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The Thinking Talmudist Podcast shares select teachings of Talmud in a fresh, insightful and meaningful way. Many claim that they cannot learn Talmud because it is in ancient Aramaic or the concepts are too difficult. Well, no more excuses. In this podcast you will experience the refreshing and eye-opening teachings while gaining an amazing appreciation for the divine wisdom of the Torah and the depths of the Talmud.
Every week a new, deep, and inspiring piece of brilliance will be selected from the Talmud for discussion by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH (Houston, Texas).
This Podcast Series is Generously Underwritten by David & Susan Marbin
00:00 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Thinking Talmudist podcast.
00:13 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody. Welcome back to the Thinking Talmudist. It's been some time. It's so exciting to be here. I want to welcome all of you, those of you who are online watching us on Facebook, youtube, twitter, twitch and all the other Rumble, all of the other platforms and those of you on Zoom. Those of you here alive in the brand new Torch Center. Welcome. This is our first class back in the new Torch Center. It is wonderful to be here. Hopefully you'll be very comfortable for everyone to learn and to grow and to connect. We hope to finish the rest of the construction, hopefully within the next couple of days, of course, after Shabbos.
00:55
Just a quick reminder that on Monday night we have a guest speaker, ken Spiro, who is a world-renowned author, lecturer and historian. Great, great, great presentation. He's going to be talking about, basically, why the Jews, why the Jews and the whole history of our existence as being always at the center of the world's attention, at the edge of the world that we're at right now. It's just so chaotic and so crazy, and he's going to talk more about that. So I welcome all of you to the New Torch Center and I look forward to seeing everyone Monday evening 7.30, right here in this plaza at the first space. It's the new event space and it's going to be, hopefully, um, a great, great presentation. I look forward to seeing everyone.
01:49
We are now going to continue the talmud that we have been studying for so many, so many fridays and we're not done yet. The talmud is talking about honoring our parents properly and what is the right way to do so. Also, we talked about what is the appropriate responsibility of a parent to their child, and now we are at the bottom of 31B in Tractate Kedushin. So there are two separate biblical mitzvahs incumbent on a child the obligation to honor his parents and the obligation to revere them. We spoke about this previously. It says Honor your father and mother and additionally it says Fear your mother or revere your mother and father.
02:42
So our sages teach us here in the Talmud, the rabbis taught on the B'raiso what is proper reverence for one's parent and what is proper honor for one's parent. Reverence means that one not stand in his father's place and one not sit in his father's place and one not sit in his father's place Ve lo sozer, zavar v'lo machria. Nor does he contradict his father's words and he may not offer an opinion on a halachic debate to which his father is a party. This is also, by the way, what the halacha tells us regarding a rabbi. If someone asks a question of your rabbi, you can't interject and say, oh well, halacha says this, or halacha says that, you have the rabbi right here. You don't intercede before the rabbi, you don't talk. Now, if the rabbi asks you to talk, then you do. If the rabbi does not, then you absolutely do not.
03:51
That is the proper reverence and honor, particularly the father. If the father is having a conversation and I actually remember this happening to me when I was a child my father was having a conversation with one of his friends and I, as a little chutzpah kid, opened my mouth giving my opinion. My father later corrected me and he explained that this is what the Torah says you're not allowed to do when it talks about revering your father. You're not supposed to interject while he is giving his opinion. While he is talking, you don't you just, even if he's wrong, by the way, allah says even if he's wrong, you don't correct your father.
04:33
That's not honor. It's not the proper honor that should be displayed to a parent. So what is so? That is reverence, what is? Or fear. But what is honor? What is proper honor, kibud machil umashke? Honor means that one must give his father food and drink. Father meaning the parents, okay, the giving food and drink, malbish umichase machnis umish u'mechase machnis u'motzi, that he dresses and covers his father and he brings him and takes him out, helps him, guides him, and this we can imagine at an elderly age. That's the responsibility of a child. Yeah, to dress his father and to you know, tying his shoes. You, yeah, to dress his father and to you know, tying his shoes. You don't have to be elderly for that, but at any age, that's a mitzvah that one should properly honor their father. To bring them their food, serve them dinner, bring them their drink. They walk into the house, do you want something to drink? That's proper honor of one's parents.
