Avot188

4:
The curly-haired youngster who was redeemed from slavery grew to adulthood and more than fulfilled the hope of Rabbi Yeshoshu'a that "he will become a great authority in Israel." Rabbi Yishma'el became one of the most important of the sages of his age and left an indelible imprint on the development of the Oral Tradition.

5:
A great friend of Rabbi Yishma'el was Rabbi Akiva, but the approach of each of them to midrash ha-Torah was poles apart. In our study of this tractate we have spoken at large on several occasions about midrash ha-Torah. (See, for example, Avot 050.) midrash ha-Torah was the lifeblood of the Pharisaic movement, it was the very essence of the Oral Tradition. Without it the Written Torah was a fossil, a dead law: with midrash ha-Torah the sages ensured that the Torah was a living, developing halakhic organism that was constantly renewing itself. We have seen (Avot 054 and Avot 055) how the great sage Hillel had formulated seven rules by which new halakhot could be derived from the written text of the Torah. There were other methods going the rounds, methods that gave the imagination of the 'darshan' greater freedom to 'explain' the text.

6:
Rabbi Akiva had his own system of hermeneutic interpretation, and among other indications it relied on adding an idea or halakhah because conjunctions such as 'and', 'but' 'yet' were to be found in the text of the Torah. Rabbi Akiva was the mystic: for him the text of the Torah was a very carefully worded document that was given Israel directly from heaven and there was not one word, not one letter, in in that was superfluous or of little or no consequence. Every single word, every single letter was divine and cried out for interpretation. On the other hand, Rabbi Yishma'el was the realist. One of his most famous sayings was "the Torah speaks in human terms". What he meant by that is that the Torah is a document intended for ordinary human beings and one must understand it according to the usual means of expression used by most human beings.

7:
In order to further refine the scope of midrash ha-Torah Rabbi Yishma'el expanded the seven middot of Hillel to thirteen. (To this day, traditional prayer-books include the thirteen middot of Rabbi Yishma'el as part of the study of Torah which the religious Jew must learn every day.) Just a couple of examples must suffice to illustrate the practical differences between the the systems of the two sages. When they came to interpret the biblical verse [Leviticus 21:9] "And when the daughter of a priest defiles herself through harlotry, it is her father whom she defiles; she shall be put to the fire," Rabbi Akiva wished to give the verse the widest possible interpretation, including several other female relatives of a priest, simply because in Hebrew the verse starts with the conjunction 'and'. Rabbi Yishma'el scolded his friend: "And just because you interpret 'and' shall we condemn such a woman to the flames?!" [Sanhedrin 51b]

8:
On another occasion, when Rabbi Akiva sought to interpret the verse [Psalm 104:12] "The birds of the sky dwell beside them and sing among the foliage" as referring to the ministering angels (!), Rabbi Yishma'el said to him: "Brother Akiva, leave off from your homiletical interpretations and devote yourself to Nega'im and Ohalot! It refers to birds that nest in trees!" (Nega'im and Ohalot are two very abstruse tractates. Rabbi Yishma'el is suggesting that Akiva should stick to halakhah!) [Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 104].

To be continued.

In
Avot 185 I responded to a query concerning the exact language of kiddushin [betrothal]. The questioner, Jacob Chinitz, now has a further query:

Thank you for your learned reply to my question. To follow up, how did the Tabaat, ring, get into the Kiddushin procedure? Prof. Zev Falk Z”L once told me that we took it from the Christians who took it from the Romans. Could that be true? Imagine today someone trying to change the formula. It would be scandalous.

I respond:

I really don't know where the use of a ring for betrothal came from. Already in the early Middle Ages the Tosafists [on Kiddushin 9a] say that "the whole [Jewish] world betroths with a ring". I don't see why changing the formula would be scandalous. If the groom offers the bride a gift and says "If you accept from me this newspaper you will become my wife according to the law of Moses and Israel" and she accepts – why should they not be deemed man and wife?