The following is a transcript of Episode 9 of the TEXTing Podcast. Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Elana: Welcome to TEXTing, where we consider issues relevant to Jewish life through the lens of classical and modern Torah texts. I’m your host, Elana Stein Hain. If you’d like to follow along with today’s text, you can find the link to our source sheet in the episode description. 

Pretty recently, I took my kids to Cooperstown, the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was a radically different experience for me than when I went there as a child. As someone who loved playing sports but didn’t care much for watching them, all I can recall from that trip to Cooperstown, when I was a kid, was the famous sketch of Abbott and Costello called Who’s on First? You know, the one where the guy playing first base is called Who, but when Abbott says Who’s on first, Costello thinks he’s asking a question rather than making a statement. And the conversation descends into frustration, as other players named What, Why, I Don’t Know, and other such names become a source of consternation and misunderstanding. 

Now, Abbott and Costello had a literal misunderstanding, but the sketch is also a metaphor for how different people hear things. You and I might hear the same sentence or word very differently from one another. And this is especially true as we bring our own expectations, hopes, and nightmares as we read and respond to what’s going on in our lives and in the world. 

So today I’d like to learn some Torah about differing points of view and understanding and misunderstanding each other. My guest today is Yonah Hain. And we, as a married couple ourselves, are going to study a thought-provoking misunderstanding between a Talmudic married couple in Nedarim 66b. Should be illuminating, but because we never fight in real life, it will obviously be a stretch.

Hi Yonah! Welcome to the gauntlet, I mean the show.

Yonah: Thank you for having me, Elana!

Elana: You know, you probably have different recollections of Cooperstown, and maybe that’s a session for another podcast, but right now what I’m interested in is what comes to mind for you in this misunderstanding versus having different points of view.

Yonah: Well, I think the difference in the end is all about what happens when we clarify our position. See a misunderstanding is a whoopsie. I think of every episode of Three’s Company when I was a child, And in each episode, there was some sort of whoopsie misunderstanding, comedy hijinks that ensued, like Abbott and Costello. 

But a misunderstanding is different than having different points of view. Because when we clarify, a misunderstanding, we get on the same page. We might even see completely eye to eye. We just were coming and going in different directions. It was a formulation, a word choice. There was something where we just didn’t catch the drift. But when you have different points of view, once you clarify positions, you might still disagree. The clarification might lead to even further distance between our two positions. 

So I think a misunderstanding in different points of view, One is a little bit casual. It’s a whoopsie. And the other might be deep and existential and profound.

Elana: Yeah, it’s so interesting because sometimes I found you might have a misunderstanding or what you think is a misunderstanding, and then when you clarify it, you realize, oh, no, no, no. We actually have a deep dispute here.

Yonah: But don’t you think in our life, sometimes we start off from a different point of view and then it’s like, oh my gosh, let’s, give me a big hug, this was just a misunderstanding. We’re good.

Elana: Never. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s take a look at this Gemara Nedarim. Good segue.

Yonah: And in looking at this Gamara, I think there are two layers that we should be thinking about throughout. And that is, is this a whoopsie? Is this just a misunderstanding? Or is something deeper going on?

Elana: Yeah, it’s really interesting. You know, this Gemara is going to present us with, I would say, like, It looks like four situations of miscommunication between a husband and a wife. But the truth is, I actually think we’re going to end up breaking it down into two. And you’re right, each one, it’s not so clear how you would read it. So let’s get started and see what happens. 

So it starts like this. There was a certain Babylonian man who went up to the land of Israel and married a woman there. Okay, so we already have the background of, they probably speak different dialects of Aramaic. Right? Like they both speak Aramaic, but they speak, one speaks from the land of Israel, and one speaks from, 

Yonah: Differently cultures.

Elana: Yeah, exactly. So he says something to her, and it’s not totally clear what he says. We know that he says, cook, two, and then the word is not clear what the word means. Some people think that what he says to her is, cook two lentils. Okay? And then she comes back, and she cooks two lentils for him. And he gets mad. 

So this is sort of like the Amelia Bedelia school of miscommunication. He says to her, cook me two lentils, meaning cook me like not so much food. 

Yonah: Can I get, a couple lentils?

Elana: Can I, exactly. And she’s like, two teeny tiny lentils coming right up. Right. 

Yonah: Sure. And, and the please and thank you hopefully are there.