05:44
Now, the previous Rises stated that a child must supply the parents with food and drink. The Gemara now seeks clarification. I'll tell you an amazing story. Okay, but after this Gemara, they inquired from whose assets are the needs of the parents provided, meaning, who pays for that food? You have to serve your parents with food, with drink, but who pays for that food and drink? Is that also your responsibility as a child, or does that come from the parents, that the parents are the ones that need to pay for the food that you're going to serve them, meaning the honor is the honor of feeding them, but not per se spending the money to feed them. So the Gemara presents a dispute on this matter.
06:32
Rehudah Omer Rehudah says Mishal ben, it's from the father sorry, from the son that the son is the one that needs to pay for the food. Reb Nosson, bar Oshia Omer. Reb Nosson, the son of Oshia, says Mishel Av, the father needs to pay. The parents are obligated to pay the expenditure of feeding them. It means the child doesn't have to dig into his own bank account to pay for the food for the father, the father themselves.
07:00
According to the second opinion. Now we know the rule in the Talmud the last opinion is always the halachic opinion. Okay, when there's an argument, oh, the one that we follow in halacha is the last opinion. Alright, what's the last opinion here? That it says from the father, the ruling is issued. O rulei rabbonon l'rabi Yirmiyav, amulei Levrei, the Rav Yirmiyav Rabbis rendered a decision to Rav Yirmiyav, and some say it was to Rav Yirmiyav's son, kemand Omar Mishal Av. That we follow and we go, according to the opinion that said that it comes from the father's assets, that it's the father's expense and that's the way we rule.
07:46
Now I want to tell you the story. The story happened way back in Europe. One of the students in one of the famous yeshivas, his parents, moved to Israel, to Palestine, whatever you want to call it, whatever the British mandate, that's where his parents made Aliyah from Europe, and the parents really wanted their son to come visit. So the son knew this Talmud and the son says no problem, send me a train ticket and I'll come. So the parents said no. So the student went to the rabbi and he says to his rabbi what should I do? My parents want me to travel to them to visit them, but the Gemara tells us that the parents are obligated to pay the expenditures of honoring them. So the parents should pay. The parents don't want to pay, I'm not obligated to go. He says if your parents don't send you a ticket, then you're not obligated to pay for the train ride. So start walking. Okay, that means yeah, indeed, the parents do not have to. The parents do not have to pay for that, but that doesn't obligate you, that doesn't take away your obligation of honoring them. Okay, so start walking. There's no expense to that, okay. So now the, the, the, the. The. The Gemara now challenges this rule. Meisevei, they challenge this from a Brayisah. Ne'amar kabedis avichavei simecho.
09:30
The verse states in the Torah honor your father and mother, ve'ne'amar kabedis Hashem mehoncho. It states elsewhere honor Hashem from your fortune. From the similar formulation of these two verses it can be inferred that, just as there, when we refer to honoring God, it involves a loss of my own money. Meaning Hashem says honor me from your wealth, from your fortune. Af kan bechesron kis. Also here, honoring one's parents involves a loss of money. And if you say that the father's assets are the ones that pays for the honor that you're going to bestow upon him, what is the difference to the son? Why does it say honor Hashem from your wealth? But when it says honor your father and mother, that should come from their wealth? That doesn't make any sense. Should have the same rules apply. Just like you honor Hashem from your own, it should be honoring your parents from your own.
10:42
So the Gemara answers a son could lose money because of the disruption of his work, okay. And if the son loses money, as the commentary says, although one might not be required to spend money to honor his parents, the mitzvahs, could still result in a financial loss, since he must, at times, interrupt his work to care for them that they don't pay for, right, so, although in a financial loss, since he must, at times, interrupt his work to care for them that they don't pay for. So, although the food that you will feed them, the shelter that you will provide for them, that they need to pay for, but the expenditure of the wage losses loss of work, because now you're not at your job, you're taking care of your parents that comes out of your own. The Gemara offers a proof. Come learn the answer from a different B'ai. So, brothers, or two partners, a father and a son, or a teacher and his disciple, they may all redeem produce for each other.
