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As we begin the next chapter of Life is a Sacred Text, I thought it might be apt to start with a piece about why doing public Torah matters to me so much.
About why I insist on writing in places where anyone can congregate, writing about "Genesis" not "Bereshit" (or בראשית) – for starters. And a lot of the other choices of that sort.
There's a story in the Talmud (Brachot 27b-28a). It's about elitism, about what happens when we stop gatekeeping and the transformation of leaders towards access for all. It's got a few parts, so please: come on a journey.
(As always, bold is the original Hebrew/Aramaic, Roman is Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz' helpful annotation).
The Sages taught: There was an incident involving a student, who came before Rabbi Yehoshua. The student said to him: Is the evening prayer optional or obligatory? Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: Optional. The same student came before Rabban Gamliel and said to him: Is the evening prayer optional or obligatory? Rabban Gamliel said to him: Obligatory. The student said to Rabban Gamliel: But didn’t Rabbi Yehoshua tell me that the evening prayer is optional?
“But Other Dad said I didn’t have to do it!!!!”
Rabban Gamliel*, who is the Nasi (head of the Sanhedrin, the religious SCOTUS/Congress of the early Rabbinic era), gets huffy about the fact that this student is waving a divergent opinion in his face. (Never mind that the Sages disagreed all the time! There Is Huffiness.) He waits until it’s public lecture time and has the student ask again. Rabban G answers, and asks if anyone disagrees. Rabbi Yehoshua says “No,” out of respect, so as to not contradict the Nasi in front of everyone **, but Rabban G calls out Rabbi Y and puts him on the spot. Awkward.
*Christian friends, this isn’t the Rabban Gamliel you know from your texts; that’s this dude’s grandfather. He’s known as Rabban Gamliel I, this one is Gamliel II, and today’s story takes place after the Destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, but before the Bar Kochba Revolt in 132 CE.**And to not get humiliated again (keep reading).
TL;DR Rabban G forces Rabbi Y to stand during Rabban G’s whole lecture—to be publicly humiliated, as punishment for daring to rule differently than he did.
And since this was not the first, not the second, but the third time Rabban Gamliel had pulled this kind of power garbage over Rabbi Yehoshua, folks got well and truly fed up. So, the people said:
Let us remove him from his position as Nasi. It was so agreed, but the question arose: Whom shall we establish in his place? Shall we establish Rabbi Yehoshua in his place? The Sages rejected that option because Rabbi Yehoshua was party to the incident for which Rabban Gamliel was deposed.
Messy. OK, onward.
(They debate who else could take his place, who won’t be vulnerable to curses [important, OK??] and eventually get to:)
Rather, suggested the Sages, let us establish Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya in his place... He is wise, so if Rabban Gamliel raises a challenge in matters of Torah, he will answer it and not be embarrassed.
Good Torah. Great.
And he is rich, so if the need arises to pay homage to the Caesar’s court and serve as a representative of the Jews to lobby and negotiate, he has sufficient wealth to cover the costs of the long journeys, taxes, and gifts, so he too is able to go and pay homage.
Qualities needed for ancient Jewish leadership include: “Personal cash on hand to pay off the Romans.”
It was taught: On that day that they removed Rabban Gamliel from his position and appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya in his place, there was also a fundamental change in the general approach of the study hall as they dismissed the guard at the door and permission was granted to the students to enter.
“They dismissed the guard and permission was granted for the students to enter.”
This really is such a profound revelation, that sentence, above. Unlike, say:
“The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them.”
Ah, yes, that’s the longtime Rolling Stone editor in chief Jann Wenner some months ago attempting to justify the fact that his book on “Legends of Rock” mysteriously only contained cis white dudes. He continued:
Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level…You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test… Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as “masters,” the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.
In other words: he was (and is) a racist, misogynistic putz who thinks the true “philosophers of rock” (what a pretentious phrase) are guys who sing approvingly about the sexual assault of enslaved African girls (all the trigger warnings at that link) instead of JONI MITCHELL OR JOAN ARMATRADING OR JANELLE MONÁE or NINA SIMONE or PATTI SMITH.
This justification for running a huge segment of the rock industry for decades—”intuitive”—oddly enough corresponds, as it so often does, to “like me.”
The problem is, of course, that in every single field out there–every single one–there are similar people holding power who are similarly racist and/or sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, etc. who have been doing a great job shaping entire industries, mostly without getting caught by saying the wrong thing to the New York Times.
People who have been doing this for centuries—deciding who is in, who is out: they decide, and on what terms.
