Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] The Torah is specifically instructing us to listen to the rabbis, to listen to rabbinic decrees.
[00:00:09] And there are many types of different rabbinic decrees.
[00:00:15] And this is what we are going to be talking about today.
[00:00:21] What are rabbinic mitras or rabbinic laws or rabbinic rules?
[00:00:27] So we have, in the five books of Moses, we have 613 mitzvot.
[00:00:34] These are mitzvot, which are often referred to as biblical mitzvot, or in fancy terms there's an Aramaic word deoraita, which means from the written Torah.
[00:00:48] These are the famous Sukhan Mitzvah, 613 commandments. Then there are also many, many, many rabbinic mitzvot and rabbinic rulings. And they have different types of them. That's what we are going to be talking about today.
[00:01:05] So number one, on top of 613 biblical mitzvot, there are seven rabbinic rulings that the rabbis have enacted as a part of Jewish life. And these are the seven mitzvot that we actually come across in our daily life all the time. For example, making blessings. Brachot is one of these seven enactments of the rabbis. Making a blessing on the food or making blessing on the mitzvah. That's number one. Then lighting Shabbat candles for women, saying hallo, a special prayer for holidays, making eruv, which means making a border that allows people to unify their private property so they could carry from one to another on Shabbat.
[00:01:55] These are the laws that the rabbis have enacted.
[00:02:01] Every Jew lives by them from that time.
[00:02:05] Then on top of that, besides for these seven rabbinic enactments, there are many other laws that were created by the rabbis because the Torah itself, the written Torah, is instructing the rabbis to safeguard mitzvot.
[00:02:25] For example, if the Torah is telling us that I'm not allowed to write on Shabbat, So rabbis created a, a law called mukta. Mukta literally translates as something which is put away or something which is separated.
[00:02:43] And the rabbis say that if there is an object whose sole purpose is to be used for something which is prohibited on Shabbat, I should not be taking it into my hands on Shabbat.
[00:02:56] A biblical law is prohibiting me to write on Shabbat. Rabbis said, you know what? If biblical law is prohibiting you to write a Shabbat, you should not be taking a pen into your hands. Why? Because if you will hold a pen in your hands, you could by mistake forget and make a doodle or start writing something. And this is why you should not do it. So these are safeguards so first one were the seven enactments, seven Mitzvot, the Rabbanan that rabbis have created. The second one that we suggest now are safeguards of biblical commandments. Then on top of it, in the times of Jewish court, there was Sanhedrin. We know that every community had a Jewish court of three rabbis. These were called minor courts. Then there was a minor Sanhedrin of 23 rabbis, and then there was a Bixonhedrin of 71 rabbis.
[00:03:45] And the big Sanhedrin was like the Jewish Supreme Court. And they were making their enactments. So the local community that had a small court, a three rabbi court, was obligated to follow.
[00:03:59] They were obligated to follow what their local court says. But Sanhedrin was making rulings for the entire Jewish nation.
[00:04:07] And this was the supreme Jewish court that every Jew was supposed to obey.
[00:04:13] After the revolt of Bar Kochba, when Romans were ruling over the land of Israel, the Romans have cracked down on Torah study because they, they were afraid that rabbis will become the leaders, will overthrow their rulership.
[00:04:30] And Sanhedrin was disbanded.
[00:04:34] So from the fifth century, we don't have Sanhedrin. So from the fifth century, no rabbinic body can make rulings for the entire Jewish nation, for all the Jews. But we still had rabbis of various groups of Jews that were making rulings for their groups. For example, there were rulings which were just for Ashkenazic Jews and there were rulings that are just for Sephardic Jews. Because there, after the 5th century, about 10th century, already a separation between Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews and other communities like Italian Jews, Greek Jews and so on.
[00:05:09] And because each one of these larger communities had their own rabbinic authority. So each rabbi was making enactments for their larger community and it was unified anymore. That's why you have differences in some laws, minor differences, but still there are differences in laws between Sephardi Mashkenazim.
[00:05:32] And then besides for that, each local community has its own bet gin, has its own ruling body at its own Jewish court. And the community is obligated to follow the ruling of their local Bed Din.
