Take Ten for Talmud
1655BabaBasra21- The Start of the Torah Education System
Shalom alaykum and bia'af of t-6-13, we welcome you to tiktah in Fittambut. Baba baastra qafalaf, Baba baastra-21a, pagination is 41. We'll start on the facing page at the Mishnah towards the bottom of the page on the topic at least at first of zoning issues in terms of what kind of usage a person can make of a residence. Hanushabukhatsir, a person has a store in a residential neighborhood. Yacholumkhos biyado, a person is allowed to object to such activity, the neighbor is objecting. For lo malo and to say, any Yachalishan, I'm not able to sleep. mikol anachnosen or mikol hai yotzim because of the people who are coming and going. Now in order to apply this to practical al-ah, we of course need to know what the norm of the area is. But the concept over here is that there could theoretically be a range of what's acceptable, what a neighbor could object and in some cases once the neighbors do not object for a period of time, the person acquires a hazaka. It becomes the norm to allow a certain type of activity. There is a range of discussion when we say a person complains he can't sleep. Is this a neighborhood that there's an afternoon siesta? Is this an area simply that people go to sleep at normal times? But if a person has a store in the home, people are coming and going. It depends what kind of things they're selling. One example that was given is the person is selling from the home alcoholic beverages. So people might come during a late night celebration in order to buy more beverages. And that's an example of a commercial enterprise in a residential neighborhood that brings rowdy people at odd hours. And all of that has to be taken into account. Avelosa K. Limb, but a person is allowed to make vessels in his home. Youtze umo khabis oja shok, and then take them out and sell them in the marketplace. We in a yachalu kaspi yado, and you're not allowed to object. Neighbors can't object. Velomer and say, velomer lo in a yachali shalamikala patish, velomer kallari hai. I'm not able to sleep because you're banging. If that's a normal thing, and again, we would have to know what the particular case is, but the basic idea that we are presenting here is that a person can use his location for a normal use, but to use it as a storefront is something of concern. O mikala tinnokos, and a person cannot object to the sound of the children, and Rashi tells us that at first we thought that it's the children who are coming to buy things. And therefore the Gamora wonders, maishina raishina, maishina saifa, what's the difference between the first part of the mission that says that you're not allowed to sell things from the home, because it would cause the neighbors distress, and why at the end of the mission are you saying, and you can't object from the sound of the children, again that we think refers to coming to buy things. O mai raava at the end of the page, raava said, saifa asan de tinnokos shabes rabun. The topic of this end of the mission that says that you can't object to the children has nothing to do with business and storefronts. It's referring to children who are coming to study Torah with the homeowner, o minta konas yoshua ben gamla ve eloch, and it's referring to the takana that yoshua ben gamla made, to amarav yudha amarav, it was said, baramindid, zahar oso aishletov, remember that person favorably yoshua ben gamla shamo, his name is yoshua ben gamla, he's the one who this good thing should be attributed to shalmole who if not for him, nishtak kataram yisul, Torah could have been forgotten from the Jewish people so to speak, he was a critical juncture in the effectiveness of miso-rach tradition, shabitrila because originally parents, a father, would teach the child what happened if the father was not knowledgeable, so they made a takana that they would have an education system in yurushalayim, but the gamara describes that a person who did not have a father who could bring him to yurushalayim so that he could study Torah, wouldn't be able to study Torah, and we lost out on all those people. So they made a takana, shayim moshivim, baqapalah, qupalah, that they would have an education system in every region, there was still a flaw in the system in that they were only bringing the children in at the ages of 16 and 17, and the result was misha yuraba, kowesalov, if the rebby would get literally angry, annoyed with the person, with the student, mavid boviyate, the child would reject and he would walk out, and therefore they made a takana that they would be a very local education system in each city, omachnissimos haqivensheva, and they would start at the ages of six and seven. So this was the takana of yurushua ben gamalah that every city should have teaching of Torah to the children, and on that the mishna says the neighbors can't object. There is an observation from the piskre chuva in simen kufnun vav that they can't object because he's doing it in his house, but if they were all living in the same house and he decides to bring in children and make one room schoolhouse in their house, that would be different. The threshold of tolerance here is because he's doing it in his house and they're just objecting to the traffic, but for the greater good we allow such a thing to occur, again in this application and their times they didn't have school buildings perhaps for these young children, and this was the method that was being used. One comment that I believe is deserving of exploration here, the statement in the solution of age 16 and 17 that that wasn't a good solution because if the rebby would get angry, the student would kick and go out, he would reject the rep remand. So the word koais is a heavy word. A person is not allowed to have caste, anger. Color koais kilo avo devo de zora, a person gets angry, it's like serving avo de zora, it's idle worship, not allowed to get angry. So perhaps this kumara means that sometimes even though he's wrong, but the rebby got angry, such things happen with dealing with human beings, he has a lot of students and sometimes it's stressful and he gets angry, we're going to lose a student, whereas if you start the children younger, they're more accustomed to the system, they have more allegiance to the system and even if the rebby gets angry, loses his school, one occasion, he'll come back, he'll apologize and they'll continue on in the relationship, perhaps in that case koais is literal and it's referring to human frailty, it's a mistake, but people make mistakes and you have to have a system that can tolerate mistakes because they happen even. Another approach might be that some rebayim use kas haponim, veloka as halave, external appearance of anger, even though they themselves are totally in control of themselves and they're not angry, but it's a little bit more of an expression, it's not quite kas, anger, it's more of discipline and calling the child to task and demanding greater standards of the student and telling them this is not yet your potential and if the child is coming into the system at 16 or 17, having learned whatever they did learn on their own, but they're only coming into this discipline situation at teenage years, so then they're not going to find it so easy to be mccable that type of reprimand and that type of calling them to task. If however, the child during the years were there more accepting of parental figure age six and seven and you get them into that groove, so to speak, of their tests and things are demanded of you and you get a grade on the test, then that can carry on into the teenage years and the child when getting disciplined will not be mvaiit vieite. So again, two different approaches, are we looking to fix things because of the teacher that lost his school incorrectly or are we referring to the discipline that a teacher shows, intending it for the benefit of the student and truly professionally without losing their cool, which approach and what is the rigumara referring to. On the bottom of the page, we have another important topic which is how serious we take the role of the Rebbe when he teaches the children. We have a case of Joav, the general of David, who only killed out the Zakhar, the male people of Amalek and we know the mitzvah of destroying Amalek is that Hashem says they're fundamentally evil and they have to be destroyed. In the time of David, that nation was identifiable and there was a directive given that they have to do it and Joav, thinking he was doing the mitzvah, only destroyed the male and David called him to task and he answered that his Rebbe taught him timhe as Zakhar Amalek, the Posek at the end of Qisei, destroyed the males of Amalek and that's how he was taught. And on that of it says, Oru, Ose Malekhas Hashem Remia, cursed is the person who does the work of Hashem with trickery, with negligence, it's very serious to have taught something incorrect is a very serious level. I've often thought that perhaps that's why we have this interesting custom when we say Pasha's Amalek, we read the Posek the way it's in the tradition, timhe as Zakhar Amalek to destroy any remembrance of Amalek and then we repeat it and we say timhe as Zakhar Amalek, which is a different set of Nakudos, but it's the same idea to destroy Amalek in its entirety. And perhaps what we're looking to say is even if a person were to say there's a different pronunciation here, it's Zakhar, it's Zakhar, but just make sure that it's not Zakhar, males only because that's a mistake that was made in the time of David and was dealt with in a very harsh manner. Yes, Zakhar, thank you for joining.