Season 2: Episode 6 - Tradition and Authority

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Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. Well, I'm not holding any axe, nor do I have an axe to grind, but I do like to come out swinging, because I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story. Episode 6, Tradition and Authority So did you know that there are actually four holy cities in the land of Israel? and that they're paralleled to the four essential elements which the ancients and our sages believe serve as the foundation to creation. So when I ask people what they are, most people will get Jerusalem right away. And they're pretty much equally as quick to say that the holy city is certainly a place of fire. And when I push, some people will come up with Hevron.

And with a little more thought, they'll see that the graves of our ancestors are certainly in the city of Earth. Teveria eludes almost everyone. But then when I point out that the Mishnahh was finalized there, it's a quick conclusion that the waters of Torah flow from that white city by the sea and are so ubiquitous you don't even know they're there. And that leaves us with only one. With a city that has no biblical roots and whose place, even in the great period of the Greco-Roman Empire, is shrouded in, if not uncertainty, then certainly an unimpressive role. It's a city whose mountain air had to wait until the 16th century to inspire a revolution. And only then did the holy city of Sfat take its place as the fourth in the cities of Israel.

so we here in the Jewish story are still in the episode of the dispersion in the wake of the destruction of Spain and the ripple effects it sent out across the world we're following the footsteps of the exiles as they spread out across the globe in the last episode we spoke about the attempt by Gracia Mendez and her nephew Yosef to revitalize Jewish economy and recolonize the land actually around Tiberia essentially an attempt at the physical revival of the shattered parts of the nation, which was apparently premature. Two episodes ago, we spoke about the challenges that early modernity posed to Jewish consciousness, and in particular about that hallmark of modernity, the uncoupling of knowledge from tradition.

And now, over the next couple of episodes, we're going to talk about the exiles who made their way to Svat. because though relatively few in number, they sparked a revival of Jewish spirit whose energy continues to feed us to this very day. The golden age of Sfat that dawns in the 16th century is going to open up a whole new phase of our story. So, as I said, Sfat is not in the Bible. And though the Jerusalem Talmud does name it as one of the mountaintop points from which signal fires were lit to mark the new moon, it remains more or less an enigma all the way down through Crusader times. We do know that at least one important mystic migrated there from Spain in the early 14th century. Apparently he found it the ideal location to attempt to prove that the Rambam's works were actually Kabbalistic in their intent.

Not so sure he succeeded at that, but he tried. And Traveler's reports from the coming centuries tell us that there was a thriving Jewish community in Spott by the mid-15th century. But Tzmat really awakens in the aftermath of the Ottoman conquest of 1516. He goes from a city with perhaps 200 to 300 Jewish households at the beginning of the 16th century to its peak at the late 16th century boasted as many as 1,800 Jewish households. And the key to this growth was not simply the mystics and rabbis who found shelter there after escaping Spain. Nor was it simply the attraction of the graves of the prophets and sages, including the traditional author of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, which dotted the hills all around the city to this very day.

If you haven't been there, it's worth a trip. So that was actually the center of a thriving textile industry, whose economic value was so high that the Sultan, Suleman the Magnificent, ordered that a wall be built around the city in 1549. That was only a few years after the walls which surround the old city of Jerusalem were constructed. So, in the wake of the Ottoman conquest, mystics and sages did indeed gather from across the empire in order to re-enter the land of Israel in general, and Svat in particular. Now, somewhere toward the end of the last series, we spoke about the messianic fervor that was sparked by the Ottoman defeat of the Byzantine Christian Empire and the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

That's when it became Istanbul, don't get confused. the gates of the Holy Land were now open in a way that they had not been while they were dominated by Christianity and who was to say that the Messiah was not far from entering them and the call to all those whose soul longed for redemption seemed to be going out from the Holy Land every single day on the night of Shavuot perhaps in the year 1533 the brotherhood of mystics gathered in the city of Salonika. Now you have to know that the Jews of Salonika were experiencing a golden age of their own. If you're not familiar where the city is in Greeks, look it up. It's 2017. Use Google. The Jewish population of that critical port city of the Ottoman Empire had surged after the expulsion.

