No name calling allowed TB Yoma 57

Ever since I volunteered as a rabbinical student at an archaeological dig in Caesarea, I am interested in the light archaeology sheds upon biblical and rabbinic times. I’ve been a faithful reader of the magazine Biblical Archaeological Review since the early 1980s. A letter to the editor in the most recent edition, Summer 2021, volume 47 number 2, and today’s daf TB Yoma 57 highlights the human nature hasn’t changed for the better.

J. Larry Brown’s letter that begins “This retired Harvard professor knows an academic hit job when he sees one, and that is exactly what the authors did in their article attacking Yosef Garfinkel (‘Facing the Facts About the ‘Face of God’, Winter 2020). The authors slam Garfinkle for his prior article, ‘The Face of Yahweh?’ (Fall 2020).” You can continue on your own reading this letter to the editor for the basis of his complaint.

Rabbi Yirmeya made an ad hominem attack on Rava’s solution to the Gemara’s question. “The Gemara asks a question: What should the High Priest do if the blood of the bull became mixed with the blood of the goat before he finished all the sprinklings? Rava said: He should present from the mixture once upward and seven times downward, and that counts toward both this one and that one, as he has sprinkled from both of them.

“They said this answer before Rabbi Yirmeya in Eretz Yisrael, whereupon he said: Foolish Babylonians! Because they live in a dark, low land, they speak darkened halakhot, devoid of logic. If this solution is followed, when the High Priest sprinkles the mixture of bull and goat blood, he thereby presents the upward sprinklings of the goat before he sprinkles the downward presentations of the bull; and the Torah said: “And when he has finished atoning for the sacred place” (Leviticus 16:20), which teaches: He finishes the blood of the bull by sprinkling upward and downward, and only afterward he finishes the blood of the goat.” (Sefaria.org translation)

I find that many times people who are insecure and have low self-esteem attack other people to build themselves up. Could this have been Rabbi Yirmeya’s problem? He did not need to attack Rava’s intelligence along with all the other Babylonians. He could have just disagreed and offered what he considered a better solution. “Rather, Rabbi Yirmeya said that the High Priest proceeds as follows: He presents once upward and seven times downward for the purpose of sprinkling the blood of the bull, as the blood of the bull is in this mixture. And he again presents once upward and seven times downward for the purpose of sprinkling the blood of the goat. Although the blood is mixed together and by sprinkling for the purpose of the bull’s blood he also sprinkles some of the goat’s blood, since he has only the bull’s blood in mind it is as though he did not sprinkle the blood of the goat at all.” (Sefaria.org translation)

If we want to heal the rifts between the liberal streams of Judaism and the Orthodox streams, between Jews and Arabs, between Democrats and Republicans, we have to learn the art of civil disagreements. No name calling allowed!