Tag Archives: Pesachim (Tractate)

When Rashbi Threatened Rabbi Akiva

This Monday evening is Lag b’Omer, the 33rd day in the Omer count and traditionally commemorated as the yahrzeit of the 2nd-century CE sage and mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Aside from being one of the most-cited voices in the Mishnah and Talmud, Rabbi Shimon (“Rashbi”) is even more famous for being the protagonist of the Zohar, the “textbook” of Jewish mysticism. Although he himself did not write it, the Zohar is based on his life and teachings, and is drawn from a collection of manuscripts initially produced by his disciples.

The timing of Lag b’Omer is even more significant because it is also the date when the “plague” upon the students of Rabbi Akiva ceased. After the deaths of some 24,000, only five of his students survived to rebuild Judaism—Rashbi being one of them. We must remember that Rabbi Akiva himself was jailed during this time, and eventually executed. It is during Rabbi Akiva’s time imprisoned that the Talmud (Pesachim 112a) relates an incredible story of when his student Rashbi came for a visit:

Rabbi Shimon approached his teacher behind bars and said lamdeni Torah, “teach me Torah!” Rabbi Akiva refused, since the Romans had banned Torah study—that was the reason Rabbi Akiva was imprisoned in the first place—and he did not want to get Rashbi in trouble, too. Incredibly, Rashbi responded by threatening Rabbi Akiva: “If you will not teach me, I will tell Yochai my father, and he will deliver you to the government!” This is puzzling, since Rabbi Akiva was already in jail at this point, so it seems like Rashbi was threatening to have Rabbi Akiva executed! We learn from this (among other places) that Rashbi’s father Yochai was a wealthy and influential figure in the Roman government, and could make such an order. This actually helps to explain why Rashbi later had to go into hiding from the Romans and spent over a dozen years in a cave, simply for criticizing the Roman regime. Certainly, many simple Jews (and gentiles) at the time would have criticized the Roman authorities without having to fear for their lives. Rashbi probably needed to go into hiding for what he said because his father was involved with the Roman government. He was well-connected and potentially a political threat to the authorities.

Rabbi Akiva told Rashbi: “My son, more than the calf wishes to suck, the cow wants to suckle!” In other words, Rabbi Akiva really did want to teach Torah, of course, even more than Rashbi wanted to learn, but he did not want to put his student in danger. Rashbi countered by arguing: “But who is the one in danger? The calf!” It is the baby that is in a fragile state, and needs the mother more than the mother needs the child. Rashbi was saying he needed Torah like a calf needs milk, otherwise he is (spiritually) in trouble anyway. Rabbi Akiva relented and relayed five final teachings, though they were terse and cryptic.

The first, appropriately, was “If you wish to hang yourself, do so on a big tree.” Since what Rashbi was asking of Rabbi Akiva potentially carried a death sentence, Rabbi Akiva gave him a teaching directly related to that. The simple meaning is that if Rashbi is going to be executed al kiddush Hashem, as a martyr sanctifying God’s Name, he should do so on a “big tree”, meaning to make it public so that the Kiddush Hashem is that much greater and inspires others to strengthen their resolve. Of course, Rabbi Akiva himself would soon be executed in such a way, with a huge Kiddush Hashem of his own.

[It should be noted that Rashi (not Rashbi) interpreted this first teaching metaphorically to mean that if you cite a Torah teaching, do so by citing it in the name of a great earlier sage, the “big tree”. The Ben Ish Chai, meanwhile, comments mystically that the “big tree”, ilan gadol, is the mystical Tree of Life, the ilan hakadosh, of the Sefirot. More specifically, ilan (אילן) has a value of 91, which is a clear allusion to the special Octagrammaton, explained here.]

The Octagrammaton, the eight-letter Name of God that fuses Hashem with Adonai

Rabbi Akiva’s second teaching was: “When you teach your son, teach him from a corrected scroll.” This teaching was also highly prescient, since Rashbi would soon have to go into hiding with his son, Rabbi Elazar. The two spent all of their time in the cave learning. From elsewhere in the Talmud (Ketubot 19b) we learn that a “corrected scroll”, sefer mugah, is any scroll or book of Tanakh that has been carefully proofread to make sure there are no errors. If an error is found, one has up to thirty days to correct it. Based on this, the Talmud explains the meaning of Rabbi Akiva’s second teaching is that a child should be taught properly from the beginning, because if they learn something erroneous in childhood, it will be hard to correct later.