Elana: Let’s hope they’re, they’re lost in translation.

Yonah: No, but that’s part, but that, but that’s part of the question here. What’s included and what’s excluded from the text? Is this all that transpired and it maybe is just a whoopsie or actually, might there be something deeper going on, and that which is omitted starts speaking volumes.

Elana: Well, look, it’s interesting to consider, maybe he speaks in a way that’s a little bit more allegorical, and who knows if that’s cultural from where he comes, and she speaks in a way that’s a little bit more literal. You know, there’s some people who actually read this as like, the Babylonians understand Torah in a more, in a more metaphorical or allegorical or flexible way, whereas 

Yonah: Or even sophisticated, right? Because let’s, let’s be clear. Who’s telling the story?

Elana: Right, exactly, the Babylonians are telling the story, whereas the people of the land of Israel, they read the story in a very simple, literal kind of way, right? So it might be a dig, like it might even be a symbol for something else, right? So that’s one option for reading it. And I would say that’s not just a whoopsie. Meaning, he speaks a little bit metaphorically, she speaks literally, and hears it literally. 

And another option for reading this is that he said a word that meant two animal hooves. He wanted meat. And what she did is because Jews from the land of Israel, people from the land of Israel, pronounce things a little differently, she thought he meant the word for lentils, vegetarian food. So, he asks for meat, she gives him vegetarian, and that’s like a little bit more like a whoopsie, right?

Like, he said a word, she, because she pronounces it differently,

Yonah: Oh, how funny is it?

Elana: How silly!

Yonah: Oh, how silly is this? We just come from different worlds. We’re going to have to try to make this work, but we’re so different.

Elana: Right, like cue the cute music at the end, you know, that kind of thing. But you know, the one thing I do want to say is like, he gets angry at her, right? And here’s what I’m wondering, like, he’s from Babylonia. He’s the one who moved to Israel. He married her, and yet he’s insistent on speaking the way that his culture speaks.

It’s a little bit like my mother and her sister took my grandmother, of blessed memory to Italy for her 70th birthday. And on the train in Italy, she’s like, why don’t any of you people speak English? And my mother was like, ma, because we’re in Italy, right? Like, there’s something here of, should it have been his responsibility, especially if he’s asking her for something, should he have actually tried to speak in a way that either she would understand, because there’s, they’re more literal, or literally in a way that she would understand by using her dialect? Or does he specifically need to compensate for being an alien outside the home by being a master inside the home? Right? Like, there’s some power struggles going on here. 

Yonah: Sure. Gender dynamics as well. For me, I’m mired in this campus culture conversation and there’s something very relevant to what’s happening in this conversation, or the question that you’re asking based on this passage, of whose responsibility is it for understanding? 

Because on campus, we are literally trying to figure out what constitutes speech harassment. What is unprotected speech? Universities are predicated upon freedom of speech, but things have gotten out of hand and what constitutes harassment?

And the big question of the day is, should the focus be on the audience or the speaker? Meaning if we as Jews, right, a minority, a protected class say that phrases or comments cause us pain, so should we be followed? Should we get to determine that which is harmful to us? Or should the university focus instead not on how we hear these words, but on what the speaker’s intent, and without actually adjudicating what people’s intent are, with, what I would call, vile phrases like “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the Intifada.” There’s a legal question that’s going on on campus with the question of who gets to determine it. Do we get to dictate as the audience how we are impacted, or do speakers get to use excuses as far as what their intent was?

Elana: Hmm. That’s a really interesting, you know, you just took us from the realm of the comical into the realm of the very serious, but it actually does speak to the question of whose understanding matters more in this moment. I also have to say, he’s getting mad at her. How come she’s not getting mad at him? Right? Which is fascinating, right? Like, what’s going on here? We don’t hear what she has to say. That’s case one. 

Case two, which I actually think is kind of an extension of case one, okay? Case two, the next day, l’machar, right? Like, dun dun dun. He says to her, Cook me, and then another word is used. The word is griva. Now, again, two ways to take this. It could be he meant, cook me a huge amount, kind of the opposite of saying a couple of lentils. He’s like, cook me, like 

Yonah: All of the lentils.

Elana: Oh, exactly. And what he means is like a large amount. So what does she do? She’s a literalist. She cooks him, actually, like a dry volume measure equivalent to a liquid measure of nine quarts of lentils. She just, it’s like, okay, you asked for all the lentils. Here’s all the lentils, right? Because he is more idiomatic and she is more literal. That’s one way to read it. 

