ויהיו בני ישראל במדבר וימצאו איש מקשש עצים ביום השבת: ויקריבט אתו המצאים אתו מקשש עצים אל משה ואל אהרן ואל כל העדה: ויניחו אתו במשמר כי לא פרש מה יעשה לו: ויאמר ד' אל משה מות יומת האיש רגום אתו באבנים כל העדה מחוץ למחנה: ויביאו אתו כל העדה אל מחוץ למחנה וירגמו אתו באבנים וימת כאשר צוה ד' את משה: (“And the bnei Yisra’él were in the desert and they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. And those finding that gatherer of wood brought him close to Moshe and to Aharon and to the whole community. And they placed him under guard, for it had not been clarified what was to be done with him. And Ha-Shem said to Moshe, 'Dying, the man shall be put to death; pile him up with stones, the whole community outside the camp.' And the whole community brought him outside the camp, and piled him with stones, and he died, as Ha-Shem had commanded Moshe;” XIII, 32-36).
The Talmud tells us that this “gatherer of wood” (m’qoshésh ‘etzim) was in fact Tzlofchad ben Chefer of the tribe of M’nashe (cf. Numbers XXVII, 1-11): וכן הוא אומר "ויהיו בני ישראל במדבר וימצאו איש" וגו' ולהלן הוא אומר "אבינו מת במדבר", מה להלן צלפחד אף כאן צלפחד, דברי רבי עקיבא. אמר לו רבי יהודה בן בתירא, עקיבא, בין כך ובין כך אתה עתיד ליתן את הדין. אם כדבריך, התורה כסתו, אתה מגלה אותו?! ואם לאו, אתה מוציא לעז על אותו צדיק (“And so it says, ‘And the bnei Yisra’él were in the desert and found a man....’, and later on it says, ‘Our father died in the desert,’ just as later on [it refers to] Tzlofchad, so here [it refers to] Tzlofchad, [in] the words of Rabbi ‘Aqiva. Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira said to him, ‘Aqiva, one way or the other you are going to be held accountable. If it is as you say, the Torah concealed it, and you are revealing it?! And if not, then you are heaping scorn on that tzaddiq;” שבת צ"ו:).
Rabbi ‘Aqiva deduces from the wording of both verses, through the second rule of Talmudic logic, the gzeira shava, that the “wood gatherer” and Tzlofchad are one and the same. Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira protests that either way, Rabbi ‘Aqiva is in the wrong: He has either revealed what the Torah wished to keep hidden, or he has defamed an innocent man. In either case, Tzlofchad’s reputation is ruined for all time.
The gmara continues: ואלא הא גמר גזירה שוה! ג"ש לא גמר (“But [Rabbi ‘Aqiva] learnt a gzeira shava! [Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira] did not learn that gzeira shava;” שם, צ"ז. ).
The exchange is really quite remarkable. If Rabbi ‘Aqiva had reason to believe that a gzeira shava existed concerning these two verses, Rashi tells us, א"כ לא כסתו התורה דהוה לי' כמפורש (“If so, the Torah did not conceal it; for [Rabbi ‘Aqiva], it was as though it was stated explicitly”).
So if Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira disagreed with Rabbi ‘Aqiva, fair enough; what lies behind his rather sharp rebuke of Rabbi ‘Aqiva?
B.
Our question is sharpened when we note that there are numerous other instances in which Tanna’im and Amora’im differ sharply concerning one or another aspect of the character of a Biblical personage which becomes clear only when viewed through the Talmudic lens, and yet do not engage in such provocative rhetoric.For instance, we find a dispute in which a number of Chachamim take up sides as to whether or not the first man was basically a tzaddiq or a rasha‘, and yet none of those who hold the former view accuse those who hold the latter of defamation of character (סנהדרין ל"ח:, יד הרמ"ה שם, וע"ע עירובין י"ח: ).