[00:05:47] So these are all different types of rabbinic mitzvot and rabbinic enactments, rabbinic rulings. And the Torah is obligating me to follow every one of them.
[00:06:00] As a matter of fact, if somebody is violating a biblical law, he is violating only one law, that biblical law that he is violating. If somebody is violating a rabbinic law, he's violating two laws because he's first of all violating the Rabbinic law that we are speaking about. And then on top of it, he's violating a biblical law to listen to the rabbis.
[00:06:24] And I will tell you an interesting story now that will illustrate that point.
[00:06:32] You would say, somebody would ask, well, we just brought an example of Sephardic rabbis or Kenazic rabbis. And Sephardic communities have to follow their rabbis, and Schkenazi community just have to follow their rabbis. Well, isn't there one Torah? Is there one God?
[00:06:47] So why the differences of opinions between two rabbis? So here is a story that's going to answer this question.
[00:06:54] Once there was a person that came to the third who lived in Belarusia, in the town of.
[00:07:02] And this person came to him and he said, he's very, very sick and doctors don't know what to do and tells him that he needs to move to the land of Israel. This was obviously before the state of Israel. This story took place about 200 years ago that Samach Sadiq is telling him that he has to move to land of Israel. Back then, moving to the land of Israel was very, very difficult, because first of all, moving your whole family to different country was very difficult. And then in Israel itself, it was very. The conditions of life were very hard. There was no economy there, people were very poor, and it was very, very difficult with them.
[00:07:43] So he figured, okay, maybe I'll be able to find some cure here in Europe, in Russia, where he lived.
[00:07:51] And no doctor was able to help him.
[00:07:54] He was already very basic. Now his wife comes to and asks, what should we do? Please give us a blessing.
[00:08:02] Says, I have only one thing, only one recommendation. You need to move to the land of Israel.
[00:08:08] And they had no choice. And her husband was already very, very sick. That's why she came herself. Without her husband, she has no choice. They. She comes home and she tells her, okay, you're going to be moving to Israel.
[00:08:19] And they pack up the entire household, all of their belongings, take their kids, their family, and they move to Israel.
[00:08:27] And in Israel, he suddenly starts feeling much better and he recovers from Israel. He writes a letter to.
[00:08:34] And he says, first of all, I want to thank you for the blessing you gave me, because I did recover completely when I came to Israel.
[00:08:41] But second of all, could you please explain to me why was it so important for me to move to Israel? What happened here? So some Akzedek answers that you had a lung condition that we also find in animals.
[00:08:58] And an animal which is deadly sick is not kosher. In other words, if we slaughter an animal and after we open it up, we see that it had some blemish that would not allow it to live for a while. This animal will be not kosher.
[00:09:16] So with your specific lung condition, there is an argument between the rabbis and Ashkenazic rabbinic authorities maintain that an animal with this condition cannot survive, is going to die. That's why it's not kosher.
[00:09:33] And Sephardic rabbinic authorities, specifically Rabbi Yosef Caro, maintains that the animal with this lung condition can survive, and that's why it's kosher.
[00:09:48] So you live in Russia, which was the territory which is governed by Ashkenazi rabbis. That's why I saw that as long as you live in Russia, there's no way for you to survive.
[00:10:00] You need to move to the Land of Israel, which was back then halachically governed. The community of Land of Israel was governed by Yosef Karo. He was there of the rabbi of the Land of Israel. The rabbi for Land of Israel was Yosef Karo. And that's why when you move to Land of Israel, there the rabbinic ruling is that you can survive with this condition. That's why you need to move.
[00:10:24] You see from the story that when rabbis make their enactments, not only is it something which is on the paper that we Jews from their respective communities have to listen, it is something that affects the very nature of the world we live in, that if you are in an Ashkenazic community, the illness that you have follows the ruling of Ashkenazic rabbis.
[00:10:50] So these are different types of rabbinic rulings. In Rabbinic Mitzvot, Rabbinic Nachman, obviously, we all obey by all of them. And each person in their respective community has to obey by their specific mitzvot, specific enactments for their community.