Another way to read it is actually that in Persian, which the language that Babylonians would also be familiar with, in Persian, pahlavi, at the time, actually, this word griva means neck, again, he wanted a piece of meat. He just tries a different part of the body and instead she brought him a lot of vegetarian food, right? 

Yonah: They really are your grandparents, of blessed memory, and your severely diabetic grandfather would try to sneak chocolate, and your grandmother would say, you know, Moshe, what are you doing? 

Elana: It’s amazing, it’s amazing. Right, so, but this is like the second half because it could be that, look, we had this first interaction. Let’s take the literal figurative, okay? I said to you, bring me two lentils? You brought me literally two lentils. So now what I’m going to do is I’m going to say bring me a lot of stuff because figure you’re going to go halfway or something, you know? And it’s like, no, no, no, I’m not going to go halfway and bring you half the stuff you’re asking for. I’m going to be literal again, right? Like, it’s the exact same problem. It’s the exact same problem. 

And if it’s the language problem, it’s also the exact same problem. So it’s like, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Why are we banging our head against the wall? Dude, I’m here for it.

Yonah: So this is the maddening and helplessness of getting caught coming and going. And that’s what’s happening here. I feel like Zionists on campus get it coming and going. Because, whereas the intent of the speaker determines for the courts free speech, right, and therefore, you know, you can say whatever you want as long as you have an excuse about Zionism that explains what your intent is. 

But the court of public opinion, the campus culture, about the term Zionism is defined by others, by non- or anti-Zionists. We don’t get to define what Zionism means by our intent and by our ideology and our scholarship. What I think is profound here is the misunderstanding of Zionism.

When we say it, we mean protect Jewish bodies, protect Jewish culture, just like BLM, but it’s heard as Richard Spencer.

Elana: So basically what you’re telling me is that there are times when you’re told, look, people are saying things that you find to be hate speech, but that’s not the way they intend it. That’s not what they mean. And so it matters what they mean. And then you try to say something like, talk about Zionism. People say, well, people don’t like hearing that. And they find that to be hateful and problematic and Jewish supremacy.

Yonah: I think at these liberal campuses, when African American students, faculty, and staff say we want to protect Black bodies and Black culture. That is rightfully understood to be something where it’s saying, Black lives matter, right? We don’t want to feel unsafe around police. We don’t want to have to give our children the talk. 

And rightfully on these liberal college campuses when a white supremacist like Richard Spencer says we want to protect white culture and white bodies that is understood inherently to be supremacist. That is understood to be at the expense of equality of others.

And what happens and where there’s this great misunderstanding and silencing is that when Jews talk about Zionism, we think we’re saying something akin to protect African American bodies and culture, but it is being appropriated, understood, or critiqued as supremacists and white supremacists and Richard Spencer.

Elana: Is that a whoopsie? Doesn’t seem like a whoopsie to me.

Yonah: Not at all.

Elana: Seems like, you explain it, it’s not just because people have a misunderstanding. It’s, nope. We just don’t think you have a right to call for that.

Yonah: The coming and going.

Elana: Alright, so if this is where you went with lentils,

Yonah: It’s cumulative.

Elana: Say more.

Yonah: It’s not just that you get me coming and going. It’s not, it happens to be two. Because you got me coming, it’s worse that you’re getting me going.

Elana: Right, meaning, if you’re not going to let me define this, at least let me define this. Right, you won’t let me define how people talk about me, at least let me define how I talk about myself. 

Yonah: And even if you want, give me a chance to.

Elana: Yeah. So let’s say, this is sort of where we went with the lentils. Right. Where we went with the lentils is, we’ve got these two pieces. It could be that we have a misunderstanding, we speak different dialects. It could be that actually we have a deep dispute. And the question of whose responsibility, or not just whose responsibility, but you’re saying whose right is it to define what’s going on, is actually really significant.

Yonah: If this couple went to a counselor, would the counselor suggest a new menu or further counseling?

Elana: Probably further counseling. So let’s say those first two cases, they’re kind of really one case, right? It’s sort of, they’re hitting their head against the wall, doing the same mistake over and over again, which is not very relationally wise.

Yonah: But when things are cumulative, things escalate.