The third teaching of Rabbi Akiva was: “Do not cook in your fellow’s pot.” The Talmud explains that this means a person should preferably not marry a divorcee whose husband is still alive, for she will likely still be thinking of her first love (whether positively or negatively). The Talmud cites a parallel teaching that when two divorced people marry each other, there are “four minds in their bed”. Each one brings the baggage of their previous relationship!

We’ll skip ahead to the fifth teaching as it is related to the third one: Rabbi Akiva teaches that a man should get married (and stay married!) and this is a mitzvah v’guf tahor, both a great mitzvah in itself, and also makes a man’s body pure, since he will not be drawn to sexual sins (having a wife to take care of those urges), and will have children to keep him busy and make him more responsible. It’s no coincidence that Rabbi Akiva saves this for his final teaching, since he himself was lucky to marry the right woman, who encouraged and supported him, and whom he later credited for all of his Torah learning and success.

These two short teachings on marriage actually carry a great deal of hidden mystical meaning (as, for instance, the Ben Ish Chai comments and explains in his Ben Yehoyada). Rashbi would go on to teach the fundamentals of Jewish mysticism in the Zohar, where marital intimacy is the central theme and metaphor that runs throughout the text. In fact, much of Kabbalah in general is based on the dynamics of a marriage as a metaphor for greater cosmic spiritual realities.

Finally, the fourth teaching of Rabbi Akiva is regarding a case where a person rents out a field to their fellow, who will work the land. Instead of taking monetary payment, the renter takes a portion of the produce of the field. This is both a mitzvah to help your fellow, who gets land to work and does not have to pay rent (just a portion of his yields), and is good for the renter’s own wellbeing, since he will eat fresh fruits and be healthy. Thus, it is a mitzvah v’guf gadol—both a big mitzvah and gives one a great, healthy body. Like the other teachings, this one was relevant to Rashbi since, as we’ve seen, Rashbi came from a powerful and wealthy family. He had the means to rent out fields to less privileged people.

As an important aside, there is a famous Talmudic debate between Rashbi and Rabbi Ishmael regarding whether a man should spend all of his time learning Torah, or get a job and make his own living, while also making time to learn Torah (Berakhot 35b). Rabbi Ishmael argued that, although the Tanakh tells us to meditate upon the Torah day and night, and that “it should not depart from your mouth” (Joshua 1:8), we also recite every day in the Shema that “you shall gather in your grain…” (Deuteronomy 11:14), meaning a person needs to work, too! Rashbi countered that if a person works, they will not have enough time to study Torah, as they will always be busy with something; plowing, sowing, harvesting, threshing, and so on. Rashbi argued that if a person fulfils God’s will, then God will bless them with riches, allowing them to outsource the work to others. He therefore concluded that ideally a person should learn all day, and leave the physical work for others. Of course, it was easy for Rashbi to say this since he came from a super-wealthy family, and was able to hire people to do that work!

Ultimately, the debate in the Talmud is settled by Abaye who said: “Many have acted in accordance with Rabbi Ishmael and were successful [in their Torah study. And many] have acted in accordance with Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and were not successful!” Oftentimes, it is those who balance Torah with labour that become the greatest scholars, while those who are full-time learners fail to achieve Torah greatness. Note as well that Abaye specifically referred to Rashbi as, not just “Rabbi Shimon” (as he did Rabbi Ishmael, without a patronym), but “Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai”, emphasizing that he was the son of the wealthy Yochai, and most people are not so privileged like him.

Today, Rashbi’s position is still taken as support for certain kollels and for those who “make Torah-learning their profession”. However, it is important to clarify here that Rashbi never supported learning Torah at someone else’s expense. Rashbi was very wealthy himself, and could afford to hire others to do his work, while he learned all day. He certainly would not have supported the idea of making a living through learning Torah, for the Talmud clearly states in many places (including several times in Pirkei Avot 1:13, 2:2, 4:5) that this is unacceptable. The Torah should not be used as a “shovel to dig with”, to derive personal or material benefit. And when Rashbi had to go into hiding and did not have his father’s wealth and estate to support him, he lived meagrely on nothing but carobs and water. In either case, he never relied on the funds of others to make a living.

Going back to Rabbi Akiva, it appears that this encounter with Rashbi was his last, and he was soon executed. His final five teachings were concise, but deeply meaningful, especially for Rashbi himself. Rashbi would go on to be one of the five who rebuilt Judaism. His own final discourse, the Idra Zuta, contained deeply profound teachings as well. For an exploration of the last passage in the Idra Zuta, see the following short class:

Happy Lag b’Omer!