More recently, we’ve seen the success of the dismantling of DEI programming and affirmative action, in no small part due to the efforts of the guy who asserted that the:
the social-justice model of higher education, currently centered on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts…blew up the excellence model
as though the previous existing “excellence model” wasn’t so often more like the, “grandpa made a donation” model or the “dad was in the same fraternity as the provost” model.
The word is so cliche it's become a TikTok meme: Gatekeepers.
The problem is, so often, it's not that the people who do it are trying to be mean.
(yes: so often it's us, it's all of us at various points, when we operate from a place of complacence, ignorance, fear, laziness, anxiety, and so forth.)
- It's so nice to tap your friends to teach webinars! And I'm not sure I know who else I could reach out to for this?
- Our congregation has some clear ideas about what it's looking for in its next leader.
- But this is the perfect venue! It could be hard to navigate in places– but it'll be OK, right?
- I've heard really good things about this one candidate from people I know.
- I just think...you know, the text says what it says, there's nothing you can do.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Again:
It was taught: On that day that they removed Rabban Gamliel from his position and appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya in his place, they dismissed the guard at the door and permission was granted to the students to enter.
PERMISSION WAS GRANTED TO THE STUDENTS TO ENTER.
Instead of Rabban Gamliel’s selective approach, the new approach asserted that anyone who seeks to study should be given opportunity to do so. As Rabban Gamliel would proclaim and say: Any student whose inside are not like their outside will not enter the study hall.
Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Cohen suggests that this
”probably had to do with class, I.e. inside = what you know, outside = what you wear. What you wear in the garb of the times was a philosopher’s cloak or the like.”
The philosopher’s cloak, as pictured in the image above.
This tracks with the image we have of Rabban Gamliel—elitist, concerned with his honor and presumably optics, focused on defining who’s in and who’s out (more on that below), clueless about financial hardship (ditto). This does seem to be a guy who’d care what his students would wear, doesn’t it?
Not every prospective student could afford those threads, by a long shot. But the new Nasi removed the barriers to access: A literal guard, and more critically, a financial and possibly cultural barrier. And suddenly– the study hall/beit midrash is a different place.
The Gemara relates: On that day several benches were added to the study hall to accommodate the numerous students. Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Abba Yosef ben Dostai and the Rabbis disputed this matter. One said: Four hundred benches were added to the study hall. And one said: Seven hundred benches were added to the study hall.
SO MANY students came to learn when there wasn’t someone whose job it was to tell them to go away because they weren’t good enough. Students filled all the benches (each of which possibly, viz the illustration below, held a row of students).
When he saw the tremendous growth in the number of students, Rabban Gamliel was disheartened. He said: Perhaps, Heaven forbid, I prevented Israel from engaging in Torah study.
To his credit, he has the good sense to feel bad about it! This is a growth process that doesn't always happen from gatekeepers– but it reminds us that it's possible. But, as we’ll see in a moment, he’s still set in old ways of thinking.
It was taught: There is a tradition that the tractate on testimonies was taught that day. And everywhere they say:.. There was no [matter of Jewish law] whose ruling was pending in the study hall that they did not [address and resolve].
They got work done.
The new more open ethos was, it turns out, not only more just but also great for productivity.
- Is that because more new ideas came in, from fresh voices and novel perspectives?
- Because people with Beginner’s Mind asked questions that were too often (erroneously) taken for granted?
- Because more people feeling welcomed meant that there was incredible energy in the space?
- Because even the Rabban Gamliel-approved students were impacted by the buoyant vibe and brought their A-game as a result?
I dunno. But more space for more people resulted in more Torah—and better Torah.
And even Rabban Gamliel did not avoid the study hall for even one moment.
There was too much fire in that room for even Rabban G to stay away out of huffiness!
But then: there was a moment in which Yehuda, an Ammonite Jew by choice, asked what his status was with regards to marrying a Jewish woman. Rabban G said that he wasn't allowed to marry because the Torah (Deuteronomy 23:4) says, literally, that an Ammonite "shall not enter into the congregation."
Rabbi Yehoshua, on the other hand, says he can get married and cites a verse from Isaiah (10:13) suggesting that after the Assyrian conquest seven centuries ago, that ethnic designation is irrelevant. They do another back and forth and tl;dr it's ruled that Yehuda is considered a full Jew and can get married.
Even here, Rabban G has tried to understand things in the most literalist, gatekeeping, exclusivist way—his way, sure, errs on the side of “better safe than sorry” (if we want to be generous to his internal perspective) but his approach nonetheless did harm to a real person in the room.
What is an abstract legal principle to Gamliel is a question of whether or not Yehuda, will be allowed companionship, love, intimacy—or be doomed by the esteemed scholars to a life of loneliness. Rabbi Yehoshua argues not for the more isolated, literal meaning of the text, but, rather, thinks expansively.