At this point, in the early to mid-16th century, Jews made up almost 60% of the population of the city as a whole, present at every level of the economy, in a fashion, actually, that would be unparalleled for a Jewish community until the rise of the modern state of Israel. And furthermore, Jews so dominated the shipping and trade in Salonika that though it was a key port, it was closed on the Sabbath. The yeshiva were full. The study of the Talmud and the Zohar were booming. What more could a mystic want? Apparently, redemption. Because among this Kabbalistic brotherhood, which had gathered that night to say the Tikkun, the cosmic fixing which the Zohar recommends specifically for the night of Shavuot, were of Shlomo Alkabetz, who's best known to Jewish world as the author of the liturgical poem Lecha Dodi, Come My Beloved, which we say to greet the Sabbath Queen, and the young Rabbi Yosef Karo, whose fame as a halachic authority had already begun to spread throughout the Jewish world, but whose true greatness was still yet to come.

now Yosef Karo was also in exile, he was born in Spain in 1488 and headed out into exile with his parents at the tender age of 4 and like so many others, his family sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire and by 1520, the now Rav Yosef Karo had settled at Adrianople and he had an interesting life because it's likely here that he encountered the Messianic enthusiast Shlomo Molcho, I hope you recall him from a previous episode, whose fiery sermons about redemption and mystical teachings ignited within the young Talmudist a longing for redemption that his legal mind could not satisfy. And when Molcho died at the stake in 1532, after his failed attempt to convert the Holy Roman Emperor and perhaps the Pope himself, his young student recorded in his spiritual journal the book Magid Mesharim that he was filled with a longing to be consumed on the altar as a holy burnt offering and to sanctify the name of God through a martyr's death but the young Ralph Yosef Karo shared something with Shlomo Mocho beyond that longing for redemption like Mocho, he had dreams and visions Actually, visitations, in fact.

His Magid, the reason he called his spiritual journal Magid Meshayim, the Magid is the one who speaks. It was a voice which spoke to and through him, and which he perceived to be nothing less than the Mishnahh itself personified, giving him guidance, because he had so devoted himself to its service. And so one has to imagine this was not the first time that the mystic brotherhood of Salonika had gathered on Shavuot night to say the tikkun of the Zohar. And further, I can probably imagine it wasn't the first time that the Alkabets and Rabbi Yosef Karo were there together. But this night, something was different. Because on this Shavuot night, the Magid appeared to Rav Karo and his voice was so strong that Rav Shlomo Alkabets heard it as well.

And the message which the Mishnahh itself came to deliver was recorded by the Alcabets in a letter that he sent on to his brothers in Salonika. Go up to the land of Israel, for not all times are opportune. There is no hindrance to salvation, be it much or little. Let not your eyes have pity on your worldly goods, for you eat of the goodness of the higher land. If you will but hearken of the goodness of that land, you shall eat. Make haste, therefore, to go up to the land, for I sustain you here, and I shall sustain you there. Awake, O drunken ones, for the day comes when a man must cast away his gods of silver, worldly desires, and his gods of gold, the lust for wealth. Go up to the land of Israel, which you would be able to do, were you not trapped in the mud of worldly desires and vanities.

So I said he recorded it in a letter. Because within a year, Rav Alkabetz had gone up to the land. And less than a year later, it seems that the Rav Yosef Karo followed, and they met again in Svat. So when the young rising star of Jewish law arrived in Svat, he found not only a home, but also a master. Rav Yaakov Beirav was also from among the exiles. Born near Toledo, Spain in 1474, he was a student of Rav Yitzchak Abboav, known as the last Gaon of Castile, the inheritor of hundreds of years of wisdom. And after the expulsion, Rav Beirav fled to Fez in North Africa, and from there to Telemkin. The Jewish community there actually appointed him as their rabbi, despite the fact that he was only 18 years old.

By 1522, he'd made his way to Jerusalem. But life was hard in the Holy City, and reversing the momentum of the biblical story, he went down with his students to Egypt. But the call of the land was too strong. And sometime after 1533, and right before Rav Yosef Karo, Rav Beirav settled in Tzvat. And it was here that he conceived a revolutionary idea that would make him famous and a figure of controversy for the rest of his short life. Rath Beirav had felt the suffering of the Jews of Portugal and Spain in his own flesh. And I'm not just talking about the trials of the Inquisition, of exile, of martyrdom. He was also intimately familiar with the many who had survived the persecutions of the Church through feigning Christian practice while holding fast to the God of Israel in their hearts These conversos the Anusim the forced ones have come into our story already in many forms, and they're not going away.