A Brief History of Selling Chametz

As we prepare for Pesach this week many Jews around the world will fill out a mechirat chametz, “Sale of Chametz”, form which will presumably absolve them of the responsibility of destroying some of the chametz in their possession. The idea is that a person can set aside the chametz that they wish to keep and “sell” it to a gentile. After Pesach, this chametz is “purchased” back and the Jew can use the chametz once more. The purpose is to avoid transgressing the mitzvahs of bal yera’eh (Exodus 13:7), that no chametz “be seen” in one’s possession, and bal yimatzeh (Exodus 12:19), that no chametz “be found” in one’s possession. By hiding and temporarily “selling” it, the chametz is no longer technically in the Jew’s possession and cannot be seen. Where did this interesting innovation come from? Continue reading

Kefitzat HaDerekh: Wormholes in the Torah

This week’s parasha, Vayetze, begins with Jacob setting forth towards his mother’s hometown in Haran. We read that on his way he suddenly “bumped into” a special place (Genesis 28:11) that turned out to be Beit El, the “House of God”. Jacob was surprised to find himself there (28:16), presumably the site of the future House of God, the Temple in Jerusalem. The Sages (Sanhedrin 95b) explain what happened:

“And Jacob went out from Be’er Sheva, and went to Haran…” is followed by “and he happened upon the place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set.” For when he reached Haran, he said: “Shall I have passed through the place in which my fathers prayed, without doing so likewise?!” He wished therefore to return, but no sooner had he thought of this than the earth instantly contracted and he “happened upon” that place.

Our Sages state that a miracle occurred after Jacob had reached Haran. He regretted not stopping by at the site of the future Temple Mount, where Abraham and Isaac had prayed, so the earth beneath his feet seemingly “contracted” and he was suddenly teleported to Jerusalem. In fact, the Sages state that such a miracle occurred for three people in the Tanakh: first was Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, then Jacob in this week’s parasha, and finally King David’s general Avishai. There is Scriptural proof for each one. For instance, when Eliezer had arrived in Haran he declared “I came today to the well” (Genesis 24:42), implying he had set out on his journey that same day. Eliezer was miraculously able to go from Be’er Sheva to Haran, a significantly long journey, in under a day.

This phenomenon would later become known as kefitzat haderekh, “jumping the path”, and would appear in Rabbinic narratives as well. Angels have a similar ability to seemingly teleport across vast distances. In one story, Rav Kahana was once selling some wares and a female customer tried to seduce him (Kiddushin 40a). He quickly fled in distress and ran to the nearest window and jumped! The angel-prophet Eliyahu appeared and caught him, complaining that he had to instantly travel a distance of “four hundred parasangs” to save him. A parasang, or parsa, is the average distance a person walks in 72 minutes—generally thought to be about 5 kilometres. So, Eliyahu flew some 2000 kilometres in a flash to catch the rabbi. Rav Kahana apologized and lamented that due to his poverty he had to resort to being a salesman. Eliyahu gave him a vessel full of money to free him from his job.

Meanwhile, the Zohar (I, 4b-5a) states that the malevolent angel Samael can traverse as much as 6000 parsas in a single moment. This number is not arbitrary, for the Talmud calculates that the Earth’s circumference is 6000 parsas (Pesachim 94a). This is an incredible piece of Talmudic science, considering how little of the globe was known then. Today, we know that Earth’s exact circumference is 40,075 km at the equator, a value close to that of our Sages. In fact, if making the correct assumption that the Sages must have been exact in their knowledge, we might be able to properly identify the length of a Talmudic parsa.

Although it is generally calculated in halakhah that a parsa is between 4 and 5 kilometres, by dividing 40,075 km by 6000 we can conclude that a parsa must be closer to 6.68 kilometres. This is also more in line with the notion that a parsa is a distance of 72 minutes: The average walking speed of humans is 5 km per hour (1.42 metres per second, according to the most precise measurements), so defining a parsa as 6.68 km is much closer to the scientific reality.

Jacob’s Ladder through Spacetime

The Talmud (Chullin 91b) calculates that the distance of the Heavenly Ladder that Jacob saw in his vision was a whopping 8000 parsas, which would be over 50,000 km. The word used by our Sages is rochav, meaning “width”. A superficial reading of the Talmud suggests that each angel is 2000 parsas wide (based on Daniel 10:6), and since Jacob saw four angels, the width of the Ladder must have been 8000 parsas. However, this does not make sense if taken literally, for why would an angel’s form be 2000 parsas wide? And if it was, how could Jacob even capture the sight of an angel in his limited field of view? The Talmud must be teaching something else. The big question here is why use the language of width as opposed to length or height, as might be expected?

