moderate remain moderate. People who are very extreme, what happens? They'll they'll they'll spend their lives being extreme, but sometimes in the opposite direction. If someone is passionately anti-religious and cure of I I spent some time, you know, dealing the people who are just floating along, you're not going to accomplish much. But, if someone is antagonistic and he's really you got a good cure of candidate because there's passion there. That's from my anecdotal experience and in the opposite direction, when you have the real passionate um people who are, you know, you know, blacking bust you know, highways and this and that, they're the ones who are most likely to go OTD a year later. That's in both directions. It's that type of personality that um that comes out. Um yeah, it's just an extreme person. That's extreme. So, Reb you know, Shimon bar Yochai hid in a cave because the Romans were after him and who hid with him? His son. His son. Reb Shimon both of them left the cave and they saw people working and they just couldn't deal with it and they burned up and they went back to the cave and then Reb Shimon came out and he moderated said, you know, what life has to go on, but his son didn't moderate. His son was like just a real kannoy. He was like such a kannoy. You know, you have to learn all day, whatever that means. What happened to his son? What type of job did his son eventually get? Do you know what he became? He became a policeman for the Romans. Reb Shimon bar Yochai's son. And he would catch Jewish criminals and he continued being a rebbe um and the rabbonim told him, "Why are you doing this? You're vinegar, the son of wine. Your father was a great rabbi. You're a policeman with Romans." And he said, "You know, you need policemen, and I have to catch bad guys." And they said, "Well, you're catching bad Jews, but they're bad guys." So, 16. As you, okay. And it's really again, Gemara Gemara is That's the Gemara. I'm not saying anything. What? No, I never heard of Gemara. As you learn about Shimon, they bring in Shimon, and they continue to call him rabbi, right? So, if someone is working for the Nazis to put Jews on trains to Auschwitz, he's not going to maintain his religious title, right? He's not He had a title. He's maintaining his religious title. The toughest guy in town. He was He would catch thieves. They were Jewish thieves. He's not Shelach Karha. Chometz Binyan, you're vinegar, the son of wine. Your father was a prominent person. What are you doing this? Al okeinu laharigeinu, you're giving over our people to death. Shelach Kotzim min Kerem, I'm clearing away thorns. These are bad guys, the criminals. Shelach Kerem v'Shelach Kotzim. Let Hashem come and clear away the thorns. He We don't see him giving in. We don't see, you know, the other rabbonim validating him. But, there were plenty of people who worked with Rome. This is a generation later, because of Akiva's rebellion. The students used to eat. He establishes very high. He You know, he grows up. He He hides, and then his son. But, even during the time that Akiva is is rebelling, right? Not long afterwards, Akiva has to hide. Maybe during that period. What's the story about hiding? Like, why does he have to go into hiding? So, you remember the Gemara? So, it's really um a very, very important Gemara. Let's come to the Gemara. Um Okay. Um 15. Pamachas, Yosh Rabbi Yosi, Rabbi Shimon, so you have three of the most rabbonim of the period sitting. These are the rabbonim who established Torah Shebaal Peh, right? We gave out his five great talmidim, these are three of them. And they're talking about the um the Romans during the period of the Bar Kochba revolt. Rabbi Yehuda, who is Rabbi Yehuda in the Mishna? He's one of the great five tanaim is saying they said up beautiful things, um bridges and and markets. So, Hitler yimach shmo set up the autobahn. Would any rav in in in the worst together in 1942 say, "Oh, how great this this society is, they set up autobahns?" What's What's autobahn? Autobahn is the expressway, the highways in Germany. Um so, would anyone praise Hitler yimach shmo for that? Rabbi Yehuda is praising him, and he's not? But this is 1942. Right? Um this is the period in which um because it 19 it wasn't 1942, it wasn't the same situation. There were different readings. Do you work with them? They weren't out Hitler yimach shmo was out to kill all the Jews. Um they're out to kill all the Jews. >> [snorts] >> That's not what the Romans were doing. They wanted an empire, they wanted to be in control, they wanted taxes. They wanted fidelity. Doesn't I Doesn't sound like