This blog has been too long
quiescent. It feels good to revive it.
After exploring the first chapter of
Masechet Gittin—which recounts graphically the disaster of the Destruction of
the Second Temple and the Bar Kochba rebellion—we find ourselves at the other end of
that bloody tunnel in a new mishnah (which is why I used the term “slogging” up above, whose broad headline, appropriately
enough, is מפני דרקי שלום Mipnei
Darkei Shalom (“for the sake of peace”).
The primary enterprise of the Rabbis
is to create Judaism on the foundation of Scripture and out of the ashes of the
Second Temple. They sought to shape a tradition that, itself, would generate a
culture that transcends time and place. What is required to accomplish this
modest goal? It could not depend upon the Temple service, which came to a
grinding halt when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E. It could not
be tied exclusively to the Land of Israel, because Jews had been widely
dispersed throughout the Roman empire and beyond by the time the Rabbis are
engaged in this enterprise. It must preserve memories of the people’s beginnings (hence the centrality of
the story of the Exodus in both prayer and the festival cycle) and nurture a
sense of ultimate purpose: redemption. It must provide distinctive identity, a
strong sense of community, and foster a will to remain part of a people, even
when times are difficult and even under conditions of duress and persecution.
Above all, it must nurture hope. That’s not too tall an order, is it? How
does one craft rules, laws, and customs to shape a new set of religious
practices, and sustain and nurture a traumatized people? And not just for the
present, but also for a future we cannot foresee? We find the Rabbis engaged in
this endeavor on many occasions, including here at end of Gittin chapter 5,
which is devoted to מפני דרקי שלום Mipnei
Darkei Shalom (“for the sake of peace”).
Mishnah Gittin 5:8 enumerates a long
list of communal customs and structures implemented but the Rabbis for the
purpose of minimizing quarreling and rancor within a local community. In other
words, the expressed intent of these rules is to foster harmony. In this
blogpost, I will discuss the first “rule” concerning the order of people
invited (or eligible) to read Torah in the synagogue. I will relegate
considerable background material that you might find helpful to footnotes.
Mishnah Gittin 5:8 (59a) begins:
אלו דברים אמרו מפני דרקי שלום: כהן
קורא ראשון ואחריו לוי ואחריו ישראל מפני דרכי שלום.
Mishnah: These things they said
(established) for the sake of peace: A kohen [one descended from a priestly
family] reads from the Torah first, and after
him a levi [from the levitical tribe], and after him an Israelite, for
the sake of peace.
If Torah had ordained a regular public reading of Torah that
the Tannai’m knew and
practiced in the first two centuries of the Common Era, there would be no point
to telling us the obvious.[1] Although we don’t know the details of how and when
Torah was read in the Mishnaic period[2], it was clearly a staple of Jewish
life. Mishnah Gittin 5:8 assumes a regular Torah reading and asks how the honor
of the actual reading is distributed. At the time the Mishnah was set down,
those who read also recited the blessing over the Torah. In time, the functions
of reading and blessing were separated because not everyone possessed the
skills to read and chant Torah, and so the Mishnah discussion, while ostensibly
about reading Torah, pertains to the distribution of aliyot, the honor of
blessing the Torah. This is of great interest today because the Torah reading
lies at the heart of our communal ritual life: Torah is read four times each
week (Monday, Thursday, Shabbat morning and afternoon), as well as on chagim,
Rosh Chodesh, fast days, and minor festivals. What is more, there are three
aliyot every Monday and Thursday; four on Rosh Chodesh; five on festivals (four
on each of the intermediary days); six on Yom Kippur; and seven every shabbat.
While it would seem that there are many opportunities to read, in a large
community (or even a not-so-large community) not everyone will be invited for
an aliyah and thereby honored. It’s easy to imagine people hoping to be
invited for an aliyah and forming resentments about who is invited to read and
in what order, and raising objections that so-and-so doesn’t deserve the aliyah, and even worse.
(People do not always behave at their best, even in shul.)
