Moses received Torah from Sinai and passed it on to Joshua; Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets and the prophets passed it on to the Members of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be moderate in judgement, Create many students, and Make a fence around the Torah.
You shall keep My charge not to engage in any of the abhorrent practices that were carried on before you, and you shall not defile yourselves through them: I the Lord am your God.
In the original Hebrew the first phrase of this verse is tautologous. A literal translation would read something like: 'you shall keep my keeping'. The Gemara [
Yevamot 21a] associates the tautologous phrase with the right that the sages arrogated to themselves to extend in certain cases prohibitions of the Torah so as to make the prohibition include elements that were not in the original
mitzvah. Thus the Gemara in
Yevamot justifies what the sages call
sheniyyot – secondary (additional) prohibitions that increase the list of people with whom one is forbidden to have sexual relations. However, this 'duty' to 'keep my charge' by extending it is also applied to prohibitions in many other spheres. The general idea is to so extend the prohibition that if a person contravenes it they will only have contravened a rabbinical prohibition and the original Torah prohibition will remain unviolated.
Thus Rambam says that our mishnah is referring to the legislation that the sages created in conformity with their interpretation of the biblical verse: 'preserve that which I have preserved'. "This," he says, "will keep a person far from sin." Rabbi Ovadya of Bertinoro acknowledges the fact that the Gemara cited is concerned with marital law, but gives another example of the application of the process: there are many extensions of the sabbath prohibitions: we call these shevut, but their purpose is the same: to so extend the prohibition that if a person contravenes it they will only have contravened a rabbinical prohibition and the original Torah prohibition will remain unviolated.
It seems appropriate that (according to our mishnah) it was the Members of the Great Assembly who first introduced this right of the sages to make a fence around the Torah, to preserve its integrity. In ways far to numerous to mention it is the innovations of that august body that created the very soul of Judaism as we know it today.
Jacob Chinitz wrote a reasoned critique of something that Ed Frankel had posted about historiography and the sages. Before I close discussion on this topic it is only right that I permit
Ed Frankel his riposte:
I would not disagree with Jacob Chinitz' comment. Still there is a major difference in my opinion. In modern History, whether objective or subjective, there is at least a pretense to bring together events according to some scheme, using all available data to paint a picture of what occurred and how. Theoretically, at least, the outcome is not preconceived. I believe that even if we accept the Sages' worldview as on the money and accurate, still there outcome was preconceived. Theirs was an effort to substantiate their right to lead the people as the heirs to the Oral Tradition.
I add a comment of my own:
I agree with both what Ed originally wrote and also with what Jacob Chinitz wrote. It is true that the sages were not overly concerned with historical accuracy as we would understand the concept today. And it is also true that subconscious forces may well inform the choices of modern academics. I think the essential difference is one of intent: the modern academic has the intent of presenting 'the facts' as they seem to him or her to be from an objective point of view; that kind of consideration did not interest the sages.
Two people, Avraham Arbiv and David Fishman, have drawn my attention to the fact that the plain meaning of the verse in Psalms that I quoted in our last shiur is not: "I have learned from all who would teach me" but "I have learned more than all my teachers". This is true, but I was not concerned with the pshat [surface meaning] of the verse, but with its drash [midrashic interpretation].
And it this this 'drash' that prompts Steven Spronz to write:
Can you tell me the source of the saying you put at the end of today's (Avot 011) shiur? The saying is (paraphrasing): from my teachers I have learned much, from my colleagues even more, but from my students – the most of all.
I respond:
It was Rabbi Ĥanina who said this. You will find it in the (Babylonian) Gemara, Ta'anit 7a.
