The Philosophers and the Jews: Black Eggs and White Cheese - Tishah Bav - By Rabbi YY Jacobson

One of the greatest Jewish sages in our history was a man named Rabbi Yeshua ben Chananiah, Joshua the son of Chananiah. He was a Levite who still sung at the time of the second base hamikdash, the second temple. The Levi'im, as you know, the Levites would hold the daily concerto in the base hamikdash, in the temple, and Rabbi Yeshua ben Chananiah was one of the meshorerim, he was one of the Levites who was part of the daily musical concert. He was considered a legendary scholar, a philosopher, an astronomer, a brilliant debater. He watched the temple go up in flames on the ninth day of the month of Av, on Tisha B'Av. He was one of the students of the great leader Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai who actually carried him out of Jerusalem when the Zealots would not allow any negotiations with the Romans. And Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was carried out as a corpse from the capital of Jerusalem where he would ultimately meet Vespasian, the general who would later become the Caesar, who's under under his authority Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was plundered, the Jews were massacred. And Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai struck some deal with Rabbi with Vespasian to leave Yavneh to spare Yavneh and its sages not to destroy the place of the Yeshivas of the Talmudic Rabbinical Academy. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah was one of the Sanhedrin, was one of the members of the Jewish Supreme Court in Yavneh. And as I said, a fierce debater. Now, the temple was destroyed in the year 70 after the common era. And the following episode, which we're going to focus on, is a debate that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah had merely a few decades after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 after the common era. In other words, it was either in the first century after the common era or the beginning of the second century after the common era. One of the centers of philosophy and wisdom at the time, one of the greatest centers, was the capital of Greece, Athens. In Athens lived a group known as Sabi de Bei Asuna, the elders of Athens. They were not very fond of the Roman Empire. Greece used to be the military and philosophical capital of the world. The Romans, of course, of course, now controlled the entire Middle East, including the land of Israel, including the country of Greece. But the Sabi de Sunna sat in their mansions and philosophized in the tradition the traditions of the great Greek philosophers. And so the Talmud in tractate P'rakhim daf ches, page eight, shares with us a stunning debate that takes place between the Jewish representative Rabbi Yehoshua the son of Hananiah and the 70 elders of Athens, the capital of Greece. Rabbi Yehoshua represents Jewish faith tradition and the elders of Athens represent the ideas of the great Greek philosophers. What's fascinating about the debate is is it's all conducted in riddles. So when you read it at first glance, it seems like children poking fun or insults at each other. There doesn't seem to be any logic, never mind depth. But as the many Talmudic commentators have pointed out, these riddles are hints of allegorical wisdom, wisdom conveyed through allegory, riddles, and metaphor. And essentially the debates deal with some very existential dilemmas. They deal with questions like creation, purpose, destiny, hope, faith, morality, ethics, redemption, eternity, life after death, and the great issues that have plagued mankind and human civilizations from beginning of time. Just to give you a few examples of the debates, at first glance they seem ridiculous. The elders of Athens ask Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah, they say, "Tell us, if a chick dies before it was hatched, while it was still in the egg? From where does his soul go out? The egg is sealed from all sides and it dies. How does its soul goes out go out? So, Rabbi Yeshua answered, "The same place from where it went in." Then they asked him, "If salt is getting spoiled, how do you preserve it?" So, he told them, "You preserve it with the afterbirth of a mule." The sack that comes out after a mule, the afterbirth of a mule, you engulf the salt with that and it stays fresh. It doesn't rot. So, they asked him, "A mule has an afterbirth? A mule doesn't give birth." So, he said, "And the salt spoil?" And that is how he defeats them. And many arguments on a similar level. One argument there is, they ask him, "How do you harvest how do you reap rows of knives that are growing in the orchard or in the field? What do you use to harvest them?" So, Rabbi Yeshua ben Hananiah says, "You use the horns of a donkey." Karna d'khamra, the horn of a donkey. So, they tell him, "Does a donkey have horns?" So, he responds, "Do knives grow in rows?" Right after that, comes this debate. And this we're going to read inside. Bring up source number one. Right below the video you have a PDF curriculum. You can open it up. Source number one, Maseches Brachos daf ches amud beis. Aisu lei tre beya. The elders of Athens brought out two eggs. And they show it to the Jewish sage, Rabbi Yeshua ben Hananiah. Umru lei, they said to him, "Hey, this actually messy. They hate the Zachary Gracie. Which egg came from a black hen and which egg came from a white hen?" Stuck? Defeated? Two eggs look identical, but they were laid by different hens. One was a dark hen, a black hen. One was a white hen. Tell us which egg came from which. You can't. They look identical. This