But we haven't really begun to touch their inner dilemma of a split and tortured identity. It's going to play a very important role. and in this context what Rabbeirah particularly felt was the pain of the conversos who had actually managed to escape the lands where they could physically return to Judaism but remained spiritually haunted by the sins of their previous life in their eyes Christianity was idolatry and even under duress it might just be that their decision to bow to the cross rather than burn was a sin punishable by karet spiritual excision worse than physical death. And though they had become true Ba'alei Tshuva, truly returned to the faith of their fathers, overcoming barriers that I can't even imagine, they lived in fear of their ultimate day of judgment.

And Rav Beirav came up with an original solution to their problem. The Mishnahh in Tractit Makot right at the end says, Kol Chai Vekritot Shelaku Niftiru Yidei Kritatam that anyone who is liable for the punishment of karet, spiritual excision, who receives lashes from the court, has actually been excused from their punishment of karet. So all he needed to do was constitute a Beit Din, a religious court, that would carry out the punishment of malikos, of lashes, and presto chango alakazu, these conversos would be free of their fear and their spiritual punishment. There's just one hitch. In order for a court to administer such a punishment, corporal punishment, you need Dayanin Musmachim, judges who've received ordination as part of the unbroken chain which stretches back to Moshe Rabbeinu.

And that chain had long ago been broken. No rabbi for over a thousand years had received smicha in this sense. I don't know if you know it, and as a rabbi, perhaps I shouldn't tell you, but I'm not really a rabbi. nor is anyone else out there with the title not in this sense not in the sense of having the authority to truly adjudicate the Torah's intentions and so there was a broken chain but Rav Berav was not one to be thwarted by history after all, the gates of the Holy Land were now open history was changing the children of Israel were returning to their borders the dream of rebuilding the temple was not just a dream any longer under the Muslims rather than the Christians. In his eyes, the Messiah would be greeted and confirmed by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court, which in its days of glories had sat on the Temple Mount.

And that court would certainly be made up of truly ordained rabbis. And how could a technical historical phenomenon like a broken chain of transmission block the redemptive force of the Messiah? and besides there was always the Rambam to rely on because the Rambam Maimonides that great sage of the 12th century says in his commentary on the Mishnahh and Hedron 1st Parikh, 3rd Mishnahh I believe that if there were agreement of all the students and sages to appoint one person in their yeshiva to make him the head, so long as this occurs in the land of Israel then the yeshiva has established that individual as ordained and afterwards he may ordain whom he pleases. This must be so, says the Rambam, because if one does not say so, then there will never be the possibility for the reestablishment of the high court ever again.

And God has already promised that they will return, as it says, and I will restore your judges as at first and your counselors as in the beginning. That's from Isaiah 126. Look it up. Perhaps you will say that the Messiah will appoint them even though they are not ordained, but I believe, continues the Rambam, that the Sanhedrin will return before the Messiah is revealed, and that this will be one of his signs. Without a doubt, this will be when God prepares the hearts of humanity and they grow in good works, magnify their desire for God and his Torah, and increase their rectitude before the coming of the Messiah, as the verses explain. Well, it's clear that Rav Beirav wasn't just looking for a technical solution to the problem of the conversos.

He felt the pressure of the coming of redemption. And he, there in the holy city of Sfat, surrounded by the mystics and sages, who we will describe over the next couple of episodes, also felt that God has indeed prepared the hearts of humanity, and they were growing in good works. Certainly their desire for God and his Torah had increased. Unless you think, by the way, that the Rambam's statement here is just commentary and not law, he makes a similar assertion in his major legal work, the Mishnahh Torah, fourth chapter, Law 11 in Sanhedrin but there he ends on a more ambiguous note with the phrase, the question whether ordination can be renewed requires hachra'ah it needs a decision and that was a decision Rav Beirav was willing to make and so he began to gather momentum amongst all the sages of Sfat for his plan to return smicha, true ordination as a step which would bring personal salvation to the conversos and might even be the trigger for redemption itself.