The Mishnah reserves the first slot for a kohen
(priest) and the second for a levi (levite) each time Torah is read. The
first two slots are positions of prominence, according the kohanim
(priests) and levi’im (levites) special honor. Why are these aliyot reserved for kohanim
and levi’im
at all? In a society whose leaders—especially in the synagogue and bet
midrash (study house)—are rabbis accredited by their learning and intellect, why
not reserve the first aliyah or two for rabbis?
In a post-70 C.E. world, with the Temple in ruins and not
likely to be rebuilt in the foreseeable future, the Rabbis sought to honor and
preserve the structure of Jewish society and concretize the memory of the
Temple in the evolving Jewish practice of their time: the order of
aliyot-honors recalls the days of the Temple and the prominence of the priests.
For the Rabbis, the sacrificial service has been replaced by the prayer
service. It is probably unthinkable to them that the priests and levites, whose
roles and duties in the Temple were central to its operation, should not be
elevated in some symbolic way in the Synagogue.
Gemara explains that the first aliyah is reserved for a kohen
because, as R. Matnah points out, Torah says, Moses wrote down the Torah
and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the
Ark of the Lord’s covenant, and to all the elders of Israel (Deuteronomy 31:9). R. Yitzhak Nafcha
offers another excellent prooftext: The priests, sons of Levi,
shall come forward; for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to Him
and to pronounce blessing in the name of the Lord… (Deuteronomy 21:5). Since we already
know the priests to be from the levitical tribe, R. Yitzhak Nafcha points out,
the verse must be alluding to the proper order of disseminating aliyot: kohen
first; levi second. R. Chiya bar Abba offers a third prooftext: And
you shall sanctify [the priest]… (Leviticus 21:8); here, the
remainder of the verse that Gemara does not quote is important: because he
offers the food of your God; they shall be holy to you, for I the Lord who
sanctify you am holy. The priest’s role in the Temple worship is
highlighted in this verse. When the Temple stood, Israel offered sacrifices to
God. Now that the Temple is destroyed, Israel offers prayers to God. The climax
of the prayer service is the reading of Torah. Surely the priests should have a
prominent role.
Three beautiful prooftexts, yet it is not entirely clear
whether the Rabbis are arguing that the kohen’s claim to the first aliyah is mi d’Oraita (i.e. explicit in Torah and
therefore ordained by God) or whether the verses cited serve only as asmachta
(to buttress a ruling that is mi d’rabbanan (on rabbinic authority, but not
toraitic). I suspect that the Rabbis understood their decision to be on their
own authority and established the rule to fix a visible place of communal honor
for kohanim and levi’im whose status was left dangling after the Destruction.
Why, then, couch this rule as being מפני
דרקי שלום (“for the sake of peace”), which presumes a need to limit
squabbling and dissent concerning who should receive aliyot? That in itself
suggests that the rule is mi d’Rabbanan. The Rabbis are asserting themselves
into the leadership void left by the Destruction and exert authority over the
community. In the Temple, sacrifices to God were mediated by the priests; in
the study house, and by extension in the synagogue, God’s
will for the people was mediated by the Rabbis[3]. Establishing a special, honored
role for kohanim and levi’im who were suffering genuine loss of communal status
and no longer had a tangible role to play in public life could only help. That
this role was deeply meaningful, centered as it was on the communal Torah
reading, but also largely ceremonial, worked to the Rabbis’ advantage, as well. Perhaps the
Rabbis sought to propitiate and mollify the kohanim at a time when there
was still hope that a third Temple would be built, even if there was no
realistic expectation of that happening. The kohanim, who had
been disenfranchised by the Destruction and superseded by the Rabbis, now had a
fixed place of honor and function in the community. By reserving the first two
aliyot for the priests and levites, the Rabbis set in concrete their roles in
the community: figureheads without genuine authority.
The Gemara discussion that follows, concerning what to do in
a situation when no kohen or levi is present when the Torah is
read, then comes as no surprise. The situations proposed happen today as well.
If there is no kohen present, do we simply skip the kohen aliyah?