was their question to him trying to defeat him philosophically. I salu e u trigamini. He brought before them two pieces of cheese. Umarloui, he tells them, "Hey, this is actually messy. This is a crazy." Which piece of cheese was curdled from milk that was milked from a white goat and which piece of cheese was made from the milk that came from a black goat? You can't tell? Both pieces of cheese are light, white or yellow, white or a bright color. Can you tell which cheese came from the milk from a black goat, she-goat, or from a white she-goat? You can't. Yay, Rabbi Yeshua won the debate. He triumphed over the elders of Athens. They brought two eggs, he brought two pieces of cheese. He could not distinguish one egg from another egg. Which one came from a dark hen, which one came from a white hen? They could not distinguish which piece of cheese came from a black goat, which one came from a white goat? He triumphed over them in their debate. Now, what does this mean? What is going on here? What's the story with rows of knives and donkey horns? And what's the meaning of two eggs and two pieces of cheese? What is the meaning of this? Many interpretations have been presented over the generations. Talmudic commentators and great rabbis and sages have presented their perspectives. We have the Maharal, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, the 16th century great rabbi of Prague, Czechoslovakia, gives his interpretations of the symbolism behind the debate. We have the Rabbi Yitzchak ben Abba Ditcher Kedusha Levi, the holy Rabbi Yitzchak ben Abba Ditcher gives his interpretation. The famous Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna gives his interpretation. He has a little volume Likutei Amarim explaining Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the great Hasidic master, and many other commentators. But, I want to share with you today one perspective that was presented by the Maharsha. One of the great Talmudic commentators is the 16th century Polish Talmudist, Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Edels, who was a rabbi in the Polish city of Chełm for 9 years. So, Chełm is a real city. And he was the rabbi of Chełm. He's known as the Maharsha. And he wrote a commentary throughout on the Talmud that is studied by every serious student of the Talmud in Yeshiva. And the Maharsha gives an ingenious interpretation for all of the debates between the elders of Athens and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah in this whole section of Talmud tractate Pri Eitz Chaim, page eight. What I want to share with you, what I want to share with you is one of his interpretations concerning the eggs and the cheese, developed and elaborated upon based on other sources. Says the Maharsha, When they showed two eggs, what they were referring to is a simple but profound insight. Namely, what the Marshall says is it takes 21 days for a hen egg to hatch. And once the chick comes out of the egg, what happens? Basically, nothing remains of the egg but the outer shell. The whole inside of the egg becomes is converted into the chick that is hatched after 21 days. So, what's the lifespan of an egg? 21 days. Of course, we're not referring to an egg that we snatch away to eat. Then the lifespan can be more than 3 weeks or it could be less than 3 hours. But, we're referring to the regular process. The the mother hen sits on her eggs to keep them warm, which is in itself a fascinating thing how it happens. She sits lightly on them not to uh break them, not to squash them. She covers the eggs with her thick fluffy feathers and wings and warms them. And after 21 days, the egg is hatched, the chick comes out, the rooster or the chicken, the baby rooster, the baby chicken, and the egg is gone. Only the outer shell remains. So, when they take two eggs, what they're referring to is two sets of 21 days because the lifespan of an egg is 21 days. Their two eggs representing two sets of 21 days. And they asked Rabbi Yehoshua, "Can you tell us which egg came from a black hen and which from a white hen?" There is a set of 21 days that was produced from a white hen. There was another set of 3 weeks that was produced from a black hen. You tell us which one comes from which. You cannot because they're indistinguishable from each other. We win the debate. What is their question? Do you understand? There are two sets of 21 days in the Jewish calendar. There are two eggs in the Jewish calendar. One is an egg that comes from blackness, from darkness, from melancholy, from sadness, metaphorically represented by an egg born laid by a black hen. Another egg comes from whiteness, from purity, from cleansing, from brightness, from luminescence. What are the two sets of 21 days in the Jewish calendar you say? 21 days are 3 weeks. We have the 3 weeks beginning with the 17th of Tammuz culminating on the 9th day of the month of Av, Shiva Asar B'Tammuz till Tisha B'Av known as Bein HaMetzarim, the three Wochen, the three weeks. Those are the three weeks of pain and tragedy and destruction. On the 17th of Tammuz the walls of Jerusalem were breached and for the next 3 weeks the enemy came and destroyed and massacred and plundered the holy city until on the 9th of Av the house of God, the Beit HaMikdash, went up in flames and hence the 9th of Av is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, the day of fasting by night and by day, the day of mourning when we read the book of Eichah, Lamentations. We say the Kinot, the poems and the liturgy lamenting the destruction and the exile that followed the destruction of the Temple on the 9th of Av. Those are the 21 days, the 3 weeks of the egg that came from a black hen. But, there are another set of 21 days, beginning on the first day of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, continuing continuing till the 21st day of Tishrei, which is Hoshana Rabbah. That includes the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the 10 days of repentance, the holiday of Yom Kippur, the holiday of Sukkot. Those are the 21 days that are born from a white hen. Those are days of cleansing. