on impurity, injustice & {irrational} mydioracles?

AS
already pointed
out several times before in myDiary
one can conjecture a strong connection between
these stories of many {16} ages ago when Judaism and Christianity
were still 'as one' and the well~known talmudic story
of the excommunication of
Rabbi Eli'ezer!?

According
to the version of the story
that is preserved in the Babylonian Talmud,
Rabbi Eli'ezer refused to accept the will of the majority of the Sages
in a halakhic matter and was cursed and sentenced to complete isolation
and removal from the rabbinic and even the Jewish community
for this relatively ~ if not
totally insignificant ~
malfeasance.

To get
some sense
of the uncommon
extent of this punishment,
it would be well to compare a similar story
in which Rabbi Eli'ezer's own colleague, Rabbi Yehoshua,
violates majority agreements at least as significant as that of Rabbi Eli'ezer's disagreemenet
and is essentially made to go stand in the corner.
"All scholars concede that R. Eli'ezer's disagreement with the sages alone
cannot have been the reason for the ban.
Such disagreements in
halakhic
[sic] matters
are numerous and carry no penalty for the individual sage
opposing the majority or opinion; in any case the punishment is
far out of proportion tot the crime,
a non~conformist opinion
concerning an unsual
type of
oven!"

I
wish to
suggest that rather
than the point of halakhic disagreement,
in the view of that Talmud at least, it was precisely
the manner of Rabbi Eli'ezer's support for his position,
via quasi~prophetic or magical means,
that so enraged
the Rabbis.

In fact
it can also be argued
that the crucifixion of Yehoshua haNatsri
{aka haMasjiah} by Roman authorities around 33 {?} CE was a suchlike case:
there were no actual irreparable 'sins' or 'crimes' committed by the victim, just his appearance at that time of rebellious 'sects' & chaotic movements was inconvenient
to the collaborating Sadducees [Chanan & Caiaphas]
and ruthless Romans like Pontius Pilate
and madmen like
King Herod!

My
interpretations here
might very well be directly contra
to that of most other scholars, who tend to see
R. Eli'ezer as defending some hide-bound notion of
"tradition,"
as opposed to the openness of the
[other]
Rabbis to change.

Traditionalists
do not place value
on the very element that sets halakhic discourse in motion,
namely, substantive argumentation and criticism. For the traditionalist, the study of Torah entails
merely the repetition of traditions without autonomous analysis and interpretation:
the practical implication of this approach is that sages cannot contend
with current problems because there can be no answers
to new questions without
an interpretive
mechanism.

The sages
did not deny R. Eli'ezer
the right to study and teach,
but when R. Eli'ezer sought a conclusive ruling
that would state
"Halakha is as I say"
and preclude dissenting views, they were forced
to take extreme
measures.

The
very freedom
to teach and rule on
halakhic issues was a crucial feature
of the development of Halakha
before the destruction of
the Temple.

Quite
apart from
the question of
whether or not this
text has anything to do
with anything that happened
"before the destruction of the Temple,"
I have other problems with this formulation of the issue.
First of all, it is not the case here that R. Eli'ezer demands allegiance
simply on the basis of
"repetition of traditions."
He provides legitimating proofs of his position from miracles and a form of prophecy.
Consequently, there is no reason to assume
that there could not be answers
to new questions in accord
with his view,
as well!

After all,
the Torah itself
provides at least two examples
within which new questions came up
and were answered via Moses's prophetic authority.
Finally, there is no evidence that R. Eli'ezer was insisting on
"precluding dissenting views."
Indeed, if anything, the story seeks to prevent Rabbi Eli'ezer from continuing to practice in accord
with his dissenting view: consequently, I think that a much stronger case can be made
for competing models of authority
{and much later than
the first century}.

R. Eli'ezer
is perhaps conservative
with respect to his halakhic positions,
if we accept as relevant other traditions ascribed for justification and proof.
In a sense, he is a kind of rabbinic Montanist: the institution and consolidation of the power
of the majority of the Rabbis to impose their halakhic position as authorative
without destabilizing effect of individual prophetic voices seems to me
what is at play here. I argue instead that
"on that day"
is a kind of
virtual semiotic code locution for legends that are foundational
of rabbinic authority and the modes of rabbinic rationality
and religious authorization.


"On
That Day!"?
The shift ~ from
an argument about ways
of arguing to a dispute about authority ~
is understandable; the kind of justification adduced by the traditionalist
~ establishing the reliablity of tradition through supernatural elements ~
threatens the authority of halakhic institutions as well as
the standard patterns of
argumentation.

On
that day,
Rabbi Eli'exer used
every imaginable argument, but
they did not accept it from him. He said:
If the law is as I say,
this carob will prove it.
The carob was uprooted from its place one hundred feet.
Some report four hundred feet .... A voice came from heaven and announced:
The law is in accordance with the view of Rabbi Eli'ezer.
Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and
said
"it [the Torah]
is not in
heaven!"

engel
24 aug 2007 - bewerkt op 10 sep 2007 - meld ongepast verhaal
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