Unclaimed Mitzvos and Myth and Midrash Bava Basra 35-36

35

Unclaimed Mitzvos

Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses the legal process known as Shuda Dedayni, which we can translate as judicial discretion. That is, in certain legal situations where there is no evidence to prove one litigant’s possession over the other, the judges are allowed discernment and subjective impressions to use in their rulings. This is different from what we discussed in the prior daf, whereby via Kol De’alim Gavar, the judges recuse themselves. The difference is that here there is no intrinsic prior assumption of possession on either side. The classic case of Shuda Dedayni is when two people are in possession of contracts of transfer with the same date of completion. There is no claim of prior possession and each has an equally valid proof. Some Rishonim hold Shuda Dedayni is simply a discretionary act, while others hold that there was an expectation that the judge would employ intuition or below-threshold evidence to make his ruling (see Rashbam and Tosafos.) Rashbam says, the judges can somehow sense or determine whom the gift-giver felt closer to, and therefore whom he wanted to receive it.

This idea is similar to what we saw in yesterday’s blogpost, Psychology of the Daf Bava Basra 34. For the inhabitants of a Utopian world, where there is sensitivity to divine guidance, people feel the connection to their material objects.

As noted, the original case of Shuda Dedayni involved a situation where there were two contracts of sale, with the same date of execution. Aderes Eliyahu (Korach) uses this idea to develop a beautiful theological point, to better understand the following two teachings (Kiddushin 40a, and Chagigah 15a):

מחשבה טובה מצרפה למעשה, שנאמר: ״אז נדברו יראי ה׳ איש אל רעהו ויקשב ה׳ וישמע ויכתב ספר זכרון לפניו ליראי ה׳ ולחשבי שמו״. מאי: ״ולחשבי שמו״? אמר רב אסי: אפילו חשב אדם לעשות מצוה ונאנס ולא עשאה – מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו עשאה.  

The Gemara further teaches: The Holy One, Blessed be He, links a good thought to an action…Rav Asi said: Even if a person intended to perform a mitzvah but due to circumstances beyond his control he did not perform it, the verse ascribes him credit as if he performed the mitzvah.

Secondly, there is a teaching that the righteous takes his portion and the portion of his wicked peer’s in the Garden of Eden.

Regarding the first teaching Aderes Eliyahu asks, what is the significance of the phrase, “links”? Is it not sufficient to state, “recognizes” or considers “equal”? What does it mean to link the thought to the deed? Regarding the second teaching, what does it really mean, to “take his wicked peer’s portion”? I think God can give him more of his own portion – why does God need to take it away from the wicked person?  Is this some kind of heavenly recycling program?

Aderes Eliyahu explains that the good intentions and thoughts related to a physical mitzvah are comparable to a soul and body. To accomplish something in the physical world you need action or a body, but without the intention or spirit animating the physical act, it is dull and lifeless like a corpse. He then surmises, given the disposition of the righteous person, as he is constantly trying to walk with God and the imperfections of life, he may have hundreds of thoughts that were never executed by action. The opposite can be said of the wicked, who occasionally may perform a good deed, but the good intention is usually missing. Thus you have “orphan” mitzvos, and intentions, floating around in the cosmic ether, while God matches up and links the intentions of the righteous with the actions of the wicked.

So far so good. But what if God pairs up as many intentions of the righteous with corresponding non-intentional, empty actions of the wicked as could be found, and yet there is still a surplus of good actions and deeds without any intentions left to link up with?  Aderes Eliyahu says this is comparable to the case of the two contradictory contracts, and a divine Shuda Dedayni is performed, whereby the righteous person whose soul is more linked to the corresponding wicked person’s soul, will take possession of his share of the mitzvah action. 

What does Aderes Eliyahu mean by the link of a wicked person’s soul to a righteous person? My guess is that there are different personality types, and whether they are employed for good or evil is a choice. As we are taught in Gemara Shabbos (156a):

One who was born under the influence of Mars will be one who spills blood. Rav Ashi said: He will be either a blood letter, or a thief, or a slaughterer of animals, or a circumciser. 