they were They were banning religion totally eventually, but the rebellion they began because that gave us identity. But Rabbi Yehuda is is complementing them. And it's it's This is not second tier. When you open When you learn Mishnayos, who are you learning? You're learning Rabbi Meir, you're learning Rabbi Yehuda, you're learning Rabbi Shimon. This is who you're learning in the Mishna. This is This is everything. This is Rabbi Yehuda. So, he says or the Rabbi Yosi shasik. Rabbi Yosi was quiet. Rabbi Akiva never said much. As you know, um you know, in terms of the five great Tanaim, Rabbi Akiva is one who says least. What he says is very little, but very wise. So, that's probably in line with his character. Then how much technical technological they did these things for themselves? There were markets, there were bridges, there were this. They did it only so that they can go ahead and take advantage of us. There's nothing good about it. And of course, someone tattled on Rabbi Shimon and he has to go hide. But what's important is that people who are living at the same period he's saying something positive about the Romans. Rabbi Shimon's son is living a a generation later and he's working for the same Roman Empire. It's not Nazi It's not Germany that the Nazi had. >> not. Right. And he's working for them as a policeman. So, it's not so clear-cut. So, Rabbi Akiva's rebelling, other of them don't want anything to do with this. There were rebellions and they failed miserably and and you're causing angst. So, Rabbi Akiva's supporting him. Others are against him. And suddenly that ends a lot of perspective. You know, who was Bar Kokhba? Was he a bad guy? Couldn't have been such a bad guy cuz Rabbi Akiva supported him. But at the very same time, there are statements in Khazal in which Bar Kokhba is painted as as almost someone who was anti-religious. Um I want you to see the statements, okay? >> [snorts] >> Um where are we? Um We're at 15. Yeah, but I go back and forth, okay? Okay. Pama, look at 13. Okay. It's Eicha Rabbah. These are the Gemaras in Gittin. Pama, cuz she also Muhammad is on them. Elokeinu said let us know who support you. If she don't pay him for our money, you said will you accept? Let Elokeinu not support us, let him just not turn against us. Hello, Elokeinu turn on the TV and say no. You are the let go of us. We don't want you. Now, what are they saying? These are Rabbi Akiva's students, right? They said this? That's that's what Medra is saying. Now again, Elazar, I don't know that they really said that because again, once you move away from literalism, you've got a lot of breathing room. >> That's bad. Right. But Rabbi Akiva supported him and his students were part of it. So what really is going on? But they were they really talking about So maybe they didn't say that. Maybe what were they really saying? Um you're quoting a So I don't know if they said that. Um again, Elazar, the more time you spend with me, the less you will know. I think I told you this once. You will know less and less about more and more until you know everything about nothing or nothing about everything. So there'll be no clarity. I don't know what they said. I know that there's some deep message here or them. Repeat it. And I suspect the message is is that the dominant were against the rebellion. Rabbi Akiva supported it. His students supported him. When most of the are against you, what ends up happening? You get the hammer on you. But you're going to have your fight anyway. So they're going to put you on and then what's going to happen? What's going to happen to your own level of religiosity? It's going to go it's going to decline. So I don't know that they left and because Rabbi Akiva supported them, but they they weren't working with the establishment and this created religious tensions also because if the rabbinic establishment is supporting me, where [clears throat] am I religiously? So suddenly it became a religious issue. And then we start talking about and his followers not believing in because that is what happens when there's tension. And you know, the dominant religious stream is against [clears throat] what you're doing, then eventually you're going to be turned away. It doesn't mean that they stop being observant or they let go completely, but there's going to be religious damage, and that's what this is alluding to, the religious damage. So, I I don't know exactly what happened. I don't think anyone knows exactly what happened. And the people who have complete clarity, stay far away from them because they're they're the ones who know least. Um because they will tell you everything about everything with absolute clarity, and then you'll end up knowing nothing about everything. Um let's come back to the core idea here. Um the core idea is is he's proposing a sensible reading, and when it was proposed, it just didn't seem to be a big deal. That would be like such an odd thing. I think we as a community have become more rigid, um and maybe we're afraid. