Right Wing Republicans have been annoying me for decades, but one thing I have found especially annoying is their present drive to use bogus claims of religious freedom to get their way. Indeed, SCOTUS is now considering whether the First Amendment's provision that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" somehow allows employers - even corporate employers - to impose their religious scruples upon their employees. Others assert that employers and business owners should be able to refuse to employ or serve LGBT's, again, in pursuit of their claim of religious freedom.
Those of us who attended Passover sedars Monday and/or Tuesday night and who used traditional Haggadahs read two sentences that on the surface seem unremarkable and even irrelevant, but, when, these two sentences are examined in depth, they provide a powerful statement of what religious freedom really means. To find out more, join me below the orange squiggly.
In my D'var Torah diary of last week, I discussed Rabbi Tarfon, who unsuccessfully argued that we should drink five cups of wine at the Passover sedar - he lost the argument and we drink only four. In the Passover Haggadah, we encounter Rabbi Tarfon and his colleagues in a strange passage:
It is told that Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Elazar ben (son of) Azariah, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Tarfon sat all night in Bene-Berak telling the story of the departure from Egypt. Towards morning, their students came and told them "Our rabbis - it is time for the morning prayers."
This does not seem like such an unusual story. We can imagine pious rabbis becoming so engrossed in telling the story of the Exodus that they unwitting pull an all-nighter, oblivious that the sun is about to come up. We can imagine a sedar such as this in Vilna in 1900, or in Brooklyn in 2000.
Oddly, these are the only two sentences of the Haggadah that are not copied from the Talmud or the Bible. But there is this statement in the Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 40b:
Rabbi Tarfon and the Elders were once reclining in the upper story of Nithza's house, in Lydda, when this question was raised before them: Is study greater, or practice? Rabbi Tarfon answered, saying: Practice is greater. Rabbi Akiva answered, saying: Study is greater, for it leads to practice. Then they all answered and said: Study is greater, for it leads to action.
One thing odd about both of these passages is the location. Lydda is the present day Lod, site of Ben Gurion International Airport, just east of Tel Aviv. Bene Berak is adjacent to the modern day airport. So these may have been two gatherings in close proximity to one another in both location and in time, or the two texts may have been referring to the same gathering of rabbis. Not long after the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the Romans began to allow the Jews to visit the burned out ruins of Jerusalem and its Temple, and every year most if not all of the rabbis would go to Jerusalem and join together for their sedar. So why wasn't this sedar in Jerusalem? The post-Talmudic commentators have offered two explanations:
The first explanation is this gathering of the rabbis, and their refusal to spend Passover in Jerusalem, may have occurred on the eve of the Bar Kokhba Revolt during Passover in 130 when the Emperor Hadrian visited Jerusalem and announced plans to build a temple to the god Jupiter on the site of the ruins of the Holy Temple, or during Passover in 131, when the ground breaking ceremony for the pagan temple occurred. The rabbis had unanimously opposed the first rebellion of 67 to 70 - they recognized that taking on the mighty Roman Empire would be hopeless, but this time, while some of the rabbis counseled for peace, many of them, incensed over the desecration of the Temple ruins, felt they had no choice but to launch a second war. This was the "action" that the rabbis spoke of - the launching of the Second great rebellion against Rome.
But the second and more likely explanation was that this sedar of rabbis occurred at the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt, during Passover 136, 137 or 138. After crushing the revolt, Hadrian did his utmost to wipe out the Jewish faith. He made it a crime to practice the Jewish faith or to study Torah, and his legions murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews who attempted to do so. Hadrian's goons raided the rabbinical academies, rounding up the rabbis and murdering all unlucky enough to be captured. And Hadrian might well have succeeded in wiping out the Jewish faith - so intense was the religious persecution, had not he mercifully died in 138. The Babylonian Talmud, Berakot 61b, tells the story of the capture and murder of the greatest rabbi of that generation, Rabbi Akiva, one of the rabbis attending that sedar in Bene Barak or Lod:
Our Rabbis taught: Once the wicked Government [Rome] issued a decree forbidding the Jews to study and practice the Torah. Pappus ben [son of] Judah came and found Rabbi Akiva publicly bringing gatherings together and occupying himself with the Torah. He said to him: Akiva, are you not afraid of the Government? He replied: I will explain to you with a parable. A fox was once walking alongside of a river, and he saw fishes going in swarms from one place to another. He said to them: From what are you fleeing? They replied: From the nets cast for us by men. He said to them: Would you like to come up on to the dry land so that you and I can live together in the way that my ancestors lived with your ancestors? They replied: Are you the one that they call the cleverest of animals? You are not clever but foolish. If we are afraid in the element in which we live, how much more in the element in which we would die! So it is with us. If such is our condition when we sit and study the Torah, of which it is written, "For that is you life and the length of thy days," [Deuteronomy 30:20] if we go and neglect it how much worse off we shall be!
It is related that soon afterwards Rabbi Akiva was arrested and thrown into prison, and Pappus ben Judah was also arrested and imprisoned next to him. He said to him: Pappus, who brought you here? He replied: Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, that you have been seized for busying yourself with the Torah! Alas for Pappus who has been seized for busying himself with idle things! When Rabbi Akiba was taken out for execution, it was the hour for the recital of the Shema [Deuteronomy 6: 4-9], and while they combed his flesh with iron combs, he was accepting upon himself the kingship of heaven [reciting the Shema]. His disciples said to him: Our teacher, even to this point? He said to them: All my days I have been troubled by this verse, 'with all your soul', which I interpret, 'even if He takes my soul'. I said: When shall I have the opportunity of fulfilling this? Now that I have the opportunity shall I not fulfill it? He prolonged the word ehad [One] until he expired while saying it. A Voice from Heaven went forth and proclaimed: Happy are you, Akiva, that your soul has departed with the word ehad!
But back to that sedar in Bene Barak or Lod. Why were they meeting in an upper story - an attic? They were hiding from Hadrian's goons. And why did their students need to tell them it was morning? Couldn't they see that for themselves? Their students were telling them it was now daylight and it was dangerous for all you rabbis to be gathered together - Roman soldiers were likely patrolling the streets looking for these same rabbis! But what was the "action" the rabbis were speaking of?
Back to Rabbi Tarfon, who elsewhere in the Talmud answers that question. He is quoted as saying that one who performs a religious obligation out of compulsion is more righteous than one who does so voluntarily. On first blush, this makes no sense. Is Rabbi Tarfon saying that one who pays his income taxes grudgingly and out of compulsion is a better person that one who not only pays his income taxes, but donates time and money to food kitchens and homeless shelters? Couldn't Rabbi Tarfon handle those five cups of wine he argued should be drunk at the Passover sedar? This is what he meant. In times of religious persecution, such as what the Jews were then suffering - 135 to 138 - one performs a greater deed by asserting his or her Jewish faith in the face of persecution than one who does so only when it is safe to do so, for the former is under a sense of obligation, the latter is not.
Lets hope and pray that these reports from eastern Ukraine of Jews being forced to register are false. That would be real religious persecution - not the imagined ravings we hear from the religious right.
Shabbat Shalom and a Happy Passover, as well as a Happy Easter, to all who observe these holidays.