11:55
Okay, and this, as we know, produce grown in the land of israel must be tithed during the first, second, fourth and fifth years of every seven-year Shemitah cycle. One must separate Maser She'ni from his crops, which is the second tithe. The Maser She'ni produce must either be eaten in Jerusalem or redeemed with money that is taken there to Jerusalem and purchased over there for food, there to Jerusalem and purchased over there for food. If it is redeemed by the owner himself, he must add a 25% surcharge to the price of the produce. If another person redeems it, he does not add any surcharge, meaning you save money if someone else does it for you. The Brisa teaches that even if the redeemer is closely related to the owner of the produce, he does not have to add a surcharge. For example, we do not say that, since a son loves his father and normally supplies his food, redeeming his father's produce would be tantamount to redeeming produce of his own and would require a surcharge. No, if you do it for someone else, only if you do it for yourself you have to add the surcharge, but if you do it for someone else, you're not obligated.
13:13
So now the Talmud says and they may feed each other, sorry, the different tithe, the tithe of the poor, which is on the third and sixth year Shemitah cycle V'i, amris Mishel Ben. And if you say that the father supported from the son's assets, from the son's assets, then how may the son give the Ma'aser Ani to his father? Nim tzazeh po rea chovo Mishel Aniim? This son will be found to be paying his personal debt out of the funds that should be going to the poor Because he's giving it to his father. So it's like you're getting rid of your obligation to tithe to give it to your father. That doesn't right. So the gemara refutes this proof. No, the b'raisa is needed to teach that the father's excess needs, the father's excess needs, may use Masr Ani. Okay, so if the father needs more that you may use Masr Ani, but the ordinary amount that cannot come from it. If so that the B'raisa is referring to the father's extra requirements, the following statement, which was taught to elaborate on the Bryce, it's difficult Amr Aviyudah said.
14:52
Aviyudah said that a curse should befall one who feeds his father Masa'ani. If you feed your father, the tithe of the poor. A curse should befall one who feeds his father Masa'ani. If you feed your father, the tithe of the poor. A curse should befall such a person. But if the b'risu refers to excess needs, what difference is there if he gives it to his father when he qualifies for it? The Gemara replies I feel a hockey zila be'milso. Nevertheless, it is a disgraceful thing to use Maser, which is the tithe, for the needs of one's own father. Use it from your own personal. You don't give your charity money to your father, you give your own personal money to your father. It's disgraceful.
15:33
So the Gemara makes another attempt to prove whose assets are used to provide the father's needs. Tashma, come and let's learn from Rabbi so Sha'a Luz, rebbe Lezer they asked Rebbe Lezer, ad heichon, kibid haveim, to what extent is one obligated to honor his father and mother? Amal lehen kidei litol arnaki vi zirkenu layam bifano ve'inu machlimo? To the point that if the father takes a wallet and throws it into the sea in his son's presence, the son will not embarrass his father. But if you say that only the father's assets need to be used to provide his needs, here it's the son's wallet that the father just threw into the ocean and the son is not allowed to embarrass his father. So we see that it is coming from the son's assets, right, we understand. So in that case, okay. So the Gemara now refutes the proof.
16:36
The roi liyoshom, the b'ris, refers to the potential heir who is adversely affected by any loss incurred by his father. The Gemara records such an observance of honoring the father. It was a similar story that occurred to rabba bar Rav Huna, rabba, the son of Rav Huna. Rav Huna once tore expensive silks in the presence of rabba, his son saying to himself let me see if my son gets angry that I'm destroying these expensive silks or not.
17:24
The Gemara questions are we know the Torah tells us a biblical commandment, a prohibition You're not allowed to put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. If you're going to make your son get angry, then you're putting a stumbling block in front of a blind person. So how can you do that? How can you put this stumbling block in front of your son? See, he says the Gemara answer is meaning he says you know what I am foregoing the chutzpah that perhaps, potentially, my son will display in my action.
18:17
But now there's another question what's about destroying? Perfectly good? Recycling is a. If you're able to recycle, you're obligated to recycle, because the Torah says you're not allowed to waste waste is very disliked by the Almighty Any kind of waste. So what happens if a person takes perfectly fine, expensive silks and just tears them up, right, forget about the son getting upset or not. How can the father do that? You're wasting something which is perfectly good. You can't do that. It's a biblical prohibition.
