Maseches Shekalim Daf 9

[seekingferret]

Daf 9

Rabban Gamliel, who was Nasi and also just generally incredibly rich, and who was famously so disrespectful that the other sages removed him as Nasi and replaced him with Rabbi Elazar "I am like a man of seventy years" ben Azarya until he apologized to Rabbi Yehoshua... had a special annoying custom involving Chatzi Shekel. See, the whole point of Chatzi Shekel is that everyone's coin, no matter how rich they are, counts equally. Even if they don't actually use your coin to buy sacrifices and it just becomes part of the leftover money used for the maintenance of the Beis Hamikdash, your contribution still earns you equal zechus. Not good enough for Rabban Gamliel. He still needs to get special consideration as a rich and powerful and important person. So when did he give his Chatzi Shekel? He waited until they were withdrawing the money to buy the sacrifices, and he made eye contact with the person withdrawing the money, and then he tossed his coin so it would land on top of the pile and would be clearly his so the person withdrawing would be sure to use his coin to buy sacrifices with. Even though technically it didn't matter, he still had to throw his weight around to get special treatment. Proving that the 1% play by different rules than the rest of us.

Comments

[lannamichaels]

How are these rich folks different from other rich folks? These rich folks pay their taxes as ostentatiously as possible.

[seekingferret]

Ha. There is a defense of Rabban Gamliel that he as a prominent member of the community values not only doing the mitzvah but being conspicuous and public about doing so in order to model behavior for the community. And I think in reviewing all of the Rabban Gamliel stories in the Talmud, there's a lot that's admirable, it's just that he seems like as a person he's kind of A LOT. But I find this one really hard to admire.

[lirazel]

WOW.

[seekingferret]

It's worth reading the whole story of Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Elazar "I am like a man of 70 years" ben Azaryah, it's somewhere in Berachos, and it makes that part of the Haggadah so much funnier... Ah, here it is: https://www.sefaria.org/Berakhot.27b.15?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=bi

[lirazel]

Finally got a chance to read it! The most interesting part to me was when Rabbi Akiva was said to be vulnerable because, as the descendant of converts, he didn't have ancestors to protect him. Also Elazar consulting his wife!

[seekingferret]

Hmm... a few points I should make clear.

First, Gemara is extremely terse both because there's a lot of material to cover and paper was expensive, but also because it's setting down an oral tradition that the Rabbis were reluctant to set down, so they intended for it to be taught in tandem with teachers who would provide context. So when you read a translation, there's often a lot of interpretive effort. An honest translator makes it clear in some way or other when they are glossing rather than translating. In Sefaria's case, one of their tools for that is that the bold text is direct translation and unbold text is gloss.

And you may notice that the bit about Rabbi Akiva being the descendant of converts is not bold. There is in fact a tradition that R' Akiva was the descendant of converts, which the Sefaria interpreter (R' Steinsaltz and his translators) is accepting, and there's another tradition that he's the descendant of poor Israelites who did not study Torah or observe all of its laws. Either way, the basic gist of the Gemara's point that he would not have the merit of the mitzvot of his ancestors to protect him is the same, but there are different nuances.

There's also basic weirdness to the modern ear, of course, in the whole matter of curses. This sort of ancestor worship and magical thinking is broadly prohibited by the Torah, but at the same time it was clearly widespread in the ancient world and so at various points in the Talmud the Rabbis struggle to define the limits of acceptable magic and prohibited magic, as well as the limits of magic that actually works vs. magic that common people just say works, but it doesn't actually. This poses a lot of problems for post-Talmudic commentary. How do we read the threat of Rabban Gamliel's curse? Is it prohibited magic that they are worried that Rabban Gamliel, in a state of anger, will invoke? This is difficult, because Rabban Gamliel is still considered a major halachic and moral authority so it's hard to say that we believe he would violate a major issur d'oraysa like that, even in anger. Or is putting a curse on your successor somehow permitted magic? On what basis?


Also, the whole dynamic between Rabbis and their wives in the Talmud in a thing one could write book upon book about... And actually Sefaria just added such a book to its collection, which I've been fascinatedly reading on and off since it was added. Judith Hauptman's Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voice.