And of course, Rav Yosef Karo was an enthusiastic supporter of his teacher's plans. And that was no small vote of confidence, because at this point he himself was well on his way to becoming the preeminent halachic authority of the Jewish world. He had already begun his great work, the Beit Yosef, the House of Yosef, which earned him the title of the Beit Yosef. We call him the Beit Yosef. back in 1522, and it wasn't finished until well after he arrived in Sfat, 20 years later. Now, a word on the Beit Yosef, the book and not the person, it's nominally a commentary on the Arbiturium. I hope you remember this foundational work of Jewish law, broken into four parts and presented in a systematic, codified fashion by Rav Yaakov Ben Asher in 14th century Spain.

If you don't remember, go back to the last series and look it up. But in reality, the Beit Yosef is far more than a commentary on the Torah's work. It's a massive exploration of rabbinic literature from the Talmud all the way down to contemporary times. By unearthing and articulating the foundations for the Torah's terse legal decisions, the Beit Yosef not only proved himself to be the halachic master of his day, he provided a legal digest, a resource which had no parallel in his day. And in the introduction, interestingly enough, Rav Yosef Karo explains his reasons for undertaking such a massive project. The two primary reasons were the expulsion from Spain and the invention of the printing press, which he felt endangered the stability of halacha.

He says that in the good old days, back in Spain and Portugal, questions were largely decided by local rabbis according to customs of the country. There's something that we call a mimetic tradition. It's a tradition which is learned and passed down through generations. But when the exiles began to find shelter in various communities from east to west, the question quickly arose whether the newcomers, who are often of greater learning than the members of the communities which they joined, should be ruled by local custom, as they've done back in Spain, or should they follow their own understanding of the law? This was a messy process, which has left big footprints all across the history of halakhic literature, but in general, there was a short and somewhat brutal process of cultural colonization of the local customs by the incoming Svardim.

Furthermore, the Beit Yosef mourns the fact that printing had created a situation in which half-educated people who had in their possession legal books felt perfectly justified in following any written authority according to their will instead of doing the work to figure out which one was actually right. And so the Beit Yosef was meant to return tradition to its proper form by critically analyzing the opinions of all previous authorities and placing them back in the context of the wholeness of the halakhic discourse. It did so, amazingly, and in so doing, established its author, Rabbi Yosef Karo, as the supreme authority of his day. So when, in the year 1538, on the basis of his understanding of the Rambam, Rav Beirav convened the sages and students of Svat, certainly the Beit Yosef was among them, because Svat at this time was indeed the largest community of Torah scholars in the land of Israel and perhaps in the world.

in solemn ceremony he had all in attendance ordained him Rav Beirav as the first real rabbi in over a thousand years he then in turn ordained four of his students with this new smicha and in light of the Beit Yosef it's no surprise that they included at their hand Rav Yosef Karo now Rav Beirav also sent a letter of ordination to the rabbi of Yerushalayim of Jerusalem the holy city Rav Levi Ibn Habib, who's also known as the Mahar al-Bach. Isn't it great that everybody gets such fun acronyms? And he assumed that this sage would be delighted to receive such a fantastic gift. I mean, after all, he was the first generation of reviving smicha. And he assumed that the Mahar al-Bach would share Rav Beirav's excitement about their role in bringing salvation to the conversos and in moving redemption forward for Am Yisrael and the whole world.

Well, he was wrong. Ahmar al-Bach was not at all happy with his gift. In fact, he returned it, along with a letter in which he took strong issue with the entire project of reviving smicha in their day. Because the chief rabbi of Jerusalem read the Rambam entirely different. Those closing words, this matter requires a final decision, in his eyes were proof that the Rambam had not decided on the question, and therefore one could not act upon. his statement. Furthermore, he points out, for those who are interested, that the Rambam, Nachmanides, disagrees with the Rambam, and says Semichah can't be reinstituted until after the Messiah arrives. And finally, there was the matter of that phrase, all the sages of the land of Israel.

Because even if he accepted the Rambam as meaning his ruling to be definitive, the sages of Sfat had blown it by not bringing the rabbis of Jerusalem into the decision-making process. And in the end, The Maharobach insisted that Smicha wouldn't bring Messiah, but rather that the Messiah would bring back Smicha. Now, never one to back down from a fight, the Rav Beirav did not accept the Maharobach's criticism. He read the Rambam as definitive, not theoretical or suggestive, and felt that a simple majority of the sages living in Israel was sufficient to create Smicha. A long and bitter correspondence ensued, and it's known as Kuntras Hasmicha, the notebook or the compilation of ordination You can look it up If you interested send me an email But on the surface of things it would appear that the Ma al won the day Rav Beirav died three years after the Smicha project began.

