Tractate Berakhot of the Talmud of Eret—-Israel: 0019

1:
In the mishnah we found that the sages hold that the Evening Shema must be recited before midnight. However, we also found that Rabban Gamli'el holds that the Evening Shema may be recited throughout the night until the break of dawn. The mishnah now continues by noting that Rabban Gamli'el not only held this opinion as halakhah but also acted upon it. For when his sons on one occasion returned very late from come celebration he told them that since dawn had not yet broken they must recite the Shema — against the view of the rest of the sages.

2:
The Gemara now notes that Rabban Gamli'el not only disagrees with the rest of the sages but actually acts upon his differing opinion. This is quite extraordinary, because the ground rules taught that while one sage may have his own private view the majority view among all the sages must be accepted as halakhah. The Gemara now brings two examples of prominent sages who privately held one view but when asked to pronounce halakhah in a certain situation they did so according to the majority view of the sages.

3:
The first example is Rabbi Me'ir. It seems that a patient was often treated by wrapping him in a cloth or towel that had been saturated with a mixture of oil and wine. (Perhaps this was thought to be efficacious in reducing a fever.) The sages maintained that this treatment could be applied on Shabbat provided that the preparations — mixing the liquids — had been done before Shabbat. Rabbi Me'ir disagreed, and would permit this treatment to be prepared even on Shabbat (presumably because of its psychological benefit to the patient). However, when he himself fell ill and his students wanted to treat him in this manner he refused the treatment and explained that regarding other people he was prepared to take a lenient view but when the matter concerned himself he must apply the more stringent view "because my colleagues disagree with me".

4:
The other example concerns Rabbi Akiva (who was one of the teachers of Rabbi Me'ir and one of the students of Rabban Gamli'el). The Torah requires any person who comes into contact with a corpse or any part of a corpse to undergo a ritual of purification:

One of the most recondite of the tractates of the Mishnah is Tractate Ohalot, which deals with this subject. The Gemara quotes from there a difference of opinion on this matter between Rabbi Akiva and the rest of the sages. In this difference of opinion the sages take a more lenient view than does Rabbi Akiva.

5:
The manner of burial in Eretz-Israel during the era of the mishnah was to lay the corpse on ledges in a family or communal tomb — usually a cave, which was closed by a huge boulder and was only opened for two reasons. The burial cave was opened either to admit a new corpse or to remove from it human remains. Time was left for the corpse to disintegrate; the bones were then removed from the ledge and placed in a small receptacle (gloscama) which bore the name of the deceased. Obviously, sometimes, somehow, bones could get scattered.

6:
One one occasion some bones were brought into the synagogue in the town of Lod (where Rabbi Akiva resided). Expert medical opinion determined that these were the bones of more than one person. Were all those present now ritually impure or not? The sages present knew that the majority opinion was that these bones did not impart ritual impurity; but since Rabbi Akiva was present in his home town and held a different view, out of respect for him they decided to vote on the situation, to determine the majority view of those present.

7:
The voting was open: each sage was asked his opinion, for or against, the ritual impurity of the bones. Since he was the greatest of the sages present Rabbi Akiva was asked to give his opinion first. He declared the bones ritually pure, against his own teaching! Once he had voted for ritual purity there was no point in continuing the voting process.

8:
This discussion continues in the Gemara and, God willing, we shall follow the continuation of the discussion in our next shiur