העורך Editor

We wrote two Hebrew posts on the Mechaber’s opposition to the custom of Kapparos.

The skinny:

I just found Rabbi Meir Mazuz‘s Rosh Hashanah newsletter addressing this. He must have visited this site because I didn’t get it from him (joking!).

He has a different version of the number of editions with the title “Minhag Shtus”. More importantly, he attempts to deny the known fact the headings were written by the author by pointing to the language of one chapter heading referring to the third Shabbos meal as “Shalosh Seudos”, and another to “Birkat Levanah” as “Kiddush Levanah” instead.

My general impression of Rabbi Mazuz is the same as the Brisker Rav’s of the Rogotchover Gaon (from Making of a Godol). Their references, or footnotes, tend to fit into one of three categories:

Could well be \ Absolutely unrelated \ Impossible to refute

Here, our case is that of a clear description, while his examples are of cultural “translation”, or “adaption”.

See you on the other side…

Picture stayed; words changed.

Look around. Several chicken Kapparos services explicitly self-advertise (or even actually fulfill!) self-imposed strictures against Tza’ar Ba’alei Chaim. How did this happen? Who deserves credit? Rabbis? Bah! No, Goyim!

In many respects our history follows the following funny pattern:

1. Hashem teaches us a new Mitzvah.
2. We obey said Mitzvah, rejecting the power and influence of the Goyim.
3. Influenced by the Goyim, this Mitzvah is obeyed less and less.
4. We reject said Mitzvah entirely.
5. No one keeps the Mitzvah.
6. Goyim rediscover the Mitzvah (without – or with mistaken – lacunae) for all the wrong reasons (שלא לשמה), and begin taunting us for being worse than them in this respect. Aren’t you guys the Chosen People?! Etc.
7. We hold out; learning the wrong is easier than learning the right (ילפי מקלקלתא).
8. We break and begin observing the Mitzvah, as copycats.
9. The Goyim lose their appetite fast, so it’s just us again.
10. Rinse and repeat.

(The model is often longer with rabbis justifying rebellion ipso facto, then resisting doing Teshuvah worse than anyone, because “the Heter is real!”, “Don’t be machmir!”, etc.)

So a big thank you to the Goyim who took up our case and thank you, as well, to the renegade Jews who slavishly copied them in insisting we follow “Goyish” morals!

(There are various possible problems with Kapparos, and animal suffering is only one of them.)

יש למצוא כאן.

On the fringes of mainstream Aggadeta, we continually hear the following claim:

The sages of Talmud Yerushalmi were more attuned to true Torah than the sages of Talmud Bavli. Therefore, although in Halacha we follow (at least for now) the Bavli (though even this rule is not as firm as it is thought – Rabbi David bar Chaim), in Aggadeta we ought to prefer Yerushalmi, which is more… fill-in-the-blank (Zionist, feminist, anarchist, intuitive, applicable to our pre-Redemption generation, mystical, etc.). “Chazal” explicitly praised Israeli Chazal and their Talmud in comparison to Diaspora Chazal.

Since this site and I myself travel on the fringes of many topics (and I naturally include some of these claims), I wish to make clear my opinion on the above:

Since many of the sages would travel back and forth between the countries, differentiating between personalities is not so plausible. Rabbi Yochanan was the true leader of both schools. Also, Halacha is the real “meat” of Judaism, so why would the Halacha follow Bavli in disputes between the Talmuds, if it was inferior in even Aggadeta? (By the way, I am not yet convinced in the slightest by the aforementioned Rabbi Bar Chaim). And just because the Bavli sages may have been personally worse in some behavior (e.g., “vicious” debates, whatever that means), it does not follow their Talmud reflects their lackings, to the extent studying Bavli will make you a worse person than studying Yerushalmi.

It may very well be one can find certain points made in Yerushalmi which are more relevant to us, seeing as the Yerushalmi was written during and where… WXYZ. But from that claim to the claim that the Bavli would also wrongly disagree with those insights, the distance is far. Indeed, in Halacha, we say the opposite: Everyone then knew and /or agreed with the stricture against Pilegesh, for instance.

That is, the Yerushalmi may happen to make explicit a conclusion the Bavli omits, but a sufficiently wise scholar could deduce the same detail on his own. Or it may give factual data the Bavli deems less important. We interpret Bavli using Yerushalmi.

In general, even if many of the “Yerushalmi is better” crowd’s claims might be – even are – correct, it is my impression they have hardly begun to prove their case. And prove it they must. Many/most Yerushalmi enthusiasts explicitly rejected these ideas, including (to my memory) Radbaz, Ohr Same’ach, the Rogotchover, Gur, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, etc. Quoting Rabbi Kook once or twice doesn’t suffice. (And I don’t see the method of his Teshuvos differing (much) from classical Bavli Halacha, either.)

And when I say Yerushalmi-supremacists haven’t made their case, I am being very polite…

There’s a test, y’know: If I presented any Machlokes Bavli Yerushalmi in the opposite form, they would still say: Ah, we again see how Yerushalmi is “so much more WXYZ!” Try this for example (unless you remember the facts):

אבנט מכפר על הרהור הלב\אבנט מכפר על הגנבים…

Can you take an oath as to which opinion above was the Yerushalmi’s? I didn’t think so…

Find the answer at the end of this link.

(I delayed making this point for the longest time, hoping to make it perfect, but, spurred by a private letter, I type this up now, since something is better than nothing.)

P.S. Rabbi Maimon (father of Maimonides), quoted in Ritva Yoma 57a says Israeli sages weren’t always better, see HebrewBooks here:

משום דדיירי בארעא דחשוכה אמרי שמעתתא דחשיכן. פי’ הרמב”ם ז”ל בתשו’ שאלה דר’ ירמי’ לטעמי’ דאמר במחשכים הושיבני כמתי עולם זה תלמוד בבלי וטעמא משום דלא נהירי להון טעמי דמתנייתא כהלכה כמה דנהירי לרבנן דא”י. ור’ זירא נמי בעי דלשתכח לי’ טעמיה דבבלאי משום דלא נהירן לי’ בתר דשמע טעמא דמערבאי דמנהגא דעלמא דמדכר איניש טפי מאי דגמר ברישא. מיהו לאו בכל הדורות היו כן אלא בימי רבה ורב יוסף ואביי ורבא דהוו להו שמדות כדאיתא בהשוכר את הפועלים. ואמרי’ נמי בפרק אלו טריפות ערקו רבה ורב יוסף ור’ זירא אמר להו ערוקאי שהיו בורחין מחמת השמדות ואמר להו ר’ זירא שעם כל זאת לא ישכחו דברי התורה ואמרינן בפרק המנחות והנסכים והיו חייך תלואים לך מנגד זה הלוקח תבואה משנה לשנה ואם כך ללוקח תבואה משנה לשנה כ”ש לשמדות שיש בו סכנת נפשות וזהו טעמן של ר’ זירא ור’ ירמי’. אבל אח”כ נתגברה התורה בבבל כ”ש בימי רב אשי דאמרי’ מימות רבי ועד רב אשי לא מצינו תורה וגדולה במקום אחד ע”כ דברי רבינו ז”ל וחיים הם למוצאיהם.

So claiming his own son, the Rambam, forged a new pro-Yerushalmi Halachic method, as Rabbi Bar Chaim says, to explain various puzzling Rambams (while no one else considered this simple explanation, by the way) is now a tiny bit even less likely.