Consistency in Rava saying באומר מותר
This is the third and final part in a series.
In part one, Rava and Mistakenly Permitted Idolatry, we explored the idea that Rava did not actually say בְּאוֹמֵר מוּתָּר, but that it was attributed to him by the Stamma, as it explored the position he actually did stake out about whether one is liable for idolatry committed out of love or fear.
In part two, Rava as a Youngster, we explored the gemara’s noting a contrast between Rava here and his question to Rav Nachman. Rav Nachman answered there but Rava didn’t accept it. I suggested that Rava’s position could have evolved over time, and Rava as a young student to Rav Nachman might not have solidified his position, but that he was older when tussling with Abaye.
Continuing discussing Rava, we have now arrived at Tosafot at the top of Sanhedrin 62a. They notice this repeated assignment of בְּאוֹמֵר מוּתָּר to Rava, and note a contradiction with a gemara in Makkot.
ורבא אמר [לך] לא באומר מותר - ובריש הגולין (מכות דף ז. ושם) דממעט רבא מבשגגה פרט לאומר מותר התם גרס רבה דעני אביי בתריה אי נמי גבי גלות טובא בשגגה כתיבי:
That sugya in Makkot 7b (not a as in the text) reads:
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: ״בִּשְׁגָגָה״ – פְּרָט לְמֵזִיד. ״בִּבְלִי דַּעַת״ – פְּרָט לְמִתְכַּוֵּין.
The Sages taught in a baraita derivations from verses written with regard to the unintentional murderer: “Unintentionally” (Numbers 35:11); to exclude from exile the one who kills intentionally. “Unawares” (Deuteronomy 19:4); to exclude from exile the one who kills with intent.
מֵזִיד? פְּשִׁיטָא, בַּר קְטָלָא הוּא!
אֶלָּא אָמַר רָבָא: אֵימָא פְּרָט לְאוֹמֵר מוּתָּר.
אֲמַר לֵיהּ אַבָּיֵי: אִי אוֹמֵר מוּתָּר, אָנוּס הוּא?
אֲמַר לֵיהּ: שֶׁאֲנִי אוֹמֵר, הָאוֹמֵר מוּתָּר – קָרוֹב לְמֵזִיד הוּא.
The Gemara asks: Why is a derivation necessary to exclude one who kills intentionally? It is obvious that he is not exiled; he is subject to the death penalty.
Rather, Rava said: Say that the type of intentional killer referred to is meant to exclude the one who says that it is permitted to kill the victim. The verse teaches that this person is neither executed nor is he exiled.
Abaye said to Rava: If the reference is to one who says that it is permitted, he is a victim of circumstances beyond his control, as he did not know any better. How could that be characterized as intentional?
Rava said to him: That is not a problem, as I say that with regard to one who says that it is permitted, his action borders on the intentional.
Thus, for murder, Rava maintains that omer mutar is close to deliberate. And it is Abaye who takes the contrary position. By idolatry, why would Rava consider this akin to a shogeg?
Three or four answers occur to me. Tosafot suggest:
In Makkot, read Rabba rather than Rava. After all, he appears before Abaye.
Bishgaga by exiling the murderer is written more often. So perhaps there, the bar is set higher.
I would add three more:
Something like (2), that there’s natural law, moral law, logical law, where a person should just know that it is wrong to murder. Meanwhile, by idolatry, who says that someone growing up in a different culture would intuit that idolatry is wrong? So that could well be a shegaga.
This idea I am repeatedly hammering, that we don’t really know that Rava said this. It seems plausible that Rava is not consistent, because the Stamma didn’t realize what he said elsewhere.
Actually, the Stamma totally knew the gemara in Makkot, and that was what prompted his suggestion.
Let us pick up and explore three of these ideas, namely (1), (4), and (5).
As for (1), that in Makkot we should read Rabba instead of Rava, because this figure appears before Abaye. What Tosafot mean is that the usual order is Abaye preceding Rava, since Abaye was head of Pumbedita first. They were both fourth-generation Amoraim and contemporaries, but Abaye was still the head first. Thus, Rav Ashi, the redactor, would list the “earlier” Amora earlier in the sugya, Abaye. We see a similar phenomenon with Rabba and Rav Yosef, third-generation contemporaries who were successive heads of Pumbedita academy. Rabba, the first to lead, will typically be listed first. So, if an ambiguous Rabba / Rava appears before Abaye, say that he must be the third-generation Amora.
