Blog - Rabbi Yosef Cornfeld

Applying Case, Law, Factor to the Mishnah

For this exercise, we will take to formula for the Mishnah discussed in the last blog post: “Case, Law, Factor”, and apply them to the first Mishnah in Baba Metzia. The first part of the Mishnah reads as follows, with a literal English translation:

שְׁנַיִם אוֹחֲזִין בְּטַלִּית, זֶה אוֹמֵר אֲנִי מְצָאתִיהָ וְזֶה אוֹמֵר אֲנִי מְצָאתִיהָ, זֶה אוֹמֵר כֻּלָּהּ שֶׁלִּי וְזֶה אוֹמֵר כֻּלָּהּ שֶׁלִּי, זֶה יִשָּׁבַע שֶׁאֵין לוֹ בָהּ פָּחוֹת מֵחֶצְיָהּ, וְזֶה יִשָּׁבַע שֶׁאֵין לוֹ בָהּ פָּחוֹת מֵחֶצְיָהּ, וְיַחֲלֹקוּ.

שְׁנַיִם אוֹחֲזִין בְּטַלִּית, Two are holding a Tallit
זֶה אוֹמֵר אֲנִי מְצָאתִיהָ וְזֶה אוֹמֵר אֲנִי מְצָאתִיהָ, This one says: “I found it” and that one says: “I found it”
זֶה אוֹמֵר כֻּלָּהּ שֶׁלִּי וְזֶה אוֹמֵר כֻּלָּהּ שֶׁלִּי, This one says: “It’s all mine” and that one says: “It’s all mine”.
זֶה יִשָּׁבַע שֶׁאֵין לוֹ בָהּ פָּחוֹת מֵחֶצְיָהּ, וְזֶה יִשָּׁבַע שֶׁאֵין לוֹ בָהּ פָּחוֹת מֵחֶצְיָהּ, This one swears that he does not possess less than half of it, and that one swears that he does not possess less than half of it
וְיַחֲלֹקוּ. And they split it.

The normal order is to start by identifying the case. Line 1 is obviously describing the case. In order to understand what the case is we need to fill in some of blanks – read between the lines. Where are they that they are holding this Tallit? From the context, and the continuation of the Mishnah, we can surmise that they are standing before the court, with both of them holding the Tallit. Now we come to line 2. This seems to be the continuation of the Case of line 1, namely that the two people who are holding the Tallit both claim that they found it. Then when we come to line 3, and they both claim that it all theirs, we wonder: Is this the same Case, or is it a new Case. In other words, do each of two people holding the Tallit make the claim: “I found it and it’s all mine”? Or perhaps this is two separate cases, where in both cases there are two people holding the Tallit, and in the first case they both claim: “I found it” and in the second case they both claim: “It’s all mine.” Indeed, this is the first discussion in the Gemarah, whether this is one case, where both claim to have found it first, and therefor “It’s all mine” hence the two claims for the same case. The other possibility is that it is two cases, the first one where both claim to have found it, and the second case that both claim to have bought it.

That brings us to the Law: each one takes an oath that “not less than half of it is mine”. As a continuation of the Law, once they take the oath, they split the Tallit.

We see that there is no Factor, no reason given in the Mishnah for the Law. This is the more common form of the Mishnah, that no reason is given. This is where we have to ponder the reason for the Law, and this is very often what the Gemarah will do. In our Mishna here, the Law is complex. One aspect is that they both take an oath. Another aspect is the wording of the oath. And once the oath is completed, the Tallit is split between them. These Factors are all discussed in the Gemarah. This we will discuss at a later date.

What we have seen from here is that when we think of the Mishna in terms of “Case, Law, Factor,” that it helps us to clarify what exactly the Mishna is teaching us. More on this next time.

Introduction to how to learn the Talmud:

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The Talmud is the basis for Halacha – Jewish Law. These blog posts will be a series of how to approach the Talmud, how to analyze it, and understand its rulings. While there are other sources that are used for Halachic rulings, the vast majority come from the rulings of the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud consists of two parts: Mishnah, and Gemarah.

Mishnah: The Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in the second century C.E. It was compiled from all the traditions of all of the sages before him. It is written in a concise form, and was meant to be memorized and recited, and was not supposed to be written down and published. But because of the turbulent times caused by the Roman oppression in Eretz Israel, it was written down in the form that we have today.

