CHOCHMAS NASHIM: FROM BABYLON TO JERUSALEM
By: Suri Davis
I was at the Ohel this week and there was an hour fabrengen of the Rebbe’s via video. It appears that there is a Chabad custom to learn gemarah Sotah from Pesach to Shavuoth. A call to Rabbi Zalman Wolowik of Chabad Five Towns confirmed this custom, saying “The period of sefirah between Pesach and Shavuoth, is the transformation of the Jew from bihaymah/a wild beast to adam/man. The word Sefirah is from the root word which can mean sapphire, and elevation of man.”
I wasn’t able to learn more, it was a busy catch up week. The Rebbe discusses that a man who brings his wife to the Temple because he suspects that she had an affair, really loves her, for he has the alternative of divorcing her, and rather than divorce her, he wants to have the chance to continue to be with her, if his suspicions don’t pan out.
The Rebbe, as he was making his siyum on gemarah Sotah, discussed the difference between the end of Sotah in the Jerusalem Talmud v. the Babylonian Talmud, feeling that the two should be reconciled where possible.
In the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah ends with a discussion that at the time Rebbe, Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi died, humility ceased in the world. Rabbi Yosef chimes in that humility did not die out, indeed he was humble. Rabbi Yosef lived generations after Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi’s death. There’s always a chortle when this is learned, clearly one who declares himself humble, is not so.
The conclusion of Gemara Sotah in the Yerushalmi Talmud discusses When the sages gathered in the attic in Jericho, a voice emanated from the heavens and said “Two among you are worthy of the Holy Spirit, one of them is Hillel the Elder, the voice didn’t identify the second worthy individual. By keeping the second scholars identify hidden where there were many scholars present, each scholar could now identify his own virtues, which would qualify him as worthy of divine presence.
When scholars were gathered at Yavneh, a voice emanated and stated that two of you are worthy of the holy spirit, and one of them is Shmuel Hakattan/the small, and again the voice did not identify the second one who was worthy of the divine spirit. From this the scholars learned that the first voice was referring to Shmuel Hakattan as the second scholar who merited holy spirit, which they had surmised, and which the second voice confirmed.
The Rebbe felt that there was merit in reconciling the last verses of both Talmuds, and he did so thusly, even if an imperfect reconciliation. They don’t contradict each other, there is a similarity. The difference stems from the location and time they were compiled. The first one to be compiled was the Jerusalem Talmud completed by Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai in Israel, and his colleagues and students, 100 years before Rav Ashi drafted the Babylonian Talmud.
In that 100 years, according to Eiruvin, there was a dimunition of holiness as the generations diminish in holiness from the time the torah was given on Mt. Sinai. Yet, and also, they conclude on the topic of humility. Since there was a decline in generations from the drafted of the Jerusalem, generations later to the drafting of the Babylonian Talmud, so the expectations of humility also diminished. In the earlier perfect generation, we expect perfect humility, in a later “ordinary” generation, we expect “ordinary” humility.
Talmud Shabbat states “one should be humble like Hillel” So too Shmuel Hakattan was called small, because he would make himself small, a trait of humility. Rabbi Yosef was called Sinai, he was a great torah scholar, even though he lived generations later, and because he lived generations later at a time where there was a decline, he wasn’t expected to express the extreme humility of earlier generations.
Rabbi Yosef had to declare that humility still existed, because all were used to seeing humility in the earlier Tanaim who lived in Israel, where there high level of humility was easily seen by all. Rabbi Yosef who lived in exile in Babylonia, had a much lower, diminished level of humility which was not as easily seen in earlier Jerusalem scholars, therefore Rabbi Yosef had to reveal that humility still existed, even if it was at a diminished level, which was difficult for others to see.
Finishing, the Rebbe states that the humility seen in both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud emanated from the giver of both Talmuds, G-d, who is humble as He did great miracles with Exodus through the present. All good emanates from G-d.
Good Shabbos.
Suri