The implication is, the trait is inborn but the choice of behavior is based on individual morals and self management.

The righteous person with similar personality characteristics and challenges as his evil doppelgänger is then the deserving person to take possession of the unclaimed good deed, since he passed the test. 

My additional thought is, if we follow the Rashbam’s definition of Shuda Dedayni, the judicial determination is made based on a sense of what the gift giver would have wanted, which comes from investigating to whom he was closest. If so, perhaps in regard to surplus empty mitzvah deeds lacking intention, the righteous person who feels closest to the mitzvah and/or closer to God, is the one who takes possession. 

36

Myth and Midrash

Our Gemara discusses a scenario whereby a farmer expends a kor of seed to sow and retrieves only a kor of produce, resulting in a net zero gain. In such a case, the consumption is not sufficient to establish a chazakah. Since he’s not making any profit; it doesn’t raise enough interest on any other potential claimants to make an official objection.

One of the most famous examples of a net zero gain is the Fox Parable from Koheles Rabbah on the verse (5:14):

As he came out of his mother’s womb, so must he depart at last, naked as he came. He can take nothing of his wealth to carry with him.

“As he emerged from his mother’s womb, so he will return naked, to go as he came, and he will take nothing for his toil that he can carry in his hand” (Ecclesiastes 5:14).“As he emerged from his mother’s womb” – Geniva said: [It is analogous] to a fox that found a vineyard  fenced in on all sides. There was one small opening, and it sought to enter through it was unable to do so. What did it do? It fasted three days until it was thin and weak, so the fox was able to slip through the opening. Of course the clever, but not – too – clever – fox gorged himself and grew fat. He sought to exit, but it could not squeeze out through the opening. The fox again fasted three other days, until it was thin and weak and it returned to be as it had been, and it exited. When it exited, it turned its face and looked at [the vineyard]. It said: ‘Vineyard, vineyard, what good are you, and what good are the fruits that are in you? Everything that is in you is good and excellent; however, what benefit is there from you? Just as one enters into you, so he emerges.’ This world is the same: there are many materials things that one can enjoy, but they won’t be able to take it with them.

This is a beautiful and powerful parable. There are records of similar versions of this parable in Greek literature. In Aesop’s Fables, or the Aesopica, (around 600 BCE), the following story is told: 

It happened that a slender fox had made her way through a narrow crack into a coffer of grain. After eating her fill, she wanted to get back out again but her swollen body prevented her from doing so. At a safe distance the weasel said to her, ‘If you want to get out of there, you better be as thin when you go back through that narrow crack as you were when you went in.”

This is not the only instance of a Midrashic story that is similar to a secular version. For example, the story of Choni Hameagel, who fell asleep for seventy years. (See Ta’anis 23a, and Yerushalmi and Midrash Tehilim on Psalm 126 with small differences.) The motif of a person falling asleep for numerous years is found in a number of cultures and mythologies. Let us look into its history and possible universal meanings. The famous American story of Rip Van Winkle, authored by Washington Irving in 1819, tells of a man who fell asleep and missed the American Revolution. In some way, the falling asleep and waking up motif is an important literary device to help the reader experience and process a sudden change in historical perspective. Actually in the Yerushalmi Ta’anis version of the story, a similar process happens, as the protagonist sleeps through the Churban destruction of the Temple, which is only alluded to in the Bavli׳s quotation of psalm 126. The narrative of the person who sleeps through it all and wakes up, accentuates the shock and difficulty at the drastic change prior to the destruction of the temple and afterward.

While there are Christian and Islamic versions of this story, that is not particularly interesting because they obviously are knock-offs of the Jewish tradition that preceded it. (There is a Hindu story from their literature but it is not earlier than the Mishna, and the story doesn’t have many similar elements other than a long sleep, and so we can assume it to be a completely coincidental and parallel development.) What is more fascinating is when there are records of stories of sleepers that predate Choni’s time, which was in the first Century BCE.