The Mishna, being a law book, is composed of a case and a law. Sometimes a reason is given in the Mishna for why this case produces this law, but more often it does not. The factor is usually discussed in the Gemarrah. We can look at the structure through the following formula: Case, Law, Factor, in which in the Factor is what produces the Law for this Case. We can look at it as Case =>{Factor] => Law. The Factor could also be a Biblical source, in which case it would be quoted as a verse.

When the Mishnah doesn’t give a Factor, it is a good practice, before you look into the Gemara or Rashi, for you to try to think of one or more possible Factors. This helps to open your mind to the many possibilities that could be attributed to this Law.

There is one more element that is important to note. Often there is more than one opinion in a Mishnah. This will be indicated by the Mishna giving the name of the Rabbi who holds that opinion. There can be more than one name listed, and unless the Mishnah indicates that they agree, then we know that they disagree. If no name is cited, this is known as a סתם משנה a Stam, or unauthored, Mishnah.

Tomorrow we will go through these elements of the Mishnah by bringing an example to show how this works.

What is the Talmud?

Talmud

Simply stated, the Talmud is the body of the Oral Torah, that was given to Moses together with the Written Torah on Mt. Sinai. Throughout the generations there have been movements both inside and outside of Judaism that have denied the very existence of the Oral Torah. But in fact, any proper understanding of the Written Torah has to have a tradition of how to understand what it says. This is illustrated by a story in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a):

“There was an incident involving one gentile who came before Shammai. The gentile said to Shammai: How many Torahs do you have? He said to him: Two, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The gentile said to him: With regard to the Written Torah, I believe you, but with regard to the Oral Torah, I do not believe you. Convert me on condition that you will teach me only the Written Torah. Shammai scolded him and cast him out with reprimand. The same gentile came before Hillel, who converted him and began teaching him Torah. On the first day, he showed him the letters of the alphabet and said to him: Alef, bet, gimmel, dalet. The next day he reversed the order of the letters and told him that an alef is a tav and so on. The convert said to him: But yesterday you did not tell me that. Hillel said to him: You see that it is impossible to learn what is written without relying on an oral tradition. Didn’t you rely on me? Therefore, you should also rely on me with regard to the matter of the Oral Torah, and accept the interpretations that it contains.”

The lesson here is that in order to simply understand how to read the words you have to have a tradition of how to read the letters, how to pronounce the words they form, how to interpret how the words connect with each other. This demonstrated to the convert that that in order to understand the text of the Torah, he had to rely on Hillel to teach him how to read the letters. This requires a belief in a tradition of how to read the book. In his wisdom, Hillel showed him that once he is relying on this handed down tradition, that he should rely on all of the handed down tradition, namely the tradition of the Oral Torah.

In the time of Hillel (first century BCE) the Oral Torah was still oral. Indeed, there was a prohibition to write it down. It was only something that you could learn by sitting with a teacher. All of the teaching had to be committed to memory. Indeed, in order to qualify to be an “Amora” – a Rabbi – it was necessary to have memorized the entire body of Mishna.

Today, when we speak about learning Talmud, also known as Gemara, it is a much different thing than it was in the time of Hillel. All of our texts are written down. And the amount of texts that there are to learn in the Oral Torah is overwhelming. It is so vast that there are few that can actually learn all the texts, and even fewer, if anyone, who can master them all.

In the coming weeks and months, we will explore the nature of the Talmud, how it came about, ways to approach learning it.

What is the Talmud? Some ideas of Rav Adin Steinsaltz

Talmud

Giving an accurate definition of what the Talmud is perplexes many. It is hard to pin down exactly what it is, and to state precisely what it does. Below is a video of Rav Adin Steinsaltz זצ”ל where he addresses the question, and giving us insight into how to understand the Talmud. I have written out some of the more pertinent passages, editing it for clarity and readability. In some places I have altered the transcript to reflect what I thought were the intentions of the Rav. You can judge for yourself by watching the entire video (15 min) which appears at the end of the post.

Rav Steinsaltz starts by saying that he will dive right in to the “Sea of the Talmud” to explain it. Here are some of the highlights.

“The Talmud is a book that’s very hard to explain because there is

not a book that is exactly like it. Not just in contents but in the way it is built…

Generally speaking, it’s a book of discussions, dealing with ideas, problems.

It is not so much a book that that has conclusions or results but rather discussions about subjects in its own very particular way.…”

He then goes on to describe it as interactive learning:

“The Talmud is perhaps the first book which is which is made for interactive learning.

