Sanhedrin 095

2:
In the present context of our mishnah the term 'sacrilege' has a very restricted meaning. It refers to the act of cursing God. The basis for this law is to be found in an incident recorded by the Torah:

3:
Our mishnah consists of two unequal parts. The first part is the statement of Tanna Kamma that "one is only guilty of sacrilege when expressly using the Divine Name". This view is elaborated in the second part of our mishnah, in which Rabbi Yehoshu'a ben-Korĥah elaborates of the logistics of the sentencing. (Tanna Kamma is the technical term for the unnamed sage whose statement is elaborated by Rabbi Yehoshu'a ben-Korĥah.)

4:
In our long discussion on one particular aspect of Mishnah Four I mentioned the way that the sages never hesitated to use the methodology of midrash ha-Torah [hermeneutic explication of the text] in order to severely limit the application of laws in the Torah which appear to be quite general. Our present mishnah is a wonderful example of this method. The Torah law (quoted above) is quite general: anyone who utters an imprecation against God must be put to death. Basing himself on a midrash (which is quoted in the Gemara) Tanna Kamma limits the application of the very general law of the Torah to one specific case: someone who utters his imprecation using the holy and ineffable Divine Name.

5:
Halakhah recognizes seven terms for the Deity which are so holy that they may not be erased [see Rambam, Yesodei ha-Torah 6:2]. I shall quote them in transliteration since it is only in their Hebrew format that they are considered ineradicable: El, Elo'ah, Elohim, Elohei, Shaddai, Tzeva'ot and the Tetragrammaton – the four Hebrew letters Yod-He-Vav-He, which is nowadays uttered as Adonai. Of all these seven on the last is considered so holy that using it in an imprecation constitutes sacrilege.

6:
I shall return to my theme in a moment, but I feel that I must point out here an egregious error. The original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton has been irretrievably lost for nearly two millennia. Whenever the term is used in the Bible or Prayer-Book we substitute for it the surrogate term Adonai [Lord]. The Massoretes, who were responsible for transmitting the Biblical text to us in its present format, added the vocalization of the word Adonai to the letters of the Tetragrammaton in order to remind the reader to read the term Adonai. When non-Jews read the Hebrew text they misunderstood, and started construing this term as if it were a real word, thus creating the nonsensical proper noun "Jehovah". This word has no basis whatsoever in Jewish tradition. We can now return to our original theme.

7:
Thus anyone uttering an imprecation against the Deity using any term in a language other than Hebrew, or anyone in Hebrew using any term other than one of the Seven Ineradicable Names is not guilty of sacrilege. This in itself is a severe limitation on the compass of the original Torah law. But the sages did not stop there. Only one of those seven terms was considered so holy that its misuse in an imprecation would incur the ultimate penalty: the use of the Tetragrammaton. But the sages did not stop there. They noted that in the original text the term "Divine Name" occurs twice in the legislative part of the section: "He who curses the Divine Name shall die: all the community shall stone him … for cursing the Divine Name." Basing themselves on this text the sages required the sacrilegious wretch to use the Divine Name twice in the same imprecation – and in the special format indicated later in our mishnah: "May Yosé strike Yosé" [Gemara Sanhedrin 60a]. The name "Yosé" was chosen because it contains four letters, some of which are similar to those of the Tetragrammaton. Imagine in English a substitute phrase such as "May Jack strike Jack".

8:
Thus the general sweep of the Torah text has been limited to one very specific instance – and an instance that is so nonsensical that it is almost inconceivable. This is often the way of Midrash ha-Torah.

To be continued.

I fail to see your basis for interpreting the prohibition against male homosexuality as potentially applying only to men married to women. Your citation of the derasha of Bar Kappara on "toevah" – read as "toeh bah", to ostensibly limit the application to married men is unconvincing. The circumstances of the conversation between Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi and Bar Kappara was not in the bet midrash, but at a wedding feast for Rabbi Yehuda's son. Bar Kappara seemed mostly intent on being witty at Rabbi Yehuda's expense. Why do you assume that Bar Kappara's derash was meant as a legal definition of "toevah"?… You, yourself, see an indirect criticism of Rabbi Yehuda for having married his daughter to a rich dandy (Ben Elasa) in Bar Kappara's words. Why not assume, then, that his intention was to admonish Rabbi Yehuda rather than to deliver an halachic opinion. Even if Bar Kappara was serious about his derash (unusual for a "badchan" at a wedding), there is no evidence that anyone applied it in halacha. The explanations of the derash by the medieval commentators are simply explanations of the words. There is no indication that these sages actually agreed with Bar Kappara. It seems to me that your use of Bar Kappara's derash as a potential basis for removing true homosexuality as a biblical prohibition is a weak reed. The fact that many laymen and some Rabbis argue for a reassessment of Judaism's stance on homosexuality is not a basis for overturning the evident meaning of the statements in the torah and talmud against this practice…

I respond:

Since my opinion has been clarified, I shall relate only to one point raised by Yitzchok. Yitzchok sees no justification for taking Bar-Kappara's midrash seriously, since he was obviously being hilarious, or, alternatively, his purpose was only to admonish Rabbi. This is a very dangerous line to take, since if applied elsewhere it could lead to the abrogation of many important halakhot! An accepted premise is that "even the secular conversation of the sages is to be learned from" [Gemara, Sukkah 21b] and that under no circumstances may we distinguish between Torah statements made by them in the Bet Midrash and Torah statements made by them elsewhere.

This discussion is now, hopefully, closed.