The Challenge to Understand

The mitzvah of Shiluah Haken – Shewing Away the Mother Bird has long been a subject of discussion in the rabbinic tradition:

Should a bird’s nest chance to be before you on the way or in any tree or on the ground with fledglings or eggs and the mother is crouched over the fledglings or the eggs you shall not take the mother together with the young. You shall surely send off the mother and the young you may take for yourself, so that it may go well with you and you will enjoy length of days. (Deuteronomy 22:6-7)

In one famous Talmudic passage, this mitzvah functions as the jumping off point for a famous discussion over whether the reward for the observance of the commandments is not to be found in this world or in the world to come. (See Kiddushin 39b)

Elsewhere, in the Mishnah, it serves as the background for a highly unusual teaching which outlaws the use of certain phrases in the recitation of the Amidah. (When the prayer tradition was in its infancy, before the words of Amidah were fixed, the shaliah tzibor (prayer leader) had some flexibility in phrasing the prayers. There were, for obvious reasons, limits to what could be expressed.):

If a man said [in his prayers]: ‘To a bird’s nest do Your mercies extend’, or ‘May Your name be remembered for the good [which you have done]’, or ‘We give You thanks, we give You thanks’ they put him (the shaliah tzibor) to silence. (Mishnah Berakhot 5:3)

This Mishnah does not cite the problem with these expressions, but the likely reason was that each of them expressed some sort of heretical formulation. (See Safrai, Berakhot, Mishnah Eretz Yisrael, p. 207-9) The Babylonian Talmud even acknowledges this for the latter two, citing specific reasons, but the rationale for the first seems to have eluded them and, consequently, the Talmudic sages opened up a broad discussion of their concerns over the use of this mitzvah as a means for making a plea before God.

The Talmud Yerushalmi records three distinctive opinions for what they thought was heretical about its use, each of them theological in nature, namely, based on what they thought were erroneous ideas regarding God’s nature:

[Said] Rabbi Pinhas in the name of Rabbi Simon: Like one who complains regarding the qualities of the Holy One Blessed be He, [saying], ‘Regarding a bird’s nest You extend your mercy, but regarding this man (namely, me), your mercies do not extend’.

Rabbi Yossi [said] in the name of Rabbi Simon: Like one who limits the qualities of the Holy One Blessed be He, [that is to say,] Your mercies extend to a bird’s nest, [but no further].

Said Rabbi Yossi b’Rabbi Bun: Those who make the qualities of the Holy One Blessed be He mercy do not act properly… [for example, by saying:] My people, the children of Israel, just as I am merciful in Heaven, so should you be merciful on earth…. (Yerushalmi Berakhot 5:3, 9c)

Rabbi Pinhas asserted that someone mentioning this mitzvah was issuing a complaint against God for showing mercy on birds while ignoring the plaint of the individual. Along similar lines, Rabbi Yossi in the name of Rabbi Simon argued that one who uses this language seems to allude that God’s mercy is limited and does not extend beyond the bird’s nest, while Rabbi Yossi b’Rabbi Bun went further, asserting that mentioning this mitzvah in prayer inferred that God is concerned exclusively with mercy, thus, defining God’s nature in an inappropriate way. In sum, these sages were concerned largely with failed human attempts to define God.

The Babylonian Talmud offered a different focus:

Two Amoraim in the West (Eretz Yisrael) dispute, Rabbi Yossi bar Avin and Rabbi Yossi bar Zveda. One said: Because it causes jealousy among God’s creations; and the other said: Because he (the shaliah tzibor) makes of God’s qualities mercy when they are really decrees.

A certain shaliah tzibor [prayer leader] went down [before the Ark] in the presence of Rabbah and said, ‘You have shown mercy to the bird’s nest, show pity and mercy to us’. Said Rabbah: How well this student knows how to placate his Master! Said Abaye to him: But have we not learned [in the Mishnah]: ‘He is silenced’?! Rabbah too acted so only to test Abaye. (Berakhot 33b)

In the first of the Bavli’s two opinions, the sage determined that this particular prayer would imply that God’s concerns were not universal and for that reason was to be deemed unacceptable.

The second opinion reflected a larger debate within the Jewish tradition – Does each mitzvot in the Torah have an understandable reason or are they to be treated exclusively as divine commands? On this question, the tradition does not have a definitive answer, but the sage cited here sides with those who assert that the commandments are intended solely as a means for serving God. Nothing more and nothing less.

The Talmud ends its discussion with a story. A shaliah tzibor uses this prayer formula and seemingly receives the approval of the Babylonian sage, Rabbah. According to the printed version of the story, Rabbah’s young student, Abaye, calls his attention to our Mishnah which contradicts his judgment. And so, the Talmud concludes that Rabbah only answered this way to test Abaye, his student, to see if he was aware of the Mishnah. In another version of the story, found in a variant manuscript of the Talmud, Rabbah’s opinion is left unchallenged, meaning that he approved of this prayer addition. (See Dikduke Sofrim Berakhot, pp. 181-2) Understood this way, Rabbah would not necessarily be contradicting the Mishnah, since God’s mercy was being offered to all.

As we can see from this survey, sometimes indeterminacy (i.e., not knowing the definitive answer to a question) can lead us to great religious insights. Often, it is the struggle to understand which counts most.