To counter this, I would note that quasi-chronological order is not the only thing that could motivate Rav Ashi as he sequences the sugya. In many of the purported out-of-order Abaye / Rava sugyot, I point this out. Shouldn’t Rav Ashi consider the internal logic of the sugya? In Makkot, it is not the case that Abaye has a position and Rava has a position. Rather, Rava has something to say, Abaye attacks it, Rava defends it, and that is the end of the sugya? How could we possibly place Abaye first in this sequence?!
Still, let us see if any manuscripts in Makkot 7b have Rabba in place of Rava.
The data is quite sparse. Vilna printing, and Yad HaRav Herzog and Munich 95 manuscripts have Rava. Venice printing omits Rava as the speaker and Abaye as the responder, but clearly with the amar leih they envision a speaker and a responder. Even if we had manuscript support for Rabba, those might have been influenced by Tosafot’s suggested emendation, so would not really prove anything. But the data is sparse.
There is another sugya that makes me think that it could well be Rabba instead of Rava. There are only a few sugyot where this phrase / idea comes up. Sanhedrin 62, Makkot 7, Makkot 9, Shabbat 72 (parallel and dependent on Sanhedrin), and Keritot 3 (parallel to Sanhedrin).
In Makkot 9a, there’s a dispute between Rav Chisda (Sura) and Rava (Pumbedita) — unless it should be Rabba (Pumbedita). Recall that Rava was a student and eventual son-in-law of Rav Chisda, so a discussion between them makes sense.
A brief outline.
There’s a contradiction between the Mishnah and a brayta.
Rav Chisda proposes a solution: in the Mishnah, he killed in a downward motion. In the brayta, he killed in an upward motion. And Rav Chisda or the Stamma elaborates why.
Rava* attacks this: isn’t there a contrary kal vachomer.
Rather, Rava* says: the brayta is where the murderer said / thought that it was permitted.
Abaye objects to this, that that would be ones, totally outside one’s control
Rava* responds that it borders on meizid, intentionality.
The Stamma says that these Amoraim are consistent, because regarding a different case, where he thought he was killing an animal and actually killed a human, Rava* says he’s liable and Rav Chisda says he’s exempt.
And then Rava and Rav Chisda argue about proofs, and then Abaye and Rava argue about proofs.
In terms of the ordering in 7, putting Rava* before Rav Chisda is strange. We would expect it to be Rabba, a contemporary, or else the order to be reversed. Then carry it over to all the other instances of Rava*.
The printings and manuscripts there have Rava throughout, so Makkot 9a is consistent with 7b. However, now we have an additional fragmentary text, Lewis-Gibson (formerly Westminster): Talm. 1.93. In four places throughout on 9a, it has Rabba. Thus:
I’ll also mention that the Abaye / Rava exchange in items 4, 5, 6 in my sugya outline of 9a matches their conversation in 7b. Quite possibly, they did not utter this twice, so we need to decide which sugya is primary. Did this exist as commentary on the brayta in 7b, and was spliced into the conversation here? Or, did it exist as part of this much larger conversation involving Rav Chisda on 9a, and was sliced out to also comment on the brayta earlier?
Regardless, the identity of Rava / Rabba on 9a has to be the identity on 7b.
As for explanation (4), the idea again was that the Stamma was unaware of the contrary sugya in Makkot, yes, I keep suggesting this. We would need to assume that the Stamma knew the idea floating around in general, and decided to attribute it to Rava because adopting this position locally makes sense. But, that same Stamma didn’t realize that the position was the opposite extreme, as being shogeg vs. being meizid.
If we are going this route, I would much prefer explanation (5). Namely, of course the Stamma is aware of the gemara in Makkot! The idea of אוֹמֵר מוּתָּר rarely occurs. It appears in Makkot 7 and 9, about the murderer. And it appears in Sanhedrin about idolatry, and is echoed with that meaning to Keritot and Shabbat.
The Stamma, the Talmudic Narrator(s), is both bold and humble. He’ll radically reinterpret statements of Amoraim, pose questions and offer answers. At the same time, the fundamental ideas the Stamma invokes are not invented out of whole cloth. They are almost always drawn from something a named Amora said elsewhere.
Therefore, if we want to say that the Stamma is invoking this and attributing it to Rava regarding idolatry, that Stamma certainly knows its usage regarding murder. And, if it is Rava there and Rava here, there must be a reason he does not think that these two ideas (saying close to meizid or saying it is shegaga) are contradictory. Indeed, he probably saw it was Rava vs. Abaye here, found a foreign sugya with Rava saying אוֹמֵר מוּתָּר there, and it was Rava’s very identity that caused him to carry it over. (This might be even if over there it was really Rabba; it depends at what point in the development the Stamma said this, and when Rabba turned to Rava.) Finally, we just say that, for Rava, אוֹמֵר מוּתָּר is an atypical case with strange laws that apply, differently in different contexts.