The point being, you should love the Torah also as an object of beauty.

You also wrote:
>you obviously know more about the Hebrew (and, I would >assume, the Aramaic) than I do, and there may be nuances >there. I have to rely upon translation.

Those nuances would explain how you came to misinterpret this Mishnah to refer to the death penalty. The Hebrew says “ke’ilu mit’chayev benafsho” — “it is AS IF he deserves to die.” In other words, this offence — while technically not violating any prohibition — should be taken seriously in a philosophical way. Nobody with a knowledge of Hebrew has ever interpreted this phrase to refer to the death penalty. I agree that the rabbis said things like this all the time — if you understand “this” to mean exaggerations in order to make a point (like Danya’s interpretation). But please keep the death penalty out of this. When the rabbis discussed the death penalty, it was only in cases where the text of the Torah explicitly demands it. And even then, as you pointed out, the rabbis didn’t actually put it into practice.

That’s why Danya’s explanation actually is pshat — it’s based on the meaning of the original Hebrew words.

I recognize that this doesn’t detract from your main point about the tradition. But the Mishnah doesn’t support your point at all. In the future, before staking out positions based on texts that you haven’t read in the original, please confirm your interpretation with someone who has.

All right, there’s a fine point there. Perhaps he wasn’t merely studying; perhaps “repeating” implied memorizing, or teaching someone else. In addition, you obviously know more about the Hebrew (and, I would assume, the Aramaic) than I do, and there may be nuances there. I have to rely upon translation.

However, I think that it’s quite a leap to go from safeguarding the tradition to mindfulness in all activities. If that was what he meant, he wouldn’t have felt it necessary to invoke the death penalty. I have to see that as ironic interpretation. In spite of my insistence that they were constantly saying things like that, I don’t think that they ever threatened anyone with death for becoming distracted while eating a sandwich!

In any case, I’m not convinced. It still seems to me to be an attempt on R. Shimon’s part to fortify his worldview by invalidating everything outside of Torah (and Talmud) study. This may be a modern understanding; perhaps I’ve been too traumatized by the right-wing factions within Orthodoxy, and am projecting. So, I may be doing the same thing of which I’m accusing you, but from the opposite position!

IF he even said it at all - it may be something that was attributed to him retroactively, which would tend to support my argument. At that point, it becomes a matter of faith - either you believe that the reporting was always accurate, or you don’t. I don’t believe it, generally.

It’s difficult to discern their intentions, two thousand years later. A non-Orthodox person, such as myself (perhaps some MO people as well) would see what they were doing as being theologically liberal - devising new legislation to cope with changing social environments. A conservative Orthodox person would insist that they were merely drawing out of the Torah meanings that were inherent within it, and that the results were inspired (or at least safeguarded) by God.

I stand by what I said, though - I think that it’s very important that we stop trying to come up with explanations that rationalize or excuse their more extreme pronouncements.

Anyway. You don’t have to buy it, but be preicise in what you mean by “Torah study” and what you think that really means.

Danya’s not presenting the straightforward, or pshat, level of meaning. She’s delving into what she feels is a deeper meaning. It’s perfectly acceptable, but I don’t happen to agree with her. I think that the surface meaning - that someone who interrupts Torah study to admire a tree should be put to death - is what the rabbis meant to say. If they didn’t mean it, they could have come up with something in a less ominous tone. And yeah – they often said things like that.

As far as rationalizing goes - whenever they came across something that made them uncomfortable - such as the injunction to put to death a rebellious son, or the slaughter of the Canaanite children - they’d come up with a convenient explanation that made it easier for them to swallow. They enjoyed a freedom of interpretation to a degree that the more conservative factions within our tradition insist that we cannot allow ourselves.

I think that we need to examine the tradition critically, not merely accept everything that’s been handed down to us on the premise that their level of understanding was greater than ours could possibly be. I feel very strongly that acknowledging the flaws of our ancestors and proceeding from there is part of the maturation process. It’s important to look at a statement like this – that someone who momentarily loses his train of thought while studying Torah has committed a capital crime – and recognize that perhaps these guys didn’t have all of the answers. The tradition doesn’t have to be static.

I don’t think of it as an “attack”, but you want to call it that? Okay.

The rabbinic tradition has always been multifaceted. The burden of proof is on whoever oversimplifies and claims that the rabbis “always” thought _____ (fill in the blank). This is the case whether that person is oversimplifying to defend the tradition (itself a traditional activity, and not one to be dismissed as “rationalizing”), or whether that person is oversimplifying to attack the tradition, as Cipher appears to do.

And they were always invoking the death penalty – for looking at a tree, getting the incense mixture wrong, etc. It’s an odd paradox – they claimed that a court that executed more than one person in a generation (or something of the sort) was a “gang of murderers”, but let someone step out of line, or disagree, or even make an innocent mistake, and they deserved to be put to death! I really do think that it’s time that we stopped whitewashing this.