When it comes to understanding the cosmos, we always speak of a “fabric of spacetime”. Perhaps the greatest achievement of Albert Einstein is pioneering the science behind it, proving that the three dimensions of space and the dimension of time are not separate, but interwoven together. With this, he was able to explain gravity a lot more accurately, demonstrating that larger bodies make a bigger “dip” in the fabric, pulling objects towards them kind of like a penny rolling around a funnel. And because they are integrated, strong gravitational effects can warp both space and time. We typically visualize spacetime as a flat “fabric”, with celestial objects scattered all over it. In fact, today we know that the universe does indeed appear to be flat (with a margin of error of about 0.4%). This is of tremendous significance.

In the Torah, the term aretz can refer to both Earth proper, and the wider physical universe at large. When we read that in the beginning God created et shamayim v’et ha’aretz, we do not define it simply as the “sky” and the “earth”, for those were not created until Days Two and Three. Rather, God created the entire spiritual realm (shamayim) and the entire physical universe (aretz). Our Sages noted long ago that the root of aretz (ארץ) is the same as ratz (רץ), “running”, since everything in this universe is in perpetual motion. More incredibly, today we know that the universe is constantly expanding, and we see distant stars “running away” from us. As such, when the Tanakh uses an idiom like kanfot ha’aretz, the “corners” or “edges” of the universe, it may be read quite literally. For a long time, there were people who understood these Torah statements as implying a flat Earth, when in reality they could have been alluding to a deeper scientific understanding regarding the “flatness” of the entire universe.

And that brings us back to the precise Talmudic language of rochav, “width”, in a place where we might have expected height. Of course, we do have a dimension of height. However, when zooming out to a “flat” universe, we really only visualize it in terms of width, as if on a two-dimensional plane. Going further, Einstein later showed, together with another Jewish scientist named Nathan Rosen, that it would be theoretically possible to “bend” spacetime and connect two points that are vastly far apart. It would be like folding over the fabric and then poking a hole through both layers. Such an “Einstein-Rosen bridge”, better known as a wormhole, would allow travel across extremely vast distances in a very short period of time. In other words, it would be very much like kefitzat haderekh!  

A wormhole shortens the trip by bending spacetime and forming a bridge.

So, what our Sages may have been secretly implying in describing the width of Jacob’s Ladder is that this wormhole (of sorts) spanned 8000 parsas, or over 50,000 km. This is a distance even wider than the Earth and, scientifically, we would expect wormholes to be very large like this. Such a wormhole was accurately depicted in the film Interstellar, allowing the protagonists to instantly travel to a distant solar system to find a new home for mankind:

It is worth noting that when our Sages described the teleportation of Jacob, they said that kaftzah ha’aretz, again using that term aretz, and implying that it “jumped” or “contracted” for him. So, another term for this phenomenon, truer to the language of the Talmud, would be kefitzat ha’aretz, the warping of the spacetime fabric of this universe. Kefitzat haderekh is accurate, too, implying that one “jumped the path”, finding an alternate shortcut from one point in the universe to another. This appears to have happened at Sinai, as well. Our Sages likened Jacob’s Ladder to the Sinai Revelation, and the Zohar (I, 149a, Sitrei Torah) even notes that the numerical value of “ladder” (סלם) and “Sinai” (סיני) is the same—130. At Sinai, too, a “wormhole” opened up allowing 22,000 angelic “chariots” to descend upon the mountain (Bamidbar Rabbah 2:3).

Theoretical physics aside, can we actually create such wormholes? In 2017, scientists succeeded in producing tiny, microscopic wormholes for the first time. It is certainly possible that in the near future we will have the technology to open up larger wormholes, making rapid travel across God’s vast universe feasible. It appears that God’s angels already employ such a wormhole-style system of travel, traversing thousands of parsas instantaneously. It might help explain the Tower of Babel episode which, as we’ve mentioned in the past, was not simply a tower but meant to “lift off” and “conquer” the Heavens.

Our Sages long ago taught that the people who built the Tower knew the wisdom of the angels and were using angelic powers to accomplish their plans (see, for instance, Zohar I, 76a). God “came down” to confound them. He wiped their memories and jumbled their languages so that they wouldn’t be able to collaborate in such a megalomaniacal way. Today, we live in a world that is once more getting real close to being “of singular language and singular words” (Genesis 11:1), and once again we see science stepping into the dangerous territory of “playing God”. Hopefully this time humanity will get it right and use the astounding abilities that God made possible in His universe only for the good.