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of but I'm just saying he was such a dominant figure in in European Jewry. He was the president of Agudah. And now this idea would just, you know, seem odd, I think. And maybe it wouldn't. And maybe here at 18th for sure it wouldn't be odd, but in many places it would be odd. Uh what? Nothing is odd here. So, um so he's quite explicit, he's not implicit. It makes sense out of the whole like Boaz thing, which seems so odd. It makes sense about the students dying of a plague, which seems odd. Why did they die now? It it just makes sense out of a lot of things. >> No, positive that you just said would kind of like sums up Elazar, I don't know that they said that. >> [laughter] >> I think it's a positive way. Um it's a It's in the Torah is a positive and saying in the Yeah, yeah, yeah, like it was Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a positive from Tehillim. But I don't I don't know what they said. I think it's just the Medrash finding a a painful, powerful way of saying that eventually, because the opposition was religious, and for good reason, they were afraid that they would fail, and they did, the um it it it it pulled pushed people away from religion. Now, was Rabbi Akiva wrong and everyone else right? Maybe. Or maybe he was right. Maybe if the others would have worked with him, they would have succeeded. Right? I I What I what I don't understand You know, I don't think anyone was should be saying Rabbi Akiva was in the wrong cuz I don't know he was wrong. No, but what I don't understand is Rabbi Akiva who like literally wrote the oral Torah. He started the whole oral Torah. He knew in certain aspects more than Moshe Rabbeinu. He was on a much higher like in certain aspects on our level. You going to tell me that he supported a person who Who was also a devout person and a good person. No. So again, I don't know that I don't know that that was said unless that's what I'm saying. >> Unless that was said after and then we that No, but but Lazer, I don't know that that was said. I don't know that that was said. Who recorded this? How did this make its way? Bar Kokhba died. Um I think what it's saying is that eventually it's created religious tension. It ate away at the religiosity of some of the people in Bar Kokhba's forces, which is bound to happen because if the dominant rabbinic stream is not supporting you and it's war and people are dying, you're going to be turned off. Did they say this? I don't know. And I think by moving away from a literal reading, what you're doing is you're um you're giving Kavod to people who died al Kiddush Hashem. Literally. Yeah, he became a really bad person. But if he's a really bad person, then Rabbi Akiva supported him, how good can he be? Understand Rabbi Akiva supported him till the end it seems. There's no talk of Rabbi Akiva backing down. So if he's a bad person, then what's Rabbi Akiva? If he's a very good person and who meant well, Rabbi Akiva supported him. Did he say this? Maybe not. But did did the fact that there was no rabbinic support eat away at his own level of religiosity? Maybe. I'm not saying to the point that thought I'm not saying that. Did he say this? I don't know. Again, I mean If you don't agree with his support of his religious views, then you believe he just supported him as a good, you know, a good a good general who can defend the Jewish people. Maybe he didn't support his religious views. You know. And when does it come out some point people thought he was Messiah? If I knew who was Messiah. Rabbi Akiva. Akiva? Akiva thought he was I mean Rabbi Akiva thought he was Messiah. At some point. And obviously that changed. It's not But again, I didn't know that he said that. And Mikra and Midrash >> [clears throat] >> You don't say Mikra and Midrash they are Midrash. They are not Midrash. No, I know no no no no no no. But he didn't say this pasuk. Who says he said this pasuk? The pasuk could have been added on later by Or it's just a way to make a point. >> attached the story later by somebody who was redacting it or putting it together. In order to make some sort of polemical point. Could have happened later. The Torah and the Prophets are the same.