19:11
Oh, so now the Gemara says the Ovid lay vipum bione. He tore it along the seams so it could be restitched, meaning he just did it to test his son to see whether or not there was proper honor. He says I'm going to forego my honor so that if my son blows up and gets all angry, why are you tearing that? It's not going to be a lack of honor and it's not going to be a putting a stumbling block in front of the blind, a lack of honor. And it's not going to be a putting a stumbling block in front of the blind. Additionally, how can you?
19:42
The Gemara asks, how can he destroy something which is perfectly fine? Gemara answers no, he tore it along the seam and it could just be restitched. The Gemara now objects v'dilma mishumach, ila rasach. Maybe that's the reason he didn't get angry, because he saw that you tore it on the seam. He saw that you tore it on the seam. He's like okay, no big deal, we can always reattach it. So that's why he didn't get angry. So maybe your test didn't prove anything. So the Gemara answers he did it at a time that his son was angry already. You know, sometimes someone is a little bit infuriated, someone's angry, someone is mad. So then anything you do only adds to the madness. Right here he was displaying his humility because he didn't get angry. Okay, so this is the Gemara here now concludes this idea. So let's understand this and summarize this quickly Every child is obligated to honor their father and mother.
20:56
We're also obligated to revere them, which means, in different words, to fear them. How do we do that? We do that by we revere them, not sitting in their seat, not standing in their place, not interrupting their conversation, honoring them. We honor them by dressing them, by clothing them, by caring for them, by giving them to eat and drink. Now, at whose expense? It comes at the parents' expense. It comes at the parents' expense, right? The parents cannot say. The parents cannot say that, um, it's, um, I want you to come visit me and I'm not paying for the ticket. Now, if the child can, okay, great, but if the child can't, you can't obligate the child to put out his own money for it.
21:58
They say there, there's a story. I don't know if it's true, but a man and his wife married off their children. They wanted their children to come for Pesach to be with them. They had children in different cities, they had children in different countries. They wanted all their children to be around them, but they couldn't afford to bring everybody in. So the father came up with a scheme. He says I can tell my children I think I'm going to die, right. So they all flew in the next day and he says okay, now you're all here. Good, yontif, you know, it's like you know, but that's not. That's not funny.
22:35
We should be very, very careful to never, ever, say such a thing. This is something we talked about previously that a person should be very, very careful in the words that they use, very, very, very careful. Don't give an opening to the Satan. Don't give an opening for the Satan to take your words and bend it the wrong way. I'll tell you my father I shared this story before. My father had someone who lived in his community when he grew up, who was a very you know, it was like one of those you know go leave the house at six o'clock in the morning. He'd be on the train at 610, everything was calculated be at the office at a specific hour. He'd leave at a specific, very german-like, uh, organized in his schedule, not like me either way. So the um, one day he goes to the train and he comes back I guess he had like a stomach virus goes and he comes back goes and his wife's like what's going on? Says it's okay, I wasn't feeling so well, but now, this time I'm leaving, I'm not coming back. And indeed he was in an accident and he died, never came back. You have to be very careful about the words we use. Very. It's like sometimes, when people leave on a trip, they're going and traveling someplace. Okay, this is the last time I'm going to see you. What you mean to say is, before I leave on this trip, right, be very careful to not give an opening to the Yetzirah.
24:09
I was on a phone conversation yesterday with a company that I was just dealing with them on a certain rebate that they were supposed to send me. They never sent it. So I asked them, I called up and I said what's going on? They said you know, sorry, it was a glitch in our system. Everything is here. You sent in all the documentation. Everything is verified. I don't know why, but I said look, I have no problem, I don't want to call another 20 times. So the person says no, no, this is the last phone call you'll get. I said duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Be very careful From you perhaps. Okay, and I qualified what you were saying right, I don't want this to be my last phone call ever, but I think it's very important for us to have a consciousness to the words we use, because they have power, tremendous, tremendous power.
25:02
We see this also in the Torah. We see this in the words of the prophets. Be very, very careful with your words. It's important to take them seriously, because they have a very serious power. Okay, we're going to continue now.
