Importance of Agreement | कराराचे महत्त्व

Shall henceforth in this Talmudic commentary shall refer to the Rambam and Karo by the cartoon character names of Boris Badenov & Natasha Fatale, the main villains in the Bullwinkle Show which aired during my childhood years. The interplay between Boris and Natasha serves to add a comedic touch to the study of Talmudic common law.

The issue at hand. How the halacha of the Rambam פ”א מעשר שני – ה, ופ”ד מהל’ שמיטה ויובל – ב how they tie into the Gemara of :קידושין גף ב עמוד ב דכתיב

מפני שדרכו של איש לחזר על אשה ואין דרכה של אשה לחזר על איש. משל לאדם שאבדה לו אבידה, מי חוזר על מי? בעל אבידה מחזר הא קמ”ל
(Stare decisis\הא קמ”ל – a legal principle that dictates that courts should follow precedents set in previous rulings when making their decisions in similar בניני אבות cases. This principle ensures consistency and predictability in the law, as it obligates judges to adhere to established judicial decisions unless there is a compelling reason to overturn them).

דדרכא דמיכלא יתירא לאתויי דידי זיבה ודרכא דמישתיא יתירא לאתויי לידי זיבה

Our Gemara jumps into Aramaic language. The usage of Aramaic in the Gemara serves various purposes beyond just the introduction of mystical ideas. Aramaic thrived as the spoken language of the Jewish people during the time the Talmud compilation. Using Aramaic made the text more accessible to its contemporary audience. Aramaic allows for nuanced legal discussions, otherwise cumbersome in Hebrew. It provides clarity in complex legal arguments and discussions.

The switch often signals a transition to a new topic, idea, or type of discussion within the text, often indicating a change in focus. While not every Aramaic phrase indicates a mystical idea, texts like the Reshon Zohar (written in Aramaic). Sections of the Talmud seem to express deeper philosophical and mystical themes through the medium of Aramaic. The Aramaic phrases serve to highlight these special רמז, סוד elements של פרדס. The use of Aramaic likewise preserves cultural and historical identity; it connects the Talmudic text to the broader Jewish experience during the Second Temple period Book of Daniel lifting the curtain exposing times under Persian and Greek over-lords. The pre-New Testament Hashmonaim dynasty had left the exceptionally bitter taste in the mouths of the Tannaim rabbis.

Who and what shapes the Cohen chosen people identity? This question dominates the Framers of the Talmud. Religion does not determine national identity – not by a long shot. The cultural diversity of the Jewish people, simply burst the ethical containment force of religion at its seams. But building this national “ethical containment force”, most essentially defines prophetic mussar and Talmudic halacha precedents – employed to make a משנה תורה re-evaluation of the k’vanna of the language of the Mishna through T’NaCH prophetic mussar precedents.

It appears to me, that our villain Boris ruptured the Jewish “ethical containment force” when he published his Yad in 1185. Alas the leadership of Rabbeinu Tam had just recently past. Rabbeinu Yonah repeated the error made by the two brothers Hamonaim. Just as they requested Rome’s intervention to resolve their dynastic dispute, Rabbeinu Yonah asked Rome and the king of France for their permission to destroy the writings of the Rambam as heretical. Judea lost its National independence without a whimper and the Father of Nazism-church made a festival book burning, of all the hand-written Talmudic manuscripts in Paris 1242.

Post Shoah Jewish survivors swore a Torah oath: NEVER AGAIN; no Goyim courtroom shall presume that it possess the merit or the worth to judge the Jewish people. Hitler and his Nazi followers – attempted Shoah. But succeeded in exposing religion – both Xtian and Muslim – as utterly bankrupt. The Talmud does not teach not religion nor theology. These av tuma spirits – they define avoda zara; they do not shape the containment force which shapes and defines Jewish identity as Cohen people.

The switch to Aramaic in the Talmud serves as a tool for clarity, transition, and connection to contemporary experiences of the Jewish community. It’s a multifaceted approach that contributes to both the practical and mystical dimensions of Jewish law and thought.

