#talmud

Regarding the ritual of the red heifer, it is discussed whether the body's distance to the city is measured from the nostrils or from the belly button, a legalistic debate concerning which Saiman writes

In both variants, the issue is not how we measure a man's corpse but how we measure the human essence. Both turn a superficially trifling legal question into a broadly philosophical one: is man a primarily physical being – created from the navel on out? Or fundamentally a spiritual being – measured from the breathing passages?

The halakhic context is no less significant, as the ceremony of the hacked calf is specifically designed to draw attention to the uniqueness of the human being. When an animal carcass is found at the side of the road, halakhah offers no response. But when a human is killed, the entire body politic is engaged. [...] What makes a human corpse different? This is the very issue discussed by Rabbis Akiva and Eliezer.

Chaim N. Saiman, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law

The Gemara then asks a related question: what if the head was severed? Do we bring the head to the body or the body to the head? To the modern mind, it seems more logical that the body fell in its place and the head rolled away, but the Rambam rules differently:

What can we make of this? Perhaps, Levinas will help. Reading this matter parallel to the one Saiman refers to, we find the question to be which part makes the person. The face of the Other is that which imposes an obligation to me, thus, personhood is not something that exists in a vacuum but something that arises out of out mutual halakhic indebtedness to each other. Hence, in death, his obligation to me ends, but my obligation to the deceased does not. As long as İ breathe, İ am obligated.

R. Eliezer then adds another thought:

The Mishnah moves on to examine the ritual of the red heifer, carried out when a dead body has been found murdered with the killer unfound. Obviously, the notion that the elders themselves are culpable of murder is unthinkable, so we must extend the web of actions that render one responsible, to sending the person in question away without food or accompaniment.

We may see here a parallel to Levinas reading of a different passage in Tractate Sotah, where he deduces that, in a halakhic society, we are all infinitely responsible for each other.

The Rambam then adds one interesting point:

"The Holy One, blessed be He, then forgives the shedding of the blood", that is, even though those present are innocent for all direct intents and purposes, as a society, the occurence of injustice, as exemplified by murder, still constitutes a collective failure.

Lastly, in citing Elisha, the Gemara adds a point that we find again reflected in Levinas: accompaniment is not merely for the purpose of preventing the person from being murdered, but also for preventing them from becoming a murderer. As per Levinas, not only do we have a halakhic responsibility to each and every human being, but we also have a halakhic responsibility to each others responsibility, a responsibility that becomes all the more pronounced in the face of institutional failure.

The Gemara here analyses the speech of the priest anointed for war in which he enumerates those who should return home instead of fighting in battle, including one who hasn't built a house, planted a vineyard, or gotten married. The Gemara then proceeds to interpret what could be meant by this.

So we find three readings, one outlining three texts of incresing difficulty, one distinguishing between fixed text, discursive text, and practice, and the last between learning, practicing, and expounding – which we could read as teaching, as adding ones own thoughts, or both. R. Abe Halevy Faur writes, echoing the last reading:

My father's perennial calling to me was and until today is: "There is no [such thing as a] midrash (a study session) with no new insights". Hence, on a daily basis, he would ask me: "Tell me a hiddush (an original and creative Torah insight)!" He would not take no for an answer. He prodded me and urged me to be fruitful with hiddushim, and to grow new branches and the "tree of life", insisting that I should not just read the texts of the Torah (be it the weekly parasha, a talmudic sugya, or even one of his own writings) but that I think about what I read, form new connections, generate insights, and compellingly articulate them. Thus, for the Hakham, allegiance to the past was not an obstacle but rather a springboard for new knowledge and ideas."

R. Abe Halevy Faur, General Introduction, in: R. José Faur, The Horizontal Society and Political Thought

Thus we see indeed the connection: it is by expounding, forming and communicating our own insights and thus growing a connection between the Torah and our individual reality that we make ourselves at home, built ourselves a treehouse in the etz hayyim.

The Rambam adds a reading of his own:

His literal reading is very practical and will become more clear when we consider what Leibowitz wrote on a different passage where Rambam expressed a similar opinion regarding the importance of first establishing an occupation:

[The sages] never authorized themselves to ask for money [for their learning], considering such an act a desecration of God's name in the eyes of the masses, as Torah would from that moment on be considered like one job among others, destined to supply man with his needs, she would be lowered in their own eyes and one who acted in this manner would have displeased God." These are hard words, and Maimonides knew they ran counter to the opinion that had taken hold among the Jewish people since the time of the exilarchs, where Torah study was no longer a task and a mission incumbent on each man, that each man has to accomplish according to his means, his ability, and his societal situation. Torah study has since become an institution among the Jewish people, practiced by professionals destined for this task and sustained by the people. Put differently, Torah study was no longer considered a duty incumbent on each man, but as an institution the Jewish people is held to maintain.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Les fondements du judaïsme: Causeries sur les Pirqé Avot et sur Maïmonide

Thus, by not first finding a source of income, one might find oneself compelled to denigrate Torah study to that position. Once established as an institution, such a society no longer bases it self on a mutual ability to understand and expound on Torah, but rather on readings dictated by the learned class – it ceases to be horizontal.

We find a similar concern in the writings of R. Faur regarding rabbinic authority over and public disconnect from Torah:

Faur maintains that the anti-Maimonideans called the Maimonideans heretics, implying that the real deviants were the former rabbis who demanded obedience and who outlaw critical thinking and personal accountability. For the Andalusian/Sephardic school, for Faur the heir to the Geonic Tradition – and for every pre-Christian cult – religion is Orthoprax and not Orthodox. On the one hand, Faur argues that the heresy of which Maimonides was guilty is not cited by his detractors. By informing the reader that the anti-Maimonideans doctored texts to suit their ends, after making faith in the saintly great rabbi who is Torah incarnate a dogma, the discerning reader realizes that Maimonides' "heresy", which empowered critical thinking, creates individuals and communities who will hold their leaders to account and not tolerate charlatans.

R. Alan J. Yuter, Introduction: Recovering the Good and the Straight, in: R. José Faur, The Horizontal Society and Political Thought