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish soul is renewed. Yom Kippur, the Jewish soul is cleansed and whitened and purified. Sukkot, the Jewish soul celebrates. Hoshana Rabbah is the last day of judgment, the Gmar Hatimah Tovah, we wish a gute kvittel. It's the day of the sealing of the judgment of the year for a good and happy and healthy year, a good destiny for the year. That's Hoshana Rabbah. That's the egg that's born. I don't know what's going to be left from these eggs, but don't get too hungry. That's the 21 days that are born from a white hen. But, the two are indistinguishable from each other. You can't recognize this egg from this egg. They're both the same 21 days. And what the Greeks were saying is, look at history, look at life. Evil is as potent as good. Tragedy is as potent as joy. Darkness is as powerful as light. Gloom is as ferocious as happiness. You don't even have an extra day of your days of happiness and positivity to outnumber your days of tragedy and despair. Isn't this the great tradi- one of the traditions in Greek philosophy? It's all random. Suffering is as powerful as anything else in the world. It's 50/50. 21 days of joy, 21 days of tragedy. They're both on an equal scale. There's no power to goodness, to life, to celebration, to cleansing over the darkness of life, over the tragedy of life. They both share the same might in the world. That's one message the Greeks are conveying through the white at two eggs. You can't distinguish one from the other. The second message conveyed in this is yet more. The great future and destiny and hope of the Jewish people have come to a tragic end. Yes, you have once prided yourself with Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and everything they represent. Those were your 21 days that came from the white hand, but you know very well that these 21 days have been canceled out and quite traumatically by 21 days of destruction. That nation that came out of Egypt through miracles and wonders, that saw the splitting of the Red Sea, that observed God face-to-face at the Mount of Sinai, that were sheltered by Sukkot and the clouds of glory throughout their 40-year trek in the desert, that history is now gone. You have now no independence, no temple, no national sovereignty, no political autonomy, no commonwealth, no country, no homeland. Your people were slaughtered and massacred. The survivors were sold as slaves. Your end is near. Yes, you once had an egg that came from a white hand, but now your egg came from a black hen and it canceled out and it metamorphosed Jewish history, that great and bright nation that gave so much to civilization in the world. The end has come. Rome has now conquered the world. Rome has taken over the land. Rome changed the name from Judea to Palestine, even tried to change the name of Jerusalem, although that didn't work. The future is Rome. All the roads are leading to Rome. There's no future to Jews. There's no future to Judaism. There's no future to Torah. The 21 days of despair canceled out the 21 days of Jewish joy, of Jewish celebration. Isn't this a powerful question? Isn't this a powerful dilemma? Rabbi Yeshua ben Chananya did not falter. Did not acquiesce. He proved them wrong. How? Through his pieces of cheese. He showed them two pieces of cheese. One cheese came from a black goat, from the milk of a black goat, one's from a white goat, but they were both white. So he told them, "Even the cheese that came from a black goat, the milk that comes from a black goat is still white. And that milk is curdled into bright cheese, just like the milk that comes from a white and bright goat." What was he referring to? What's the message here? The message is that the cheese is also indistinguishable and they're both white and they come from a black goat. How did he answer? The answer, bring up the next source. Source number two. The two goats represent those famous two goats that the memory of them was very fresh because this is a few decades after the destruction of the temple in the book of Leviticus. Parshat Acharei Mot, we learn about the service of the high priest on Yom Kippur. Aaron must place lots on the two goats. One lot says LaHashem, to God. One lot says LaAzazel. What happened with the two goats that the high priest chose for the holy day of the year, Yom Kippur? Part of the 21 days of the egg, one goat was offered in the holy temple. Its blood was brought into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled one time a year. Only one time a year that he went into the Holy of Holies and the blood was sprinkled near the ark. The second goat was sent to the mountain of Azazel. Now, these goats represented two very different realities. The first goat represented the divine core in every human being. It represented the bond, the relationship between God and Israel. And this metaphorically is represented by whiteness. It's the white goat. The second goat represented the dark chambers that exist within the human spirit. The fact that we're capable of betrayal, of deceit, of transgression, of lying to ourselves and to others. We're capable of abusing ourselves and others. We're capable of