Megillah, Daf Kaf Heh, Part 1
Introduction
The last daf of this chapter continues to deal with particular manifestations of heretical leanings. The Mishnah then moves on to the issue of translating the Bible using euphemisms and other non-literal translations.
משנה.
1) האומר יברכוך טובים הרי זו דרך המינות.
2) על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך ועל טוב יזכר שמך, מודים מודים משתקין אותו.
3) המכנה בעריות משתקין אותו,
4) האומר: +ויקרא י"ח+ ומזרעך לא תתן להעביר למלך לא תתן לאעברא בארמיותא משתקין אותו בנזיפה.
Mishnah
1) If one says May the good bless you, this is the way of heresy.
2) [If one says], May Your mercy reach the nest of a bird, May Your name be mentioned for the good, We give thanks, we give thanks, they silence him.
3) One who uses euphemisms in the portion dealing with forbidden marriages, he is silenced.
4) If he says, [instead of] And you shall not give any of your seed to be passed to Moloch, (Leviticus 18:21) You shall not give [your seed] to pass to a Gentile woman, he silenced with a rebuke.
Section one: The heresy here seems to be one of dualism. Saying May the good bless you sounds as if there are two gods, one that governs the good and one that governs the bad. This was a common theology at the time of the Mishnah, especially among groups dubbed Gnostics by modern scholars. The rabbis were insistent that one God was responsible for both evil and good.
Section two: There are three heretical saying in this mishnah. I ll try to explain them one at a time. The mishnah says that for each they silence him. This implies that the mishnah is describing one who passes before the ark, meaning one who leads the Amidah prayer. If he tries to enter in one of these prayers they remove him as prayer leader.
May Your mercy reach the nest of a bird: This line is explained in the Talmud in several different ways. One is that he is complaining to God saying, Your mercy is on the nest of this bird but not on me. God commanded shooing away the mother bird before taking the young, an act of mercy for the mother (Deuteronomy 22:6). The person praying complains that God has not shown similar mercy to him. A different explanation is that this saying understands God s commandments as being only about mercy, when really they are decrees which we are to obey without questioning their reasoning. Another explanation is that he says Your mercy reaches only to this nest but cannot extend any further. In such a way he limits God s power.
May Your name be mentioned for the good: This implies that God s name should not be connected with the bad or the evil. As in the first section, this might imply some sort of dualism we thank God for the good and don t mention the evil because its source is a different god.
We give thanks, we give thanks: Again the problem seems to be one of dualism giving thanks twice sounds like it is being given to two different gods. However, in this section the dualism may not be of a good god and a bad god, but simply two gods. There were ancient sects of Jews (including Christians) who while professing monotheism, gave divine roles to other characters, such as God s word (the Logos), God s spirit or Jesus.
Section three: Leviticus 18:7 says, You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father. If a person translates this as you shall not uncover the nakedness of his father, in an attempt to use a more innocuous third person, he is silenced. The translation of the Torah is to be literal, and even in the section concerning forbidden relations.
Section four: The Torah prohibits passing one s child to Moloch. Some ancient translators understood this as a prohibition against impregnating or having sexual relations with a Gentile (Aramean) woman or perhaps against giving one s child to a Gentile to raise. Since passing one s child to Moloch is a capital crime, this might imply that having sexual relations with is a capital crime. Therefore the rabbis insisted upon a literal translation of the verse.
גמרא. בשלמא מודים מודים דמיחזי כשתי רשויות, ועל טוב יזכר שמך נמי, דמשמע: על טוב אין, ועל רע לא, ותנן: חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שהוא מברך על הטובה.
GEMARA. We understand [the prohibition of saying] "We give thanks, we give thanks," because it looks like there are two Powers; also of "Your name should be mentioned for the good", because it implies, for good, yes, for evil, no, and we have learned: One is obligated to bless [God] for evil in the same way as he blesses for good.
Two of the three heretical sayings prohibited by the Mishnah are easily explained. The explanations here accord with my explanations above.
אלא, על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך מאי טעמא? פליגי בה תרי אמוראי במערבא: רבי יוסי בר אבין ורבי יוסי בר זבידא, חד אמר: מפני שמטיל קנאה במעשה בראשית, וחד אמר: מפני שעושה מדותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא רחמים, ואינן אלא גזירות.
But what is the reason for prohibiting, "May Your mercy reach the nest of a bird"? Two amoraim in the West [Palestine] differed over this: R. Yose b. Abin and R. Yose b. Z’vida. One said, it is because he creates jealousy in the work of the creation, and the other says it is because he makes the qualities of the Holy One, blessed be He, acts of mercy, whereas they are only decrees.
These two explanations were quoted above when I explained the Mishnah.
ההוא דנחית קמיה דרבה, אמר: אתה חסת על קן צפור אתה חוס ורחם עלינו, (אתה חסת על אותו ואת בנו אתה חוס ורחם עלינו).
אמר רבה: כמה ידע האי מרבנן לרצויי למריה.
אמר ליה אביי: והא משתקין אותו תנן.
ורבה לחדודי לאביי הוא דבעא.
A certain man went down [before the ark] in front of Rabbah and said: You have shown pity on the nest of a bird, have pity and mercy on us. (You have shown pity to an animal and its young, have pity and mercy on us.
Rabbah said: How well this Rabbi knows how to please his Master.
Abaye said to him: But we have learned, they silence him?
Rabbah only wanted to sharpen Abaye.
In this story a person serving as shaliah tzibbur actually says what the Mishnah explicitly says not to say. He also adds in another line, in reference to the halakhah that one is not allowed to slaughter a mother and its young on the same day [this line is missing in some textual traditions]. In both cases, God has mercy on an animal. I find it very interesting that despite the fact that the Mishnah says not to say something, we hear of a shaliah tzibbur actually saying it. Perhaps this shows that the Mishnah was directed at actual practice.
In any case, Rabbah seems to actually praise the person for what he said. This is especially perplexing to Abaye, who correctly notes that he Mishnah said that we silence such a prayer leader.
The Talmud answers that Rabbah was just checking Abaye to see if he would respond correctly. Always a good excuse I was just testing you!
ההוא דנחית קמיה דרבי חנינא, אמר: האל הגדול הגבור והנורא האדיר והחזק והאמיץ. אמר ליה: סיימתינהו לשבחיה דמרך? השתא הני תלתא, אי לאו דכתבינהו משה באורייתא ואתו כנסת הגדולה ותקנינהו, אנן לא אמרינן להו, ואת אמרת כולי האי? משל לאדם שהיו לו אלף אלפי אלפים דינרי זהב, והיו מקלסין אותו (באלף) דינרי כסף. לא גנאי הוא לו?
A certain person went down before the ark in the presence of R. Hanina and said, "God, the great, the mighty, the terrible, the majestic, the strong, the powerful." He said to him: Have you finished the praises of your Master? Even the first three, had it not been that Moses wrote them in the Torah and the Men of the Great Assembly came and established them, we would not say them; and you say all this. It is comparable to a man who had thousands of thousands of denarii of gold and people would praise him for having a thousand. Would this not be demeaning to him?
In this story the shaliah tzibbur adds on some adjectives to the traditional three used to describe God "God, the great, the mighty, the terrible." These three adjectives used in the Amidah were based on Moses’s words in Deuteronomy 10:17. R. Hanina rebukes the prayer leader for adding on to God’s praise. There is simply no way for a human being to adequately express God’s praise. Therefore we are to stick with the traditional formula, initiated by Moses and instituted as part of the Amidah by the Men of the Great Assembly. To add on to these three adjectives is presumptuous.