Rav Yosef Karo had received the Smicha, and he in turn actually ordained Rav Moshe Al-Sheikh, the author of the Al-Sheikh commentary on Tanakh. But it appears that he never asserted his authority as a musmach, as an ordained rabbi, in any other way. and he certainly never convened a Beit Din to begin administering corporal punishment to conversos. But, there are two ways in which the revival of Smicha may have had a subtle but profound effect. One is in the person of the student of the Al-Sheikh, Rav Chaim Vital. We're going to discuss his importance in the coming episode. The second is through Rav Yosef Karo's literary work. because in his Beit Yosef he's loyal to his teacher and records as law the Rambam's opinion that smicha can be renewed but the Beit Yosef was not the work by Rabbi Yosef Karo which was destined to redefine the nature and practice of Jewish law nor was it the work which earned him the title of Marang which some understand as an acronym for Matayim Rabanim Nismach one who was ordained by 200 rabbis so there's a particularly challenging cross-current in telling this chapter of the Jewish story and it is that somehow while we weren't looking an era ended and of course that means another began it's not the transition from the medieval to the early modern though we've gotten a sense at least a little bit of how profound and messy that move has been trust me, it's not over yet I'm talking about the end of the Rishonim of the early medieval authorities, and the rise of the Ahronim, of the later ones.

Now, before we nail down exactly what that is, we've got to touch the fact that we've spoken about the problem of periodization in history before. Periodization is categorizing the past into discrete, named blocks of time in order to facilitate study and analysis. Now, the need to break history into manageable chunks is understandable. Without name periods, our story of the past just becomes scattered events without any frameworks. And periodization can be simply an act of organizational convenience. It's really hard to talk about anything when you don't have a common terminology. Or it can be a more deliberate narrative structuring. For instance, if I place an event or an idea in the modern era, it gives it a very different understanding than when I call it medieval.

Either way, the labels that we give to the chunks of the past, and especially the dates we use to differentiate those periods, deserve a healthy dose of skepticism. And that's because periodization is never neutral. As with any act of framing, where one locates the beginning of the modern era, for instance, will teach you a lot about what they believe the substance of modernity to be. Progress is, of course, good, and better to be modern than ancient, or primitive. Just remember this. Periodization always reflects the priorities and values of the person who's breaking up what is essentially a continuous and unbroken flow of time. So then, with that warning aside, and you've heard it before, who were the Rishonim, the early authorities, and who were the Akronim, the later ones?

When did one era end and the other begin? and, of course, why does this matter for our story? First things first, when did the era of the Rishonim end? Well, like most things, that depends on who you ask, and not only who, but where. Let's go easy. We'll start with Spain, since if we have to find a neat dividing line in the flow of time, for better or worse, the history of Spanish Jewry has certainly provided us with one. We could easily say that the sages and teachers pre-expulsion belonged to the era of the Rishonim, of the early ones, and those who followed to that of the Ahronim, the latter ones. Now, that's useful, and I think we'll stand with it, but just note, we can't push this dividing line too far.

For instance, what era does Rav Dan Yitzchak of Ravanel belong to? I hope you remember him. If not, go back to the previous series and look it up. But for now, you just need to know his commentaries on the Torah and Tanakh are vast and important, and they were written before, during, and after the expulsion. now whether the Ravenel was a Rishon or an Ahron really just depends on who you ask at this point and in my eyes it remains a relatively academic question precisely because his fame is due to his biblical commentary and not his role in the development of Jewish law Rav Yosef Kaur on the other hand is known for his legal works and he too was among the exiles but we're not there yet So I'll take 1492 as a provisional dividing line for the culture of Spanish Jewry.

On to Ashkenaz. I sure hope you recall the trials and tribulations of Ashkenazi Jewry. I mean, I think about them at least every Shabbat. And truthfully, they began way back in the 11th century with the First Crusade, when the smile went out of Ashkenaz. But in particular, things got bad from the Black Plague in the mid-14th century through the Hussite Wars of Central Europe in the mid-15th century. This was a hundred years of chaos, disruption, and suffering, and migration to the east, toward that Polish refuge that the German lands dreamed of. I hope you also remember the Maharil, Rav Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Molen. He was the 15th century Ashkenazi rabbi, who he named as master of Minhag Ashkenazi, of Ashkenazi custom, and whom he also named as the bridge across which this custom passed from Central to Eastern Europe.