לאתויי דידי unto להביא אותי) — זיבה unto tuma). A term in Jewish law that refers to a specific state of ritual tuma consequent to breathing “tuma” spirits from within ones’ Yatzir Ha’Raw. Physically associated with bodily discharges; these spirits often produce violent explosions of Human anger and hatred. A trained eye can perceive subtle emotional destabilizations which often exude from the body. When a woman, for example, experiences menstruation, quite often her emotional state fluctuates. But men equally menstruate in their own ways. Emotional maturity does not come simply as the result of a Bar Mitzva party.

Indian Brahman star-gazers search the Heavens for signs of what the future foretells. Talmud trains the eye of man to observe both himself and his people for signs which reveals tohor or tuma middot, wherein the souls of Yaacov and Esau continually wrestle within the womb of Rivka. Mussar not limited to the box thinking of concrete history. T’NaCH characters serve as משל language, which requires down-stream generations to make the נמשל דיוקים interpretations. Herein defines the mitzva of acceptance of the Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven; which defines the self identity of the chosen Cohen people – the seed of Avraham, Yitzak, and Yaacov.

The subject of tohor & tuma, according to Rav Nemuraskii – the most difficult and complex subject in the whole of Sha’s. Ask a rabbi who instructs in any Yeshiva in Israel, what separates אל from רחום from חנון etc? They will not possess the wisdom to clarify your question. If a person cannot distinguish and discern tohor middot spirits from within his Yatzir HaTov, then that same person cannot discern tuma middot spirits from within his Yatzir Ha’Raw.

Tohor middot focus upon life. While tuma middot make their focus upon death. Moshe taught the mussar of Life or Death/Blessing or Curse, therefore choose life. People whose Yatzir HaRaw dominates from within their hearts, they continuously speak לשון הרע או מוציא שם רע. The Blood libel accusations which define Church dominance during the Middle Ages through the Nazi pogrom known as the Night of Shattered Glass in 1938. The slander of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it frames the years of anarchy and collapse of the 300 year Czarist Russian Autocracy regime.

The framers of the Talmud struggled, not simply with Roman censorship. Talmudic common law applies straight across the board to all generations. When post Ghetto Reform Rabbis referred to the Shulkan Aruch as archaic – their opinion hit the bulls eye. All regimes across the span of history whose autocracy feared independent ideas touching justice and liberty have irrational fears to justify hating the Jewish people. Jews, we own this curse. Assimilation and intermarriage defines the 2nd Sinai commandment. After Britain betrayed their Balfour Declaration obligations with their 2nd White Paper in 1939, FDR sealed the fate of European Jewry – to eat the death of the Shoah – by duplicating the identical decree on American shores. American Jewry behaved like tits on a boar hog, assimilation and intermarriage cursed them into passivity.

Tuma middot love the blame-game as if they play: “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”. Tohor middot Jews accept our תוכחה. The wisdom of Torah mussar, a person plants תוכחות within there Yatzir Ha’Tov and grows these rebukes like a farmer grows a crop. Hence the wisdom how to give a תוכחה – an unknowable mystery Divine secret. Something on par with the miracle of the 6-Day War victory in 1967. This victory radically changed the balance of power across the Middle East. Both ’56 losers England and France attempted to make revisionist history with their UN SC Resolution 242. But the days of their domination over States across the Middle East – their Sun had long since set.

Consequently, it seems to me, when the Talmud switches to Aramaic it addresses abstract far reaching, perhaps even mystical ideas. Translating the Gemara halachot into Hebrew, as did Badenov’s Yad Chazaka, that villain robbed Yiddishkeit of genius depth and wisdom.

והא דתנן: אתרוד שוה לאילן בד’ דרכים. ליתני דברים משום דבעינן מתני סיפא. ולירק בדרך אחד מיפא נמי ניתני דבר התם הא קמשמע לן דדרכיה דדרכיה דאתרוג כירק. מה ירק דרכו ליגדל על כל מים ומשעת לקיטתו עישורו, אף אתרוג דרכו ליגדל על כל מים ובשעת לקיטתו עישירו

The Talmud compares קידושין to the acquisition of an etrog? As the etrog has specific methods of cultivation and harvesting, the mitzva of קידושין as specified in our Mishna likewise requires a defined process wherein the baal acquires title to her future born children. As the etrog’s growth and maturity determine tithing so too the maturity of a girl prior to her to qualify for the mitzva of קידושין. As an etrog grows in water a child grows in her parents protective home. The etrog perceived as the sign of righteousness, particularly during the holiday of Sukkot.