darkness. It represented the skeletons and the demons and the ghosts and the dark chambers in the human psyche. That was the second goat and the second goat was, so to speak, the one that carried all the sins of the Jewish people and was taken and cast off the Azazel mountain. In fact, the English term, the famous term scapegoat, where does it come from? Scapegoat comes from the second goat. When a culture or a nation or an of a community looks for somebody to be able to impose upon him or her all their problems and blame it on them, it's called a scapegoat. Often we know it's done just to transfer blame from them onto others. You need a scapegoat so people don't focus their attention where you don't want them to focus their attention. And this has been done throughout history very many times and the Jews know this perhaps better than every other people. How many times have we served as scapegoats to cover up for the unwillingness of cultures and nations to deal with their own problems. Till today. Take the Middle East. So many countries are eroded from within, THE MORAL CORRUPTION, THE ABUSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS, THE ABUSE OF LIBERTY, THE ABUSE of women. Horrendous. But as long as you could blame Israel for your problems and your dilemmas, you will look better. In our countries, there's only majesty and moral beauty and whiteness. The Jews are guilty. But let's not get off our subject. That's the story of the scapegoat. THE AZAZEL CARRYING THE DARKNESS that represents metaphorically the black goat. The goat going into the Holy of Holies represents our whiteness, our holiness, our purity. But there's also another side to us. And that's represented in the second goat. Now here we see a fascinating thing. Open up source number three. The Mishna tells us in tractate Shabbos, chapter nine, minayin bishnei se'irim mishtalei'ach. The one who would take the second goat, the black goat metaphorically speaking. It wasn't necessarily black, but metaphorically, the dark goat or the goat carrying our darkness. He would tie a string of red, a scarlet red string on the head of the goat. Half of it he would tie onto the head of the goat, the other half he would leave on the top of the mountain on a rock. And when the goat was cast, the string was transformed. The color red turned white. The Torah said the verse says in Isaiah, Yeshayahu, "If your sins will be a scarlet red, they will become as white as snow." What's the message here? The message is that the black goat that goes to Azazel also produces white cheese, just as the first goat that goes into the Holy of Holies is considered a white and luminescent and bright goat, the second goat which carries the negative attributes of the Jewish people also produces whiteness. Its string also becomes white. Its purpose was not to wallow in the darkness. Its purpose was to transform the darkness into light. The second goat as well. Now we can understand what Rabbi Yeshua ben Chananya was telling the elders of Athens when he addressed these goats, when he took these two pieces of cheese, and he showed it to them and he says, "Can you distinguish which one comes from a white goat, which one comes from a black goat?" What was he saying? He was telling them, "Look at this. These two goats are opposite. One goat is an expression of our positive relationship with God. One goat is an expression of our distance. One goat is an expression of our ability to enter into the Holy of Holies. The other goat is an expression of the darker side of our personality, which can take us to the abyss, like the second goat, which ends up in the abyss. It's cast down a steep mountain. Isn't that what many of us do to ourselves? We throw ourselves off the towers of moral heights into the dark chambers of divisiveness, of friction, of darkness, of all forms of falsehood, subtly or dense, concrete. And yet, white cheese comes from both. How can white cheese come from the black goat? I understand white cheese can come from a white goat. Why do you have white cheese from the black goat? And the answer is because even the darker side of life, even the downers that we experience, they're not fun. They're not pure. But the ultimate objective of why we are allowed to make mistakes and why we are allowed to fall and why we are allowed to stumble is only so that it ultimately produces white cheese to deepen our humanness, to deepen our souls, to deepen our relationship with God. Even a black goat ultimately can be converted and it's capable of producing white cheese. And this is where Rabbi Yeshua revealed to the Greeks one of the great secrets behind Jewish resilience and what would allow them to survive and to thrive and to endure the suffering at that era and to come out triumphant till this very day when the Romans can be found in Wikipedia, but the Jewish people are still present and alive. Just as the cheese that comes from black goats is as white as the cheese that comes from white goats and you can't distinguish between the two. So, too, the Jewish people saw the darkness in the world and the pain and the suffering in the world, even the destruction of the Temple and the black three weeks that were created as a result of destruction of the Temple, they didn't see it as random pain and meaningless suffering and just bad fate and evil dominating the world. It was not a demonstration to them that evil is as potent as good and darkness is as powerful as light and negativity is as true as positivity. No. Beneath the pain, there was a streak of whiteness. At the core of the black hole, there was infinite light. Even the black goats were there to