And it's clear in the Maharil's writings, remember, mid-15th century, that in his eyes, his generation was already not worthy of disputing decisions of the Rishonim, as he calls them, the earlier ones. And this self-judgment, along with a number of similar statements from some of his contemporaries, leads many scholars to place the dividing line between Rishonim and Ahronim in Ashkenaz at the beginning of the 15th century, almost a hundred years before the expulsion from Spain. Now that's fine, and if timing were our major focus, we could move on to Italy, we could start to refine, etc., but really, as I'm sure you've gone to sense by this point in the series, in general, I'm less interested in when than why.

In regards to our question, what I really want to know is, why is someone a Rishon and not an Acheron? And what role does that difference play in shaping the Jewish story? So let's back up a minute and ask, where does this notion of the former ones and the latter ones come from anyway? Now the most obvious answer in Jewish history, or at least the last 2,000 years of it, is the difference between the Mishnahh and the Gemara. You can revisit the full extent of this question by going back to the first season, around about episode 13. But for now you should know, there's a general textual principle that the Omorayim, the authors of the Gemara, do not argue with the Tanaim, the authors of the Mishnahh.

And this textual principle is expressive of a larger aspect of Jewish thought, known as Yeridat HaDorot, the descent of generations. Life, in this context, is a downhill ride. Basically, the further we go from Sinai, the lower our spiritual level, and therefore, the less our ability to grasp the truth of the Torah. As the Gemara in Shabbat says, Rabbi Zerah said in the name of Rabbi Bar Zimona, I'mrushinim b'nei malachim anu b'nei anashim. I'mrushinim b'nei anashim anu kehamarim. If the earlier ones were like the children of angels, then we are like the children of men. And if the earlier ones were like the children of men, then we are like donkeys. Keep this in mind when we get to Darwin, because his assertion that our ancestors were monkeys plays an important role in enshrining progress as the sacred drive of modernity.

But for now, we have a piece of our definition. The latter authorities are those who definitionally do not argue with the earlier. So between the Gemara and the Mishnahh, this was a transition that was also enshrined in a textual transformation from the Mishnahh to the Gemara. And as we heard from the Maharil, that transition can also be the product of a self-evaluation. We simply don't have what it takes. And sometimes the text becomes authoritative and provides our dividing line. The masters of the Gemara accepted the Mishnahh as inviolate. The Gaonim accepted the Gemara as inviolate. As Roshvera Gaon said way back in the 10th century, one who opposes a single word of the teachings of the Talmud is like one opposing God and his law.

For the words of the rabbis are the words of the living God. And sometimes, times of trouble and disruption, like the expulsion from Spain and the 14th and 15th centuries for European Jewry, destroy a sense of lived continuity in religious practice, which in turn leads to a judgment that we're just not up to snuff. and the two can also work profoundly in tandem. A last piece as Rav Israel Iserlin also known as the Trumat Adeshin a later contemporary of the Mariel says no one has the right to contradict the rabbinical works that have been accepted by the majority of Israel. This notion that certain texts gain their status through their widespread acceptance adds a new element to our question of authority in an era of transition.

Identity. What Jews have agreed to do defines who the Jews are. And therefore, if you change what you do, we have to ask, are you still a Jew? That question is going to be quite pressing as an unprecedented pace of change begins to define the experience of humanity as a whole, much less Am Yisrael, in the modern era. But for now, I think we have it. The transition between periods in our case between the Rishonim and the Ahronim is bound up with a self-perceived loss of mastery over Torah and therefore a diminished authority and this can be both cause and result of an act of codification which leads us back to Maran, the Beit Yosef, Rav Yosef Karl and his most well-known work with Shuchan Aruch Anyone who's even dipped a toe in the study of Halakha on Jewish law, has seen the Shulchan Aruch, the set table, which Rav Yosef Karo finished toward the end of his life.

