Dear Jewish Response Staff,
I read on an anti-Semitic site a troubling quotation from the Talmud. I cant remember it perfectly but it involves one of the rabbis cursing the philosophers that their wisdom should rot. It sounds like the rabbis were afraid of the philosophers because they couldnt refute their arguments, so their only recourse was to curse them! I like the other things I have seen on your site and I hope you can explain this too.
Frank J.
Dear Frank,
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya was famous for his numerous theological debates with Roman emperors, nobleman, heretics and non-believers. When he was about to leave this world, the other rabbis said to him, How will we defend ourselves against the heretics? He replied, When counsel is gone from the children, their wisdom rots (Jeremiah 49:7). When counsel is gone from the Torah sages, the wisdom of the gentile nations rots.
Why did he say that the wisdom of the gentile nations was going to rot? Why couldnt he have blessed the other rabbis that they should be able to carry on debates with the heretics as well as he had?
The world can be divided into four categories of beings: mineral, vegetable, animal and human. Vegetable is higher than mineral because it grows; animal is higher than vegetable because it moves, and humans are higher than animals because they ask questions, find answers and thereby come to recognize the Creator.
When we analyze these categories further, we observe a highly interesting phenomenon. A member of one category, when it does not perform its function, does not simply fall to the category below it; it becomes even worse. The plant needs water to grow. If it does not get water, it dries up and rots, becoming more useless than a stone. An animal needs more than just water; it needs food. It uses its mobility to search for that food. If it does not find food, it dies, and its carcass is more useless than a plant or even a stone. This is the meaning of the Biblical verse, In every pain there will be a gain (Proverbs 14:23). Each being, because of its pain, i.e. its lack, its need, must perform a function to satisfy that need, and it is the performance of this function that sets it above members of the category below it.
We observe that the masterful Creator gave each being needs that are commensurate with its abilities. The Creator made rain fall from the sky for the plants BECAUSE the plants are not able to go around searching for water. He did not give the animals rational and theological questions BECAUSE they are not able to search for answers. However, He did make the plants existence dependent on growth because they are able to grow. He did make the animals existence dependent on moving around because they are able to move.
Accordingly, Rabbi Yehoshua said to the other rabbis: The heretics only have questions because there is someone to answer them. Once I pass away and there will be no rabbis who can answer them, their wisdom will rot and they will have no more questions. This is not a curse; it is an automatic feature of the world.
He used the phrase their wisdom will rot to indicate that when humans fail to perform their function, they fall lower than animals, plants and stones. They rot, just as a dead animal and a dead plant rot.
What does it mean that the heretics will have no questions? The central question man was meant to ask is: Who created all these things? Who made this beautifully harmonious and carefully balanced universe? The heretics had this question and others relating to G-d, and Rabbi Yehoshua successfully answered them. But once their wisdom rotted, they ceased to have questions, because they pretended that everything in the world could be explained by the laws of nature. Somehow, the world created itself and evolved to its current state, they said. Someone who believes this no longer has any questions that reach beyond the physical world. He is considered rotten, lower than the animals, plants or stones.
The great medieval commentator Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra once had a debate with a atheist philosopher. At one point the Ibn Ezra went home, wrote a beautiful poem on a piece of paper and showed it to the atheist. I left my bottle of ink open, said the Ibn Ezra, and it accidently spilled all over this paper. The atheist said, That is not spilled ink! That is a poem written by someone with a brilliant mind. The Ibn Ezra said, The world is a lot more beautiful and well-designed than this poem.
The Torah says, G-ds portion is His people (Deut. 32:9). In a larger sense, this refers not just to the Jewish people but to all people who recognize G-d. These people are G-ds profits in the world. A man starts a company, buys machinery and materials, hires workers, produces products all of the sake of the profit he will earn off it the company. Similarly, G-d created the entire world mineral, vegetable, animals, humans and the celestial bodies all for the sake of those people who will recognize Him as the Creator.
The Book of Jonah tells the story of how G-d had mercy on Nineveh and did not destroy it. Chapter 4, verse 11 reads: "And should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, which contains many more than 120,000 people who do not know the difference between their right and left hands, as well as many animals?" Rashi explains that the 120,000 people were the children, and the "animals" were the adults, who were like animals in that they did not know who created them. This seems puzzling: Why would G-d spare Nineveh in the merit of people who denied His existence?
The answer lies in the comparison to animals. Just as an animal cannot be blamed for not recognizing G-d's existence, because G-d is above its level of intelligence, so too these people. They didn't have enough intelligence to entertain the question of how the world came to be. Thus they were the only innocent ones, and Nineveh was saved for their sake. It was the more intelligent people, who did wonder about the origins of the world, and were therefore capable of recognizing G-d, yet refused to do so, who were considered sinners.
The prophets tell us of a future time when the entire world will be elevated. Even the stones and plants will praise G-d: The mountains and the hills will burst out before you in song (Isaiah 55:12). Then the trees of the forest will sing (I Divrei Hayamim 16:33). Animals will know G-d: The wolf will live with the lamp&the child will play by the snakes hole&they will not do evil or destroy in my entire holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of G-d as water covers the sea (Isaiah 11:6-9). People will reach the level of angels in perception of G-d: The sun will not be your light by day& but G-d will be your light by day (Isaiah 60:19). Your eyes will behold your Teacher (Isaiah 30:20). Let us hope for the fulfillment of those prophecies!