You cannot really read it passively. You will understand very little of it and surely not enjoy any of it. To deal with it in any level from the simplest to more and more advanced levels, you have to interact. You are not just a passive listener, reader, viewer. You have somehow to ask, to figure out, to try to understand things. Otherwise it remains not only a closed book but a text without any meaning whatever.”

The Rav then goes on to explain that the Talmud is the Oral Law, which is based on the Written Law, which is the Bible. The Law was given by Moses as a written text, but in order to understand the text, it needs explanations. These explanations are the Oral Law. He compares it to a manual on how to use a complicated machine. It’s not enough just to read the manual, but it needs to be accompanied by someone explaining how to understand the manual and how to use the machine. With the passage of time, circumstances change and language changes, so the Oral explanation can adjust for these changes

“One of the of the main reasons why the oral law was kept intentionally and

even religiously as an oral law and not as a written law – up to the to the

end of the of the of the second, in fact almost the beginning of the third century

in in the common era. Why? Because as long as it is not written it remains something that is transmitted from one generation to another, it means that you can always adjust it to the language, to the usage, and to the problems of any particular age. When it is written down it gets involved into the same problematic as any kind of a written text. Which means it needs its own commentaries and explanations.”

“Talmud is all about taking the text of the written law and somehow trying to

deal with it to make it to make it alive. One of the keys to understand the Talmud as a book because [once it has been written down] it is a stable text [about a Law that has been in movement]. When it was written down it’s a kind of freezing of a movement, taking a picture of a dance, freezing a river in the middle of its flow so you have all the ripples out there. All the half tones still remain there and that is what makes the book in one way far more fascinating, and in the other way it becomes far more hard to get the…”

Here the video ends in mid-sentence, mid-thought. I hope we can gain access to the rest of this pearl of a video.

Don’t show favoritism to your children – Parashat VaYeshev

Parashat HaShavua

וישב יעקב … Ya’akov was settled in the land of his father…” We would expect some kind of “happily ever after” story from here, but that is far from the case. “These are the generations of Ya’akov…” We would expect there to be a listing of children, grandchildren, etc., like in every other place where this phrase is used in the Torah. Instead the only name mentioned is Yosef, 17 years old, and behaving like a kid, and bringing reports of his brother’s bad behavior to his father. Did Ya’akov scold him for it?

All we know is that Ya’akov loved Yosef more than all the other sons because he was like the “youngest child of his old age,” the one that everyone dotes on and spoils. And Ya’akov didn’t keep this love a secret. He made him a special striped garment. The brothers saw that Yosef was the favorite, and they hated him for it. They couldn’t even speak civilly to him. One thing led to another, and the brothers sold him to slavery in Egypt, which eventually led to the whole family going down to Egypt, and eventually becoming slaves there.

The Rabbis in the Gemara (Shabbat 10b) identify this favoritism of Ya’akov as the cause of the nation of Israel going into exile in Egypt. “A person should never distinguish one of his sons from among the other sons by giving him preferential treatment. As, due to the weight of two sela of fine wool that Ya’akov gave to Yosef, beyond what he gave the rest of his sons, in making him the striped coat, his brothers became jealous of him and the matter unfolded and our forefathers descended to Egypt.”

So even though there were many factors leading to our exile in Egypt, many different causes, the Sages focus in on this one act of Ya’akov giving Yosef a small gift that showed his favoritism that led down the road to disaster.

Beginnings

Talmud, Torah

New beginnings. I am starting this website because I want to expand my reach to bring more Torah into the world. My title “Talmud 101” is based on the dictum: ואינו דומה שונה פרקו מאה פעמים לשונה פרקו מאה ואחד[חגיגה ט:] “There is no comparison between someone who learns a piece of Torah 100 times to one who learns it 101 times.

I am using this website to start to put Torah out into the world to make it available to more and more people. And I am offering my services as a teacher of Talmud to help those who want to learn how to learn the Talmud.

There is a methodology to the Talmud, but it is not so apparent at first. The Talmud starts in the middle, and expects that you know everything else except for the subject at hand. It’s almost as if the editors of the Talmud wanted to keep things a secret. Yeshivot seem to operate the same way. They toss the Talmidim into the Sea of the Talmud and expect them to swim. There is not much attention given to the methodology of the debate and logic of the Gemara.

My teacher Rav Mordechai Goldstein ז”ל was a firm believer in teaching the methodology, mainly with Derech Tevunot of the Ramchal, Darkei HaTalmud of Rav Yitzchak Kanfanton. I will be presenting these sefarim, and others in how to analyze and understand the methodology of the Talmud. Stay tuned.