25:23
Okay, we're going to continue a little further in the Talmud, in the bottom of 32a, the Talmud now gives another halachic ruling concerning the obligation of honoring one's parents. Elazer ben Masya, omer. Elazer, the son of Masya, says Abba Omer, if your father says give me a drink of water and at the same time the child has a mitzvah to do a different mitzvah, I leave the mitzvah honoring the father and do the other mitzvah. For example, someone has to the father says give me a drink. You're about to get him a drink and someone knocks on the door for charity. Now, the mitzvah of charity, everybody's obligated. Me and the father are obligated. So in that case, that mitzvah comes first, but the mitzvah of honoring your father only I'm obligated in Understand. So that's what the Gemara says.
26:35
A dissenting view. Of course you didn't think that the Talmud would get away with that so easily, right, of course, why? Why do we have this conversation? Let's just go back to the principle, the fundamental principle here, of Talmud. What is the purpose of Talmud? The Rambam Hopefully next week we'll have our full bookshelves here. Everything is so we'll be able to pull it right out and read from inside the Rambam.
27:04
But the Rambam says in his introduction to the Yisod HaTorah, the foundations of the Torah. He writes that every single sage, all the way from Moses at Mount Sinai, even before Moses, abraham, you know, Abraham authored a book. Abraham authored a book, right, it's called Sefer HaYitzirah, the Book of Creation and Isaac and Jacob. That book is available today, authored by Abraham, our patriarch we have. We're people of the book, right?
27:38
Rambam says that those notebooks that Moses, everything he taught to Joshua, to Aaron and his children and to all of the great sages of that generation, everyone wrote their notes of every, copious notes of everything that Moshe taught them. And then they taught to their students and the notes were handed down from generation to generation. That's what we know of today as the oral Torah. It was orally transmitted, privately written, but it was never formulated into a single document, till Rebbe Yehuda Anassi, judah the Prince, the great leader of the Jewish people, wrote it into a Mishnah. The Mishnah was formulated by a collection of all of those notebooks and then later expanded on in the Talmud.
28:29
So we have to understand that there's a very, very human conversation that goes on in every piece of Talmud Very human. It's very important for us to recognize that the Torah is not a black and white document. We know it's written black letters on white parchment, but the laws of the Torah are very, very, very unique in that everything depends on circumstance and we can have differing opinions. The differing opinions, by the way, don't make you right and me wrong or me right and you wrong. They can both be right. In fact, we see this in the Talmud.
29:16
The Talmud in Tractate gets and maybe we can do this the next Talmud. But Tractate says well, who's right? You say this and you say that? Who's right? You know what the Talmud says Eilu ve'eilu div'eilu kimchaim. Both of them are the words of God, and Both of them are the words of God. And we're like what? What does that mean? What does it mean? They're both the words of God, the fact that we follow and conduct our lives based on one opinion doesn't mean that the other is wrong. It's just we don't follow that opinion Because everyone can have proof to their side. It still doesn't mean that they're right. Yes, right. So the right right, all right, right so.
30:00
Very good question, very good gary, that many times the talmud says teku, we don't know the answer, we don't know, but you, there it's, it's a handful of times in the Talmud, but they're all inconsequential. That means they're all theoretical disagreements when it comes to actually practicing meaning. One of the famous ones is what our children start studying Talmud. On the first page of Talmud that every single child starts learning Talmud is 21a in tractate Bava Mitzia.
30:40
Bava Mitzia is the tractate that talks about finding a lost object. You find something which is lost. Who do you return it to? The mitzvah and the Torah right that you shall return a lost object. So someone loses something. You have a mitzvah to return it to them. Give it back to them.
31:01
So now the talmud says the mishnah says that if you found a certain quantity let's say a pound in eight feet, so let's say you found fruits, and it's, let's say, a pound in eight feet, so let's say you found fruits and it's a pound of fruits spread over eight feet. So that is something that's enough that the owner is not going to give up hope. It's going to say, listen, it's a lot, of, it's expensive fruit, I'm going to look for it and I'll find it. But if it's spread out in more than eight feet or if it's less than a pound, I'm just giving the you know, not exact, that's not the exact, but that's the idea of what the Talmud is saying Kav ba'ar, ba'amos, right.