But the emphasis rests not on the etrog/vegetable comparison but rather upon the maturity of a girl necessary for the mitzva of קידושין. As the agriculture of growing crops entails careful attention and nurturing, how much more so growing children into healthy mature adults! Parents do not simply abandon their daughters at the whiff of the smell of money. Children represent the עולם הבא of their parents souls. The substance of the mitzva of קידושין rests upon the יסוד that a man acquires title to the נפש עולם הבא of his wife – the children born into the future. Herein the generations eternally live the brit cut between the pieces!

Now compare this to the flat stale halacha propounded “as the halacha” by Boris Badenov & Natasha Fatale.

הלכות מעשר שני פ”א:ה. וכן האתרוד בלבד משאר פירות. האילן הרי הוא כירק והולכין אחר לקיטתו בין למעשר בין לשביעית. כיצד אם נלקט בשלישית אחר ט”ו בשבט מפרישין ממנו מעשר עני אע”פ שנגמרה בשנייה. וכן אם ולקט ברביעתי קודם ט”ו בשבט מפרישין ממנו מעשר עני. נלקט ברביעית אחר ט”ו בשבט מפרישין ממנו מע”ש. הראב”ד כתב: א”א כמה דבריו מבלבלים ומקולקלים. אתרוג בת ששית שנכנסת לשביעית לעולם ששית וחייבם עליה משום טבל ופטורה מן הביעור ואם כן היינו אחר חנטה לשבעיית. מיהו לענין מעשר שני ומעשר עני אזלינן בתר לקיטה

Boris argues that etrog treated differently from other fruits and vegetables concerning tithing, specifically their time of harvest. Boris affixes the edge of harvesting applicable to before or after Tu B’shvat – the “New Year for Trees.” Tu B’Shvat marks the beginning of the new year for trees concerning the laws of tithing (ma’aser) and other agricultural obligations. Tu B’Shvat also serves as a time for planting trees in Israel and reflects a broader connection to nature, renewal, and agricultural cycles.

The timing of harvesting impacts tithing obligations based upon the maturity of the etrog at the time of harvesting. If gathered after a specific period, even if it matured earlier, it may still be subject to certain laws concerning Ma’aser Aniyim – poor-man tithe. The Ra’avad rebuked Boris for his flawed reasoning. He challenges Boris’s idea that the etrog has a clear-cut din, when the maturity of the etrog decides the matter. The Ra’avad argues that an etrog harvested in the 6th year on the edge of the sh’mita year, the owner remains obligated to tithe for Ma’aser Sheni and Ma’aser Aniyim. He argues that the etrog’s age or growth maturity does not entirely exempt the etrog from tithing requirements, particularly – ma’aser aniyim. By making tithing status contingent not only upon maturity but also on the harvest timing, the Ra’avad’s interpretation of etrog places it within a broader framework of tithing laws.

The state of readiness affects not only the etrog’s usability but also whether it can be legally designated as subject to tithing. An etrog that is not properly ripe or ready may not fulfill the requirements for tithing, meaning it cannot be included in the calculations of what needs to be tithed. An etrog that is not properly ripe or ready may not fulfill the requirements for tithing, meaning it cannot be included in the calculations of what needs to be tithed. If an etrog is harvested too early, it might not count for tithing, impacting both the farmer’s obligations and the religious observance associated with Sukkot.

If the sages held it as absolutely crucial that maturity of the etrog determines its permissibility to tithe, then how much more so young girls in the matter of קידושין. Natasha Fatale’s כסף משנה affixes this halacha as having no connection what so ever with our Mishna. The problem of statute law, it views reality from its fixed unmoving static locations. The Talmud brings precedent halachot to amplify the k’vanna of how the sugya re-interprets the k’vanna of its Mishna, as viewed from an entirely fresh and different perspective. Its this dynamic quality of פרדס logic which makes reliance upon Aristotle’s deductive reasoning so completely off as הראב”ד openly denounces.

The boot-licking super-commentary lackeys of statute law all fail to learn halachot as precedents wherein the generations can elevate, in this case, קידושין, from lower level rabbinic positive commandment holiness unto a Torah av time oriented most holy commandment, whose sanctity creates both מלאכים and the chosen Cohen created תמיד מעשה בראשית יש מאין.