Much of the 1st chapter of bShab centers on the 18 Enactments that were railroaded through by the beit Shammai faction. The gemara identifies the Enactments, delves into their various features and rules, mentions disagreements among rabbis about which rules qualify within the 18 (the gemara ends up citing more than 18 Enactments due to divergent opinions, e.g. R. Meir and Yose, bShab 17a).
Halakhic discourse is splintered at its core by makhloqet. Hanina Ben-Menahem has thought and taught brilliantly about the relevance of makhloqet to the structure of halakhah, its cultural practices, its jurisprudence. Controversy does not merely cast halakhah into a pluralistic and fragmented struture, it also flags the skirmishes between rabbis – a political war over both the meaning of halakhah and its authoritarian apparatus.
Shammai argued a point over the taharah and tumah (ritual “purity”/”impurity”) of grapes but then got fed up with Hillel’s counter-arguments. Shammai answered: “If you continue to provoke me, I shall decree tumah in respect to the harvest [of olives], too. They stuck a sword in the house of study and they said: whoever wants to enter may enter but whoever wants to leave may not leave. And on That Day, Hillel was submissive and he sat before Shammai like one of his disciples. [That Day] was a grievous to Israel as the day on which the Golden Calf was made.” (bShab 17a based on Artscroll)
(The episode reminds me of the little I know of Cicero’s battles in the Roman Senate, another locus of intrigue and violent controversy.)
What was at stake in the struggle over the 18 Enactments? Though much of it may seem trivial in its preoccupation with purity laws, perhaps we can put it in perspective by reflecting on contemporary struggles over caste, status, race and religious intolerance. The Enactments also regulate Jewish-gentile commercial relations, which no doubt served some economic interests and not others.
To be continued...
Comments