Do we substitute a levi for a kohen? Can two kohanim read
consecutively? Can two levi’im read back-to-back? The Gemara decides by a simple and
respectful criterion: we avoid doing anything that would permit or encourage
others to question the credentials of kohanim and levi’im. For example, R. Yochanan reasons that a kohen should
not read immediately following another kohen because people might
interpret this to mean that the bona fides of the first kohen had been
discredited. By the same logic, if two levi’im read in succession people might presume one of them is
not truly a levi, but not know which one was inauthentic. As a result,
both would be discredited. The Sages sought to insure that those of levitical
lineage would neither suffer embarrassment nor be the cause of argument in the
synagogue. In a sense, this rule helped smooth the on-going social and cultural
transition from Second Temple Judaism to Synagogue-and-Study-House-based
Judaism.
This makes the next section of Gemara particularly
interesting. The conversation segues to two queries posed to R. Chelbo by the
people of the Galilee region. Both questions arise from the mishnah’s designations for the first two
aliyot.[4] The first question posed by the
Galileans is: Who reads next after the kohen and levi? Strange
question, given that the mishnah already answered it: an Israelite (i.e., any
other Jew). I suppose, therefore, the question is: may the remaining aliyot be
given to just any Jews, and in any order? By now, you surely realize that the
answer is no, because otherwise the question would not have been raised.
R. Yitzhak Nafcha delineates five categories of community
members for the remaining five aliyot:
1. Torah scholars who are official
community leaders.
2. Torah scholars who are qualified to
be official community leaders.
3. Sons of Torah scholars whose father
are official community leaders.
4. Administrative leaders of the
synagogue.
5. Anyone else.
According to R Yitzhak Nafcha, the next two aliyot are
reserved for rabbis and the one after that for their sons (a pinch of nepotism
here?). In all, six of the seven aliyot on shabbat are reserved for people with
particular status and position, including two for the levitical “tribe” and three for the rabbis and their
families. Only one aliyah is open to the “Common Man.”[5] R. Yitzhak Nafcha’s
stratagem takes the hierarchy imposed by the Mishnah much farther. Given that
it is customary today to give aliyot to those about to be married, one who is
becoming bar/bat mitzvah, parents of a newborn, and people observing yahrzeit,
it becomes clear that were R. Yitzhak Nafcha’s game plan put into practice, it
would be nearly impossible to meet both the requirements of the Gemara and the
needs of a congregation. An ordinary Israelite (that’s
most of us) would rarely be honored with an aliyah, but some people would be
given aliyot frequently[6]. The result would be anger,
competition, arguments and resentment—a situation very far from the peace
and goodwill the Mishnah set out to assure. Perhaps R. Nafchah’s scheme is included because it
speaks to the social hierarchy the Rabbis seek to establish, envisioning
themselves at the top of the ladder, the leaders and caretakers of a community
emerging from Destruction and hunkering down for a long-anticipated future in
the Dispersion.
Placing this rule under the banner of מפני
דרקי שלום (“for the sake of peace”) raises a question: If narrowing the
possibilities by imposing a hierarchical order and designating certain aliyot
for certain groups of people reduces the likelihood of arguments, resentments,
and squabbling, then would an extreme narrowing serve to foster more peace, or
inspire more resentment? How do we balance that with the goal of trying to
retain a tangible memory of the Temple service within the prayer service?
Perhaps מפני דרקי שלום (“for the sake of peace”) would be better served by more
flexibility than R. Yitzhak Nafcha’s game plan would allow.
The Rabbis were in the business of shaping culture through halakhah
(Jewish law) and minhag (custom). They crafted practices and structures
in an attempt to preserve memory, promote values, publicize mission, and
protect the community from disintegrating influences and forces from within and
from without. That’s a very tall order and, while worthy, not every decision
they made continues to serve their purposes in other times and venues. From the
vantage point of the 21st century, we can recognize that it is nothing short of
remarkable how well they did. But standing in the 21st century, there are times
when we can also recognize that their underlying goals might be better served
by adjusting the structures they set down.