Another example may be found concerning Yosef. The Torah testifies that he returned to his master’s house on an Egyptian holiday לעשות מלאכתו, “to do his work” (Genesis XXXIX, 11), and Rav and Shmu’el differ as to whether the term means actual work, or hanky-panky with his master’s wife, who had complained that she was sick and stayed home from the festivities. Yet, Rav does not accuse Shmu’el of impugning Yosef’s character (סוטה ל"ו:).
In yet another example, the Torah attests נח איש צדיק תמים הי' בדרתיו (“Noach was a perfectly righteous man in his generations;” Genesis VI, 9), and Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Laqish square off as to whether “in his generations” means that he was all the more praiseworthy and righteous despite his debased generation, or that he was righteous only with respect to the depravity of his generation. Yet again, there is no accusation of character assassination (סנהדרין ק"ט.).
So, as we can see, Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira’s characterization of Rabbi ‘Aqiva because of his opinion is quite exceptional.
C.
There is a famous passage in which Yechezqel is shown a valley strewn with dry, human bones. G-d commands the prophet to speak, and the bones are again clothed in flesh and resurrected (Ezekiel XXXVII, 1-14).
The Talmud says of these bones, אלו בני אפרים שמנו לקץ וטעו, שנאמר "ובני אפרים שותלח וברד בנו ותחת ובנו ואלעדה בנו ותחת בנו: וזבד בנו ושותלח בנו ועזר ואלעד והרגום אנשי גת הנולדים בארץ וגו' ויתאבל אפרים אביהם ויבאו אחיו לנחמו" (“These are the bnei Efrayim who calculated the end [of the Egyptian exile] and erred, as it is said, ‘And bnei Efrayim, Shuthelach and Bered his son, and Tachath and his son and El‘ada his son and Tachath his son. And Zavad his son and Shuthelach his son and ‘Ezer and El‘ad, and the men of Gath who were born in the land killed them.... And Efrayim their father mourned, and his brothers came to comfort him;” I Chronicles VII, 20-22).
It was the whitening bones of these bnei Efrayim, who had made an early and ill-fated dash for freedom from Egyptian bondage, which G-d feared would dismay the bnei Yisra’él during the Exodus, פן ינחם העם בראותם מלחמה ושבו מצרימה (“lest the people have regrets when they see warfare and return to Egypt;” Exodus XIII, 17).
And the Talmud tells us מתים שהחי' יחזקאל עלו לארץ ישראל ונשאו נשים ויולידו בנים ובנות. עמד ר"י בן בתירא על רגליו ואמר, אני מבני בניהם ואלו תפילין שהניח לי אבי אבא מהם (“The dead whom Yechezqel revived immigrated to Eretz Yisra’él and married women and sired sons and daughters. Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira stood up on his feet and said, 'I am from their descendants, and these are the t’fillin which my father’s father left me from them;'” סנהדרין צ"ב:).
With a little thought, this clears the matter up.
A gzeira shava, which depends on the similarity of two words in disparate verses, requires a legitimate tradition that the relationship exists in order to be valid. This only stands to reason, since all manner of weird conclusions could result from the random comparison of like words in any two verses. Rabbi ‘Aqiva, then, and most of his contemporaries were quite convinced of the existence of such a tradition concerning Tzlofchad, one which dated all the way back to the actual incident described in our parasha.
But Rabbi Yehuda ben Betheira, whose ancestor had been whitening bones in the desert at the time of the incident of the m’qoshésh ‘etzim, had no such tradition; his ancestor had been revived only during the time of Yechezqel, during the Babylonian exile, long after the event. Hence, his vehement protests that there was no reason to defame Tzlofchad, whether by saying something untrue, or by revealing what was meant to be hidden. For him, there was no such gzeira shava, and he therefore questioned the propriety of Rabbi ‘Aqiva’s making explicit what, for him, the Oral Torah had not stated explicitly.
D.
Here is a striking illustration of how utterly accurate and reliable was the transmission of the Torah tradition to Chazal, and how that tradition clarifies and illuminates the Biblical texts and the incidents they report.
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