It was actually first printed in Venice in 1563. It was arguably the last and certainly the most popular of his works. And the Shulchan Aruch was an attempt to once again reduce the complexity of the Beit Yosef to a simplified form. It was the cliff notes of Halakha. In the Beit Yosef every opinion from the Gemara on was considered and put in its place and clear halakhic decisions were the exception rather than the rule In the Shulchan Aruch Rav Karo weighed the opinions of his three great masters the Rif, the Rosh, and the Rambam, and gave us his definitive opinion as to who was right. Now tradition says that he himself saw the work as a cliff's nose, as useful for students and laymen who couldn't access the depth of the Beit Yosef.

Nevertheless, within a hundred years of its publication, Hesuch HaRuch became the decisive basis for all subsequent halachic decision. And, for most, a text which was not to be disputed in a fashion that hadn't been seen since the Gemara itself. There were many reasons for this. One of them, by the way, was the printing press. Not just the fact that this was one of the first major works of law to be published on a printing press in the lifetime of its author, an author whose living authority was accepted by the entire Jewish world. But also because of the rapid spread of the book which the printing press allowed. Nevertheless, and perhaps even needless to say, such a revolution in law and authority was not without controversy.

Now I hope you also remember Rav Moshe Iserlis, also known as the Ramah, who was the Beit Yosef's contemporary over in Krakow, the leading light of Polish and Ashkenazi Jewry. Now, back when the Beit Yosef, that first work of Rav Yosef Karo had appeared, the Ramah quickly wrote his Darkei Moshe, the Paths of Moshe, a systematic criticism of that great work. And in particular, the Ramah wanted to supplement Rav Karo's three standard authorities with the Rishonim, the early authorities of Ashkenaz, because Rav Yosef, being of the exiles from Spain, leaned heavily toward the Sephardic authorities. But really, the great difference between these two was in their vision over the importance of minhag, of custom, in the legal discourse.

An element that was largely left out of the Shulchan Aruch. Certainly, the customs of Ashkenaz were left out. And it was really that that drove the Ramah to write his gloss to the Shulchan Aruch, a systematic addition, more or less, to every single comment that the Shulchan Aruch makes. It's called the Mapa. We mentioned it in a previous episode, right? The Mapa is the tablecloth, which he placed over the set table, in order that the Minhag Ashkenaz, the custom of European Jews, would be recognized, and not just fall by the wayside, in the wake of the great reputation that the Beit Yosef commanded. And ironically, the result was that the Ashkenazim accepted the Shulchan Aruch as an authority, because they assumed that once the Ramah had gone over it and added and corrected, it was now unquestionable.

So in addition to the printing press, it was the very publication of the Mapa which gave the Shulchan Arach its universal power. Well, I say universal, but it was really most of the Ashkenazim that accepted it. Because you might also recall Rav Shlomo Luria, the Maharshal, you keeping all these acronyms straight? He was the Ramah's relative and critic in their fight over the proper role of science in Jewish thought. You can go back to episode 4 to do a little review. Now the Maharshal was the most important amongst the small but vocal group who opposed the Shulchan Aruch upon its publication. And not on essentially cultural grounds like the Ramah, but actually for its basic premise. Rav Luria attacked the underlying assumption that any scholar could create a self-sufficient work that could resolve all halachic disputes.

He said that the nature of language, in particular as you apply it to complex legal questions, is such that no text can ever be completely clear. And therefore what will happen is such a code is just going to complicate things by creating a new text which we're now going to have to divine the intent of and debate over. as he says, it's just impossible that questions and changes won't happen and he goes on to say that basically each commentary is going to necessitate a further commentary which will itself necessitate a further commentary there's no end Maharshal actually points to the Mishnahh's failure to resolve all dispute as in direct opposition to this type of definitive codification that the Shulchan Aruch represents.

And it's worth noting in that light that both the Rambam, who was actually the first to attempt the definitive and final codification of law, and the Beit Yosef actually point to the Mishnahh as the precedent for the work. I think, unbeknownst to him, the Maharajah was already feeling the first rumblings of one of the primary issues post-modernism has with the written word. Because once it's detached from live discourse, it can be read as saying almost anything. And so the Maharajal was committed to the Talmud, the Gemara, as the central factor in halachic decision-making. The central factor, combined with an intense engagement of the scholar. As he says, It is the Gemara which is decisive. And clear proofs will justify themselves and give their own testimony.