Rabbi Yehoshua re-centers Yehuda's humanity. He reminds Rabban Gamliel, and everyone in the room, that Amonites are human people with as complicated as story as our own–and, implicitly, that Yehuda is as worthy of care, compassion, and consideration as anyone with a less-tricky pedigree.
Dropping the gakekeepers means also dropping the gatekeeping approach to our thinking.
We do not need to be prisoners to our texts.
- We are not required to use only the most literalist reading, devoid of context or logic.
- We are not required to pretend that real people are not impacted by our analyses.
- We should not think about questions about “them” without applying those same questions to “us.”
And had the old gatekeeper been in charge—had Rabban Gamliel still helmed the Sanhedrin—it’s likely that Yehuda would have been told: “No. Sorry, even though you’re a Jew now, and you seek to live your entire life in the Jewish community, bound by Jewish law—you cannot marry.”
But now—the gatekeeper was out, and a more just, inclusive way of reading was allowed to carry the day! Rabbi Yehoshua really shows us what contemporary Orthodox feminist Blu Greenberg means when she (famously) says,
“Where there's a rabbinic will, there's a [Jewish legal] way.”
Yehuda is welcomed in—not left behind.
And this is just further proof that we cannot fully understand our sacred texts if we keep throwing the same old perspectives at them again and again.
We need new brilliances to keep unlocking everything hiding inside them.
What might Yehuda the Ammonite Jew-by-choice notice that his mentors missed? What ways of thinking could he bring?
Which is, of course, the real tragedy and evil of all of that gatekeeping—all the Torah, all the art, all the scholarship, all of the geopolitical leadership that we have already lost because of those already kept out. All the love denied. All of the ways the world has been shaped by “No”s.
We can’t spare another moment trying to make up for centuries of lost time.
There’s too much at stake now, today.
So how did the story end?? To his credit, Rabban Gamliel’s transformation continued:
Rabban Gamliel said to himself: Since this is the situation, that the people are following Rabbi Yehoshua, it would be appropriate for me to go and appease Rabbi Yehoshua.* When he reached Rabbi Yehoshua’s house, he saw that the walls of his house were black. Rabban Gamliel said to Rabbi Yehoshua in wonderment: From the walls of your house it is apparent that you are a blacksmith, as until then he had no idea that Rabbi Yehoshua was forced to engage in that arduous trade in order to make a living. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: Woe unto a generation that you are its leader as you are unaware of the difficulties of Torah scholars, how they make a living and how they feed themselves.*I read this as him apologizing for insulting R. Yehoshua because he's lost power, not that he's conceding any legal stances. Transformation takes time, and this visit (we'll see) is part of that work.
"How cute that you thought all scholars could just sashay around in pretty philosopher’s cloaks, Rich Boy, but some of us have to work for a living."
Many people raised with privilege have a moment when they start to understand that not everyone else has what they have. But it's always a problem when those who lead have more power than understanding. (And, of course, an even bigger problem is when malicious actors are able to drive the agenda.)
Eventually Rabban Gamliel apologizes, everybody comes up with an arrangement wherein Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya share duties as head of the Sanhedrin and all’s well in Yavneh once again.
And to his credit, Gamliel actually learned, this time–or over time. The final act of a man once so attached to his honor that he publicly humiliated those who challenged it; who placed guards to ensure that his students were well-dressed; who read law erring on the side of exclusivity–
was to lower his own status in death, in order to set an accessibility precedent for everyone.
As Nasi of the Sanhedrin, he was entitled to a fancy sendoff—and kavod hamet—the honor of the dead—is a huge principle in the tradition, as this last story illustrates.
But Rabban Gamliel finally got it.
Accessibility is the most important thing.
More, even, than one’s own final opportunity for honor.
Initially, the funeral expenditures for the deceased were more taxing for relatives than the death, as the burials were opulent, until it reached a point where people would abandon the deceased and flee. This continued until Rabbi Gamliel came and conducted himself in a self-deprecatory manner, instructing the people that they were to take him for burial in plain linen garments. And all the people conducted themselves following his example, and instructed their families to take them for burial in plain linen garments. (Talmud Ketubot 8b)
So what did we learn?
Structural changes have to happen both at the door and in the very workings of the proverbial study house itself.
Leaders must lead by making sure everyone can get in, by inviting novel, radical perspectives and, even, dropping their own entitlements in order to show what access can look like by example.
And doing better might be a long process. A humbling, lifelong one that happens in fits and starts. It's ok. All we have is the work.
It’s the only way to create the Torah, and the world, that is truly for—and by—everyone.
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