Elana: So that’s where we’re going. We’re going to the escalation. And this is really interesting, because he then says to her, go, bring me two, and the Aramaic word is vutzineh. Now vutzineh, in Babylonian Aramaic, it can actually mean either gourds like pumpkins, like gourds, or it can mean lamps, but in Land of Israel Aramaic, it only means lamps.

Okay. So here we are talking about, like, it’s clearly. He’s saying something that means two things in his language and only means one in her language. And so what did she do? She went and brought him two lamps. Okay. 

Now, it’s interesting, he didn’t say, cook these for me. So maybe she, she didn’t have to know that it was food. But like, at this point, I’m sort of saying to myself, like, you know, that in her language, it only means one of these things. Or alternatively, by the way, maybe he’s like, oh, well. We at least share this word. She has it in her language and I have it in mine. 

It’s like, but you mean different things by it. So don’t just put a little makeup on it. And I’m going to use a word that we both know. The thing you share is the wrong interpretation of it. What are you doing here?

Yonah: It’s funny. There’s so many layers to how it’s a Rorschach, this Gemara. And so, your critique is, you know, is he, really being empathetic. Is he trying to connect? Is he maybe testing her? Is he being a jerk? And I’m thinking, you idiot, just get it for yourself. Have some agency.

Elana: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s also interesting, right? Because I’m looking at it because he’s asking her to do something for him. I am really, I’m really upset at him, because I think if you’re asking somebody to do something for you, at this point, is he willfully making himself misunderstood? Is that what’s going on here? That he’s actually messing with her? At this point, he’s just like, forget it, we speak different languages. 

And then from her perspective, look, I want to give her some agency too. The agency is, why doesn’t she say, what do you mean? In my language, it means this. What does it mean in her language? Your language, right? They both presumably have agency at least to speak like that. Although, maybe not. I don’t know.

Yonah: But you know what it’s like when there’s some tension and maybe there’s even some love and there’s aspirations and you want to get it right and there’s embarrassment and shame to ask and so, you know, I didn’t get things right before and he was kind of a jerk and I want to get this exact right and I want to be loving and, and it’s tough to know the intent.

Elana: Okay, but also can we notice that the the gap between them has gotten much bigger? At least before it was bring me this food and she brought him either literally that food or she brought him a different food. Now we’re like apples and baby wolverines. It’s not apples and oranges anymore, right? 

And I think that’s significant also when the breakdown is so, is so great that you’re, you’re not even talking in the same categories anymore, right? And so it really does escalate because he’s so angry that he says to her, go and break those lamps over the head of, he says, the bava, within Babylonian Aramaic means the gate, okay? 

But guess what? They don’t use the word bava as a gate in Galilean Aramaic, which is the one she speaks. They use the word tara. Taf, Reish, Ayin, and Alef. That’s what a gate means. So guess what? When she hears the name Bava, she thinks of one thing. Poor Bava ben Butah, a sage, who was sitting at the gate, so she goes and she breaks the lamps on his head. Because his name was Bava! 

Yonah: She’s got her agency now.

Elana: She’s got her agency now. Right, so, I look at this and I say to myself, like, if somebody told you to break, or if you thought somebody was telling you, break something on someone’s head, would you do it just because you want to appease them? Or, are you saying, you moron, you just told me to break something on someone’s head, and this is actually, it’s a cry for help, and she’s saying, hello, is anybody listening to what’s going on here? What a strange relationship that I’m in here. You know? 

And so what’s amazing is that Bava ben Butah

Yonah: If the story ended there, I think we would draw different conclusions.

Elana: Which is?

Yonah: Both needed to be more communicative. Both needed to get rid of whatever they might have done, you know, just to spite the other. And it’s not easy to know intent here, but anything that was spiteful should be removed from the relationship.

Elana: Yeah. But, that’s not how it ends.

Yonah: It doesn’t.

Elana: So Bava ben Butah says to her, what did you just do? And she says to him, well, this is what my husband commanded me to do. We don’t know tone, like,

Yonah: Is she saying, well, this is what my dear husband told me to do, or is it, well, this is what my husband told me to do?

Elana: Right. Or like, this is what my husband told me to do, like, this is what I live with. Like, this is what I have to.

Yonah: Despair. Cry for help.

