While of course the Hebrew Bible is the central story of the Jewish people, the richness of our tradition and of our essence stems from the fact that we read it as a foundational text supporting a framework woven through with all of the other stories that we have written and discovered and learned and lived since our tradition tells us that God gave the Torah to the Jewish people on top of Mount Sinai.
One of the most compelling tales is a story in the Talmud usually called the Oven of Achnai. (B. Baba Metzia 59 a-b). The beginning of the story relates a mundane, almost bureaucratic process by which the rabbis sought to define what kind of oven would be legally permissible and what kind would not be. Then it gets interesting.
Being rabbis, the conversation becomes heated and contentious and one rabbi, Rabbi Eliezar finds himself at odds with his colleagues. After marshalling all of the textual and logical arguments in his favor, he finds himself frustrated with his inability to sway the opinions of his fellow rabbis. Finally, he abandons the tools of his scholarship and begins to invoke divine support for his point of view.
Indignantly, he proclaims, “If the law agrees with me, let this carob tree prove it!” The carob tree in question immediately flies out of the ground and lands some distance away. Remarkably, his colleagues are unfazed and their intransigence continues unbowed.
Trying again, Rabbi Eliezar exclaims, “If the law agrees with me, let this river prove it!” No sooner do these words leave his mouth than does the nearby stream begins to flow backwards. Again his colleagues observe this extraordinary feat, but they do not change their opinion, insisting that theirs was an argument of law, not of fluid dynamics.
This clash of Rabbi Eliezar’s fantastic powers and his adversaries’ legalistic intractability continues until Rabbi Eliezar invokes heaven itself, eliciting a divine voice which thunders from above that all matters of ritual law are to be decided according to the judgment of Rabbi Eliazer.
Unbelievably, the rabbis resist even this divine voice, explaining that, since the Torah is no longer in heaven but has now been granted to the Jewish people on earth, the rabbis and not the heavens now bear the responsibility to interpret the law.
The voice from heaven laughs and admits defeat and the rabbis declare their victory over Rabbi Eliezar, destroying the oven tiles that he had argued so strongly were ritually appropriate.
This story is not an easy one and there are certainly many ways to read it. Some see it as license for human beings to interpret divine law. Some see it as a cry for even the greatest sages to exhibit humility in their interactions with their colleagues. Reading further in the Talmud, though, it becomes clear that it is really about the meaning of community.
After the heavenly voice cedes victory to the rabbis who had opposed Rabbi Eliezar, their triumphal elation is so intoxicating that they vote to expel Rabbi Eliezar from the community. When Eliezar receives this news, his distress casts a pall over the entire natural world: one third of all of the produce in the fields withers and dies and a tidal wave sweeps through the sea.
While this story starts with a discussion about ovens, it is not a story about ovens. While it describes a conflict about legal determinations, it is not about legal process. While it provides the details about the humbling of a great sage, it is not really about humility. This story is a cautionary tale about the right way and the wrong way for a community to deal with conflict.
It teaches us that the opinions and arguments on every side of a conflict might be so strong that even a heavenly arbiter might be ambivalent about which side should prevail. Nevertheless, in the end, it teaches us that if the conflict is resolved with a triumphant group of winners and an alienated body of losers then the entire community will suffer.
Bringing this story into the present day, when we are experiencing so many societal challenges and when politicization and alienation have led to such distrust and conflict, it would do us good to remember that often maintaining peace within our community is a higher aspiration than convincing others that we are in the right.
About Rabbi Eric M. Rosin
Rabbi Eric Rosin began his professional career as an attorney in Los Angeles serving the entertainment industry, but discovered he needed to be doing something he was passionate about. He left the practice of law and began studying for ordination at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. After ordination, Rabbi Rosin served for two years as the assistant rabbi of Temple Beth-El in Richmond, Va., then assumed the pulpit at Kesher Israel Congregation in West Chester, Pa. in 2004.
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