[1] Torah itself, tells us that God specifically
inscribed the stone tablets and gave them to Moses to instruct the Israelites
(Exodus 24:12). Deuteronomy tells us that Moses wrote down the Torah and passed
it along to the priests and elders, instructing them as follows:
מִקֵּץ
שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים, בְּמֹעֵד שְׁנַת
הַשְּׁמִטָּה--בְּחַג הַסֻּכּוֹת. יא
בְּבוֹא כָל-יִשְׂרָאֵל, לֵרָאוֹת אֶת-פְּנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בַּמָּקוֹם, אֲשֶׁר יִבְחָר: תִּקְרָא
אֶת-הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת, נֶגֶד כָּל-יִשְׂרָאֵל--בְּאָזְנֵיהֶם. יב הַקְהֵל
אֶת-הָעָם, הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף, וְגֵרְךָ, אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ--לְמַעַן יִשְׁמְעוּ וּלְמַעַן
יִלְמְדוּ, וְיָרְאוּ אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, וְשָׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת, אֶת-כָּל-דִּבְרֵי
הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת.
Every
seventh year, the sabbatical year of remission, during Sukkot, when all Israel comes to appear before Adonai your God in the
place that [God] will choose, you shall read this Torah aloud in the present of
all Israel. Gather the people—men,
women, children, and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and thereby learn to revere the
Adonai your God and observe faithfully every word of this Torah. (Deuteronomy 31:1-12)
Clearly, the tradition of
reading Torah publicly is an ancient one. But every seven years is a far cry
from every Monday, Thursday, and Shabbat, as well as new moons and festivals.
Joshua is said to have read the the entirety of “Sefer
ha-Torah”—every word that Moses had taught—to the assembled people of Israel when they entered
the Land after the conquest of Ai (Joshua 8:34-35). And the Book of Nehemiah
affords us the first glimpse of how a public reading was choreographed in the
ancient world when Ezra the Scribe read and translated the Torah to those who
returned from exile in Babylonia at the Water Gate on Rosh Hashanah (Nehemiah
ch. 8). The Mishnah describes public readings connected with the Temple
service, both for the High Priest (M Sotah 7:7 and M Yoma 7:1-3) and for the
king (M Sotah 7:8). The latter appears to be based on the Deuteronomy and
Nehemiah traditions cited above.
By the First Century, however,
there were synagogues in which Torah and Prophets were read on shabbatot
and chagim (festivals). Isomer Elbogen writes: “The reading of the Torah and the Prophets is one of
the most ancient liturgical institutions; it is very likely that the reading of
Scripture was the occasion for the first communal assemblies for the purpose of
prayer. Elbogen is suggesting that gatherings to read Torah gave rise to
prayer, rather than Torah readings being incorporated into prayer gatherings.
Like the prayer service, the Torah reading has undergone change; this
development occurred almost completely outside the sources available to us, and
we can do no more than make conjectures about it.” Elbogen
further suggests that that the earliest practice may have entailed reading
Torah only on special shabbatot and chagim, and the weekly cycle of shabbat
reading evolved from this. In any case, market days (Monday and Thursday) and
shabbat, occasions that attracted large gatherings, were natural times for
public reading and teaching.
[2] How much Scripture did the people read? And on what
sort of schedule? The Babylonian Talmud is a much later witness, coming several
centuries after the Destruction in 70 C.E.; it tells us that the Jews of Eretz
Yisrael completed the reading of the entire Torah in three years, which is
generally understood as the original triennial cycle (BT Megillah 29b).
Supporting this is a geonic work cited by Joseph Heinemann cited in “The
Triennial Lectionary Cycle,” JJS 19 (1968), p. 42 that states that the
Jews of Eretz Yisrael celebrated Simchat Torah—and thus the completion of one
cycle of reading—every 3.5 years.
[3] A point emphasized rather unambiguously in the story
of the vote concerning the oven of Achnai in BT Baba Metzia 59b.
[4] Gemara records that R. Chelbo did not, himself, know
the answer to either question, and therefore asked R. Yitzhak Nafcha. Herein
lies a wonderful example for us: It’s fine to admit we
don’t know something and ask someone who does; it appears
that Gemara is going out of its way to provide us with this example, because
there are two such questions that R. Chelbo passed along to his colleague.
[5] I don’t intend to address the issue of women in this
blogpost; that is a separate and complex topic.
[6] Which, in fact, happens in many communities. If the
goal is to “spread the wealth” and be as inclusive as possible, the structure
may work against the goal in some communities.