31:43
So in that case, if it's spread out more, for example, imagine someone has a bunch of tools. Tools can be very expensive, but the back of his pickup truck opened up and all of his tools went all over the highway. Is that person going to come back and collect all the tools? It's going to cut his losses. It's going to say you know what? I'm never going to get those tools, I'll just go buy new ones. Yeah, it's expensive, but I'll go buy new ones. So you go and you collect those pieces. You do not have to return that. But what happens if the tool bag fell out onto the side of the road? It's all still in the bag, very valuable, all the tools that are inside it. It didn't spread out all over the place. He's going to try to look for it. He's going to try to come back. Maybe I'll go around, take the exit, come back around and pick it up. Okay, that's a different. So now what the Talmud over there says is that what happens if it's not one pound in eight feet? What's if it's a half a pound in four feet? Do we say that it's the area, or do we say it's the value of fruit in that area and that's inconsequential, right, but it's giving.
32:59
So why do the kids start learning this First time they study is this? So the first thing is because they learn the sensitivity to other people's property. The Torah is so careful that if someone else loses something, they're missing it. Do you know how maddening it is? I was looking for a cable. Because of all the moving of the desks and everything, I was missing a cable. I was here for an hour looking for this cable. Today, when you're missing something, you go crazy, like where's that thing? I can't teach the class for this cable today. When you're missing something, you go crazy, like where's that thing? I can't teach the class without this cable. Maddening when someone is missing something, when someone loses. You lose your keys, like, where are my keys? You're running all around the house trying to find your keys. You can't find your keys.
33:47
Very important to understand the sensitivity to someone else. There's another thing. The Torah is teaching us a sensitivity that everything is valuable. Everything has value. It may not be valuable to you, but it's valuable to them. To return an object that someone else loses it's a mitzvah in the Torah. But the Talmud is teaching to return an object that someone else loses it's a mitzvah in the Torah. But the Talmud is teaching them another thing and that is teku. That's the way the Talmud ends at the end.
34:27
We don't know. Why is that important for children to know that? Because we don't only do things, because we know the meaning and the reasons behind it. If we only observe things that we understand, we might not observe anything. But what does the Torah tell us? The Torah tells us you know what? There are 39 laws of Shabbat. 39 laws of Shabbat. Do you understand all of them? No, that doesn't mean you don't observe them. The Torah says and, by the way, big mistake, big, huge mistake of Fiddler on the Roof. What did he say? Why do we do this? I don't know, but it's a tradition, right? That's not why we do things. We don't do things because it's tradition. We don't do things because it's tradition. We do things because God commanded us in His beautiful Torah to do it. That is the correct answer.
35:14
Now, if you want to have more meaning, more connection, more understanding, there are books and books and books explaining the meaning and the background to every single mitzvah, giving the secrets. That doesn't mean that we actually have a clarity to that specific mitzvah Just a little insight, just a little touch for us to understand a little bit perhaps of what's going on. And that's the secret, the secret of every line of Talmud that we study. When we study Talmud, what we're doing is we study Talmud. What we're doing is we're asking questions, we're giving answers, we're refuting those answers, we're coming up with proofs to those answers.
36:00
And that doesn't mean that it's a problem. There's no problem with that. On the contrary, our desire in our studies is to know the truth, because Hashem is truth, and that's what we seek. We seek truth and therefore what we're trying to do, even if we need to ask questions, a lot of questions we're seeking truth. Questions are not allowed in Judaism. Questions are demanded in Judaism. Questions are demanded in Judaism. They are required in Judaism. That's our obligation to never stop seeking the truth. That's our study. So, my dear friends, god willing, next week we will continue with this Talmud explaining to us more about our journey in honoring our parents properly. Welcome back to the Torch Center. I look forward to having all of our programs back up and running this week. We're starting some new stuff as well, so I'm looking forward to that and look out for it. It'll be in your inbox, it'll be on our website, and I'm looking forward to learning much, much more in our beautiful new Torch Center. Thank you for joining us and, my dear friends, have a great Shabbos!
37:15 - Intro (Announcement)
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