And as the Maharajal testifies in his great work, Yom Shel Shlomo, the Sea of Solomon, he would spend days upon days on a single section until his understanding of it reached his satisfaction. And perhaps that's why it was never finished, and certainly never became a foundation for much further discussion. But the Shulchan Aruch did, over the protest of those who fought against it. Nevertheless, in the coming century we will see that it becomes the foundation for all further discussion. And therefore, technical issues aside, and with all due respect to the authorities and the historians, I think it's reasonable to place the transition between the Rishonim, the earlier authorities, and the later authorities, the Echonim, at the Shulchan Aruch, because it's a definitive act of codification that divides between them.

And kind of on an end note, it's worth noting that codification of this type flies in the face of the momentum that we described in a previous episode. And we mentioned even in the beginning of this one, modernity is characterized by the uncoupling of knowledge and tradition. The Shulchan Arach is a monument to tradition as the ultimate source of knowledge and of authority. Tradition properly analyzed and presented, but tradition nonetheless in the Shulchan Arach is the basis of authority. and not only does it fly in the face of the larger cultural momentum which is a problem that we'll spend quite a bit of time with as the enlightenment approaches the Gemara itself warns us someone who writes down the law is as if they burned the Torah and one who learns from that written version receives no reward that's, by the way, in Temura on 14b if you want to look it up meaning that there's something intrinsically problematic about codification on some level, codification is calcification it's a freezing of authority in text about past decisions and I want to end with the words of our master and teacher, Rabbi Avram Nitzchakon Cook that great thinker of the turn of the 20th century he says, I quote And when Israel stands at the highest level, there is power in the hands of the wise to uproot something from the Torah when there is both a proof and a need.

But to the degree the nation has fallen from this state, so the heart is more likely to produce a distorted judgment. This is why episodes of codification, of chatimah, occurred as is written in Isaiah 8.16. bind this warning, seal chatom the Torah amongst my disciples and really this whole discussion takes us back to a further part of the Gemara in Yomah 9b when Rabbi Yochanan says that the fingernails of the former ones of the Rishonim are preferable to the belly of the latter and Reish Lakish says back to him Adarab, on the contrary the latter ones were superior because even though there is subjugation by the kingdoms, they're still engaged in Torah study. You hear the echoes of our question, is it like the Maril who says, I look back and I see that I can't even grasp the thought of those that came before me?

Or is it that the exiles from Spain, or the exiles who made their way to Poland and Ashkenaz, despite the tremendous suffering that they had to overcome, are still learning Torah? Well, if you want to decide between them, the Kamara conveniently goes on. When Rabbi Yochanan says back to Resh Lakish, the temple will prove, as it was restored to the former, it was not restored to the latter. Because, of course, Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish were in the land of Israel in the late 3rd, early 4th centuries. And so it was all well and good to think that despite their suffering, they were succeeding in learning. But the temple had not been rebuilt. however just as we said there was a momentum of what's called Yeridata Dorot that the further we get from Sinai the lower our spiritual level and therefore the less our grasp of Torah nevertheless the further you get from Sinai the closer you get to the Messiah and both Rav Kook's statement about the power of the wise when Israel is at its highest level and Rabbi Yohanan's demand that the final proof that the temple will be the indicator of who is greater, have a clear and potentially explosive implication that the counterforce to codification to the descent of the generations is the coming close of redemption.

And we're going to see that the golden age of Sfat had far more to offer than decisive legal texts. Because there's another figure on our horizon who in his two years in Sfat will revolutionize Jewish mysticism and will send waves out through time that are still rocking our boat. He will bring the power of experience back into play as a legitimate source of authority. But the story of the Holy Arizal will have to wait until next week. I just want to thank a few people. I want to thank the people who give their hard-earned money to help make this show happen, to make it free and make it widely available, and I want to ask you to join them. If you want to know how, you can check out my Rav Mike Foyer on Facebook.

you can send me an email at robmikefoyer at gmail.com or you can go to Patreon, that's www.patreon.com and find my M. Foyer page and hit that button for a little per-podcast support. I want to thank the folks at the Land of Israel Network for giving me a platform to reach so many people across the world. I want to thank the Pardes Institute, that's pardes.org.il for giving me the opportunity to touch the hearts and minds of so many wonderful young Jews. I want to thank Suomiakov, because it's my home, and I want to thank you for listening. I'm Rav Mike Boyer, and this is The Jewish Story.