Elana: That’s not right. Right? And so Bava ben Butah says back to her, you fulfilled your husband’s desire. May God bring forth from you two sons, corresponding to the two candles, by the way, maybe, maybe, but he says, he doesn’t say corresponding to the two candles, but may God bring forth two sons, wait, who are like Bava ben Butah, who are like me. That’s amazing. He sees her, she does this thing, says, my husband told me to do this, and he says, May God give you children who are not like your husband, but who are like me, who is patient, who doesn’t get upset, who sees that there was a misunderstanding, unlike him, who’s just so hard headed that he landed you here. 

Is that the way you would read the ending? That it’s sort of like, in some ways, it’s a condemnation of the husband. Now obviously in present day we’d say okay you guys have to go to counseling, you have to talk, there’s more to go on, rather than, go have some kids with this guy, right? But how do you read the ending? 

Yonah: I feel like we are ignoring the plain meaning. Which I don’t want to bring into the conversation.

Elana: Oh, is the plain meaning you’re rewarded for listening to what your husband said?

Yonah: I think so.

Elana: The reason why I don’t think that’s the plain meaning is because he says you should have children like me.

Yonah: Yeah.

Elana: You’re saying because he’s a Torah scholar. Wow, isn’t it amazing how you could just sublimate, perhaps, the plain meaning? I’m looking for more irony than this. I’m looking for more irony than this, I will admit it. And, you know, finding your place in the sea of the Talmud, I can find, you can only be one of these characters according to the Talmud. I can be two or three of them. And so you say, I want to be Bava ben Butah also.

So I, the way I would say it is, you know, hey, it’s, you know, when someone comes to you, I’ve seen this Elana, someone comes to you and they’re struggling in an abusive relationship or they’re having a traumatic experience, you will nod to them and code identify with them that, hey, you can be a survivor and you can outlast and, and I’m with you and I’m one of you and, and you’ll get through this. And that’s what you turned Bava ben Butah into.

Elana: Oh yeah. Big time.

Yonah: I love it. The other thing that I would say is, I also want to say, look at his language. He says, HaMakom yotzi mimech, God should bring forth from you two sons like Baba. He doesn’t say God should bless you and your husband with two. God should bring forth from you, because guess what? It ain’t coming from your husband’s DNA. It ain’t coming from your husband’s DNA. Well, so it’s 

Yonah: Close read. The very same passage you can take to him endorsing their relationship, you can say actually is a coded way of saying that she has greater things in store than this partner.

Elana: Now, one thing I do want to say is that I do think that the role of mediator is very hard. The role of the third party, it ain’t so easy. Meaning, I know that it isn’t easy because we’re watching, we’re watching third parties try to mediate things all over the place. Campus is one of those places. But there are plenty of other places where you have third parties that have to figure out how to deal with these issues deep, deep, deep disputes. But I think the role of that third party is the difference between like utter chaos and being able to find some sort of sustainable, continued path forward. 

And so I actually think this story in a lot of ways is pressing us not just on this difficult relationship between the two of them, but also on the power of third parties to intervene in a meaningful way. 

So I think what we’re walking away with here is we have a few levels of disagreement that people might have. It might be different cultural perspectives. It might actually be the deep disagreements of who gets to define a term to begin with. Why do you get to speak Babylonian Aramaic in the land of Israel? Do I have to try to understand Babylonian Aramaic because we are in relationship? What is the role of a third party in navigating these very tense situations? And when does a misunderstanding that looks really innocent actually stand for something deeper and something else? 

And I think, as people who live very publicly, most Jewish educators today are going to say something that some people are going to hear, and they’re not going to interpret them the way that it’s meant. Their relationship is, in some ways, like a metaphor for how things go when you try to express things, like actually for how things go when you try to express things when you can’t explain exactly what you mean in every particular regard.

Yonah: And when you’re not solely dependent just on your own words and intent, but you work in concert with others and in disagreement with others.

Elana: Well Yonah, thank you for joining me for this show. I hope this gave people some food for thought as to understandings and misunderstandings and disputes and debates that we may have.

Yonah: Thank you for having me, Elana.

Elana: Okay, friends, thank you for learning with us, and special thanks to my chavruta this week, Yonah Hain. 

TEXTing is produced by Tessa Zitter and our executive producer, Maital Friedman, with production assistance from Tamar Marvin. M Louis Gordon is our senior producer. This episode was mixed by Ben Azevedo at Bear Cave Audio, with music provided by Luke Allen.

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