produce white cheese in the world. Even the hardships they faced were there to get them where they have to be. On a personal on a personal level, too, the way the Jewish view, the way Judaism views the experiences of life that are difficult and are hard and are painful are not to view the pain and the difficulty as ends in and of themselves as a proof that evil is as powerful as good and darkness is as great as light. No. What they see it is as catalysts, as springboards to be able to get them where they have to be. No, they didn't always understand it. Sometimes it was so difficult to wrap their minds around it. But yet, what kept them afloat was the knowledge that there was some meaning, there was some depth beneath the darkness. There was white cheese that would be produced from the black goat. There was whiteness that came even from the Azazel. And that helped them not only survive, but it also helped them thrive. Somebody once said about Jews that the reason that Jews don't drink is because they don't want the alcohol to interfere with their suffering. Now, they were wrong on two counts. Number one, there are many Jews who drink. Not on Tisha B'Av, but other times there are Jews who drink, unfortunately. And number two, Jews don't appreciate suffering. Jews never appreciated suffering. Jews would rather that we experience all the depth of life through blessings, through prosperity, through revealed blessings. No one seeks out pain. No one seeks suffering. But what the Jewish people knew is that the reality of life is that we share moments of great exhilaration and moments of agony, difficulties and trials. Until the redemption, as long as that is the case, the Jewish response was to turn life challenges into a springboard for positive change and to see all challenges as opportunities with thorns. And here, Rabbi Yeshua ben Chananya responded to them. They used the two eggs to say that darkness is as powerful as light and that the days of joy have been canceled out by days of despair. Rabbi Yeshua ben Chananya says, "You don't understand how we see it. We see it all as coming from one source. The reason the two eggs are identical, the reason both times in the Jewish calendar have 21 days is because there are two forms of light. There's light that initially appears as light, and there's light that that appears as darkness. And we have to reveal the light in that darkness. We have to transform that darkness into light. And that's the secret of the three weeks culminating with Tisha B'Av, the 9th of Av. The three weeks is the light that appears as darkness. It's the second egg that comes from the black hen. It's the white cheese that comes from the black goat, from the second goat, from the Azazel goat. But it's to its ultimate purpose is to know that there is purpose. There's some form of meaning. The world is not a chaotic random random hellish jungle. God is everywhere, and that means there's meaning everywhere. Means there's a spark everywhere. And our job is to be able to see it from the deeper and higher perspective. And to be able to use it as a catalyst for our own growth and our own strength and our own rejuvenation. In physics, you will know there's a concept called a black hole. The gravitational field in the black hole is so powerful that it doesn't allow anything to escape. So, all the light remains focused in the black hole, but since it doesn't allow anything to escape, it's filled with light, but it's a black hole. Those are the three weeks. They're the black hole. Doesn't allow the light to escape. And the Jewish mission is to pierce through the hole and to reveal the inner light. Now you'll understand the secret of their debate. They ask Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, "How do you cope to rows of knives? How do you cope rows of knives?" What's their question? Yeah, you're on a march towards redemption. You're marching through the fields of history. You're paving a road through the jungle of history, but they're full with rows of knives cutting you down. How do you get RID OF THESE KNIVES? AND RABBI SHIMON BAR YOCHAI SAYS, "We have the horn of a donkey." It says the Messiah is going to come on a white donkey, riding on a donkey. And we have the kindness of Messiah. What's known as the horned shofar God the horn of the ram's horn that will be blowing with the redemption. They say the donkey has a horn. Since when does a donkey have a horn? And he responds to them and he says, And are there rows of knives? The whole negative experience of the Jewish people is beyond logic how much they suffered. There's rows of knives. There's a horn of a donkey to cut those knives. Right after that they bring the two eggs to disprove it. And he brings out the two pieces of cheese. Two pieces of cheese demonstrate the Jewish perspective to exile. The Jewish perspective to the destruction with the mourning, with the despair, with the pain. They always knew that the white cheese comes even from the second goat. And therefore in the exile they saw the road towards redemption. The road towards Messiah. The road towards a world that is white in a revealed and bright sense. I want to request from you on this day which is very auspicious for charity, especially for charity to strengthen the study of Torah, the dissemination of Torah, the lifeline of the Jewish people in its march from exile to redemption, to please utilize this day and help us continue our work here on the Yeshiva.net. You can go to our website theYeshiva.net, donate, and give us even a small contribution in the merit of charity it brings the redemption yet closer. Thank you very much. Oh yeah.