The third-century CE Greek historian, Diogenes Laërtius, recorded in his book, “Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers” a story of Epimenides of Knossos, who entered into a cave and fell into a deep sleep for 57 years. Though Diogenes wrote his history in the times of the Gemara, the stories and traditions he reported were about sages of earlier times, and presumably has some validity. In this case, the man being described, Epimenides, reportedly lived several hundred years earlier.

There also is the Greek legend of Narcissus, and the Jewish version. Nedarim (9b) and Nazir (4b) tells us about a pious lad, who upon seeing himself for the first time in a reflection in the water, vows to become a Nazir. He was so horrified by the overwhelming feelings of pride in his own handsome looks, that he takes immediate action to abstain from hedonistic pleasures, and becomes a nazir in order to tame his lust and arrogance. Compare this to the story of Narcissus:

Once, during the summer, Narcissus was getting thirsty after hunting, and the goddess lured him to a pool where he leaned upon the water and saw himself in the bloom of youth. Narcissus did not realize it was merely his own reflection and fell deeply in love with it, as if it were somebody else. Unable to leave the allure of his image, he eventually realized that his love could not be reciprocated and he melted away from the fire of passion burning inside him, eventually turning into a gold and white flower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)

As another example, consider the origin myth of the Roman Empire: Romulus and Remus, two brothers who were abandoned as infants and suckled by a she-wolf, are considered by both the Greeks and the Jews as the founders of Rome. (Dionysius, vol. 1 p. 72.) This myth is also mentioned in Esther Rabbah 3 and Midrash Tehilim 17.

My good friend Yaakov Shapiro also showed me the Greek myth of Procrustes, who had a bed in which he invited every passer-by to spend the night, and where he set to work on them with his smith’s hammer, to stretch them to fit. If the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length; nobody ever fitted the bed exactly. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes ). Compare this to the Midrash about the famous “hospitality” of the people of Sodom described in Sanhedrin (109b), “They had beds on which they would lay their guests; when a guest was longer than the bed they would cut him, and when a guest was shorter than the bed they would stretch him.”

And finally, we have Talmudic references to the she-Demon, Lilith, who seems similar to the Greek Medusa, both of whom have hair that are snakes (see Niddah 24b and Eiruvin 100b.)

What are we to make of the similarities of the Midrashic or Talmudic stories and the Greek myths? There are various approaches to Midrashic stories, with some rishonim taking a position that the stories all must be taken as literal, historical fact, while others see them as parables. There are variations on these points of view such as those who believe the stories are true literally AND also have deeper meanings, as well as those who take the stories to be true accounts but experienced in a dream or trance-like state. Finally, there are those who combine approaches and advocate using common sense to understand which midrash is a metaphor and which is literal. For a good discussion of the viewpoints on this, see the various introductions to aggadah found in the printed Vilna edition of Ein Yaakov. 

If we consider the Choni story and the story about the Nazir as historical fact, the fact that they are repeated in other cultures, mythologies and traditions do not detract from their validity.  One could simply say the stories were copied from us. Or if these stories are parables, then each culture might independently tap into unconscious psychological motifs. It is notable that in both the Greek version of Epimenides and the Choni story each has a person entered into a cave, which is obviously symbolic for entering into a state of spiritual seclusion and depth. The fox symbolizes a crafty, sneaky person in many cultures, including the Gemara (see Berachos 61b). Therefore, the Fox motif in both parables reflects a human truth about arrogance and trying to “have it all”, when you cannot.  It is a cute extra bit in Aesop’s version that the weasel (who is often a victim of the fox) mocks the fox from a safe distance. This is similar to the fish who outsmart the fox and mock him too, as seen in the story in Berachos.

We also might consider that our sages were aware of prior Greek versions of legends, such as Narcissus or Romulus and Remus, and without being concerned of their actual veracity, used the ideas and popularity of the basic themes for their own parables and lessons. The idea of plagiarism or historical accuracy did not exist in the way it does today. Stories were repeated as folklore, and each person who told the story understood it was borrowed. The rabbis may have told these stories with their own Jewish twist much as we see in modern Jewish culture secular pop songs converted to Jewish verses, or even Savta Simcha’s obvious hebraization of Mary Poppins.