A.
כי המצוה הזאת אשר אנכי מצוך היום לא נפלאת היא ממך ולא רחקה הוא: לא בשמים היא וגו' (“For this commandment which I am commanding you today is not too wonderful for you, and it is not too far away: It is not in heaven....;" XXX, 11-12).
The Talmud recounts: שאלו אנשי אלכסדרי' את רבי יהושע בן חנניא, מתים לעתיד לבוא צריכין הזאה או אין צריכין? אמר להם לכשיחיו נחכם להם, איכא דאמרי, לכשיבוא משה רבינו עמהם (“The people of Alexandria asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya, 'Will the dead of the future require sprinkling [of water mixed with the ashes of a para adumma, when they are resurrected, to remove the tum’a of death] or not?' He told them, 'When they are resurrected we shall consider their case,' and there are those who say [that he added], 'When Moshe our teacher comes with them;'” נדה ס"ט:).
What makes Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya’s response remarkable is the fact that in numerous places we find that the Talmud assigns this role of resolving doubts and settling irresolvable conflicts to the prophet Eliyahu when he returns heralding the advent of ha-Melech ha-Mashiach, our “anointed king." Thus, for instance, we find a debate concerning whether or not wine can serve as the basis for a meal requiring recitation of birkath ha-mazon, the “grace after meals," which ends with: לכשיבוא אלי' ויאמר אי הויא קביעותא (“When Eliyahu will come, he will say whether it constitutes the basis [of a meal];” ברכות ל"ה:). Or, to cite another example, יבוא אלי' וילמדנו אם עור פלוני כשר לתפלין (“Eliyahu will come and tell us whether such-and-such a hide is kosher for t’fillin”; שבת קי"ח:). Indeed, the common Talmudic term תיקו is made up of the initials of תשבי יתרץ קושיות ואיבעיות (“The Tishbi [i.e., Eliyahu; cf. I Kings XVII, 1] will resolve difficulties and questions”; עדיות פ"ח מ"ז, תוס' יו"ט שם).
So why does Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya appear to dissent from the others concerning
Eliyahu?
B.
The Talmud records a famous dispute between Rabbi Yehoshua, at the head of the Sanhedrin, and Rabbi Eli’ezer ben Hyrkanos, one of the greatest sages of that age, also known as Rabbi Eli’ezer “the Great." The technical details of the dispute do not concern us here, but Rabbi Eli’ezer stubbornly held to his point of view despite a clear majority against him, and attempted to prove his case by working various miracles. Rabbi Yehoshua, for his part, either dismissed or nullified each of the miraculous events.
At the end, Rabbi Eli’ezer summoned a bath qol, a “heavenly voice”, which proclaimed: מה אצלכם לרבי אליעזר שהלכה כמותו בכל מקום (“What is between you and Rabbi Eli’ezer, according to whom the halacha is decided in every place?”), whereupon Rabbi Yehoshua arose and quoted our passage: לא בשמים היא: The Torah is not in Heaven, but ever since the revelation at Sinai has been given into the hands of the Rabbis to administer (בבא מציעא נ"ט:). Furthermore, as the Talmud attests elsewhere, Rabbi Yehoshua asserted this principle that אין משגיחין בבת קול, “one may not accept the evidence of heavenly voice," often (עיי' למשל יבמות י"ד.).
It should also be noted before we go forward that Rabbi Yehoshua, without the patronymic, is always a reference to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya (נזיר כ"ו:, רש"י שם).
Now consider that Eliyahu was unique, in that he did not die as other men (II Kings II, 1-14), even Moshe. The implication of this is made plain by a halachic ruling of the Trumath ha-Deshen. Asked to esplain whether or not Eliyahu’s wife had been permitted to remarry after the prophet’s unique ascent into Heaven, he concludes that Eliyahu had achieved the status of a mal’ach, an “angel," ויש לומר דאשת רעהו אסורה ולא אשת מלאך שכולו רוחני ולא גופני (“And one may say that it is the wife of one’s fellow who is prohibited [to marry] and not the wife of a mal’ach, [since a mal’ach] is entirely spiritual and not corporeal”; ח"ב סי' ק"ב).
If, by ascending to Heaven in the way that he did, Eliyahu was in some fashion uniquely transformed into a mal’ach, as the Trumath ha-Deshen suggests, then he would arguably constitute a “heavenly voice," not unlike the bath qol. If so, Rabbi Yehoshua would discount his help: לא בשמים היא; he would prefer the decision of the rabbinical authorities of that day, with the help of the resurrected Moshe (as well as himself; note that he had answered “we shall consider” [נחכם] not “they will consider”).
But even without Eliyahu’s unique status, the fact is that it is decided halacha that in questions of halachic interpretation, ever since Sinai אין הנביא רשאי לחדש דבר (“a prophet is not permitted to say anything new”; רמב"ם הל' יסודי התורה פ"ט ה"א), a principle which protects Israel from the potential chaos which might result from false prophets. There was only one revelation of the Torah, to Moshe, at Sinai.
