So I’ve reflected on this before, and here we are, in the aftermath of Yom Kippur, thinking about it again. What is the value of being right? What do you give up when you want to be right?
So I’m thinking about the story in the Talmud of R. Eliezer (as retold in this graphic novel, Akhani’s Pizza.) R. Eliezer right in his interpretation of the law; but it doesn’t matter. He can’t let it go, and neither can the sages. In the end he ends up excommunicated and friendless because they can’t find common ground. It’s a frustrating and deeply unhappy story, because it didn’t have to go this way. And we learn out so many lessons from this. (Here’s a link to a sheet on Sefaria about the topic.) About respect and community and deference. What does it take to make a community? There must be a measure of trust and respect and in this story, that’s what was lost here. It’s hard to get away from the fact that R. Eliezer was correct about the oven. But in the end that, that didn’t matter. He couldn’t convince the sages he was correct and he couldn’t acknowledge that even if the ruling was wrong, it’s how the halacha goes.
But the sages too suffered because they mistreated R. Eliezer. In excommunicating him and verbally abusing him, they bore that as a sin. Rabban Gamliel who excommunicated his own brother-in-law directly suffered as a result. Yom Kippur is a reminder and an admonition to avoid mistreating others, vowing in vain, and to generally elevate our interactions with others. And from this story we learn out more about how verbal mistreatment is as cruel as any other kind of mistreatment as the Mishna continues.
How could this have gone better? Typically when the story is taught, it ends happily with the statement from the Heavenly Voice that “my children have bested me.” But when you follow it further, it’s not a happy story with a happy ending. It’s complicated and messy and sad. And I’m really struggling with that right now.