If so, what do the rest of Chazal expect from Eliyahu? Why did they differ from Rabbi Yehoshua?
C.
To understand, we turn to another episode recorded in the Talmud.
אמר ר' יוסי, פעם אחת הייתי מהלך בדרך ונכנסתי לחורבה אחת מחורבות ירושלים להתפלל. בא אלי' זכור לטוב ושמר לי על הפתח עד שסיימתי תפלתי. לאחר שסיימתי תפלתי אמר לי שלום עליך רבי ואמרתי לו שלום עליך רבי ומורי. אמר לי בני מפני מה נכנסת לחורבה זו? אמרתי לו להתפלל ואמר לי הי' לך להתפלל בדרך ואמרתי לו מתיירא הייתי שמא יפסיקו בי עוברי דרכים ואמר לי הי' לך להתפלל תפלה קצרה. באותה שעה למדתי ממנו שלשה דברים, למדתי שאין נכנסין לחורבה ולמדתי שמתפללין בדרך ולמדתי שהמתפלל בדרך מתפלל תפלה קצרה.
(“Said Rabbi Yossi, 'Once I was traveling and entered one of the ruins of Jerusalem to pray. Eliyahu the well-remembered came, and waited for me at the entrance until I had finished my prayer. After I had finished my prayer, he said, "Peace be on you, Rabbi." I said to him, "Peace be on you, my Rabbi and teacher." He asked me, "My son, why did you enter this ruin?" I said, "To pray." He said, "You should have prayed on the way." I said, "I was afraid that passers-by might disturb me." He said, "You should have prayed an abbreviated prayer." From that moment I learnt three things: I learnt that one should not enter a ruin, and I learnt that one prays on the way, and I learnt that one who prays on the way should pray an abbreviated prayer;'" ברכות ג.).
The great Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Chajes was very much disturbed by this account, and asked: ואיך למד הש"ס דינים אלו מאלי'? (“And how did the Talmud learn these points of law from Eliyahu?”), on the basis of our passage. He answered: ואפשר לומר דאם אלי' אומר דינים מצד הנבואה, אזי שייך "לא בשמים היא" ו"אין נביא רשאי לחדש דבר", אבל אם אומר מלתא מטעם מה ששמע מפי חכמים אחרים, אזי שומעין כו' אלי' אמרם מה ששמע בבית המדרש (“And it is possible to say that if Eliyahu says halachoth as a matter of prophecy, then 'it is not in Heaven' and 'a prophet is not permitted to say anything new' applies, but if he says something on the authority of other scholars, then they would listen... Eliyahu had said what he had learnt in the béyth midrash”).
In other words, a claim to resolve halachic questions as a matter of prophetic revelation has to be dismissed, but if a prophet should say a svara, a halachic theory, or transmit a massora, a tradition learnt in the béyth midrash, it is as acceptable as anyone else’s contribution, since it is also subject to the same rigorous Talmudic analysis as anyone else’s contribution. It is not “Torah from Heaven."
This, too, seems reasonable. Why would Rabbi Yehoshua seem not to agree with it?
D.
It must be noted that the Torah, in fact, is not an artefact of this world. Its creation predated the creation of the universe; indeed, it is the blueprint for the universe (עיי' בראשות רבה פ"א סי' ב', ועוד). It is therefore the case that all Torah, from the contents of the séfer Torah to the most recent chiddush heard at the daf yomi shi’ur, comes into existence בסייעתא דשמיא, “with the support of Heaven." Torah represents, in essence, the metaphysical reality encapsulating and actuating our physical realm, which it contains. This supernal, metaphysical Torah has been injected into our world, and placed in our hands, in a physical dress, the words and letters of the Torah, as we received it at Sinai and, I would venture to say, also as transmitted by the modulated changes in air pressure which we call speech (עיי' רמב"ן, הקדמה לפירוש התורה).
The Torah mandates physical actions, to be performed in this world by the physical Israel. It follows, then, that Torah can only be brought into this world by physical, and not metaphysical, means. It is we who are the intermediaries between this world and the next; mal’achim do not have a role to play in this.
So the dispute between Rabbi Yehoshua and the rest of Chazal would seem to boil down to the status of Eliyahu. Rabbi Yehoshua, it seems, holds that a mal’ach can have no influence whatever in clarifying halachoth; now that he is in Heaven, he is, as it were, a bath qol. The other chachamim would seem to hold like the Mahara”tz Chajes, that so long as Eliyahu restricts himself to telling us what he had learnt in his béyth midrash, filling in the gaps which the passage of time and decline of the generations have inevitably created in our Torah knowledge.
And, of course, we shall eventually also have the resurrected Moshe, and be able to hear Torah directly from our original teacher.
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