I’m reading The Crowns on the Letters by Rabbi Ari Kahn. One of the most fascinating pieces focuses on Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a sage many may remember from the ill-fated discussion pertaining to the Oven of Akhnai.
What I hadn’t realized until reading this piece was how tragic Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus’ life was. Here’s the story:
The following happened to Rabbi Eliezer, son of Hyrcanus: His father had many plowmen who were plowing arable ground, whereas he was plowing a stony plot; he sat down and wept. His father said to him: “Why are you crying? Are you perhaps upset because you are plowing a stony plot? In the past you plowed the rocky area, now you shall plow arable soil with us.” He sat down on the arable ground and wept. His father said to him: “But why are you crying?” He answered him: “I am crying because I desire to learn Torah.” [Hyrcanus] said to him: “You are twenty-eight years old and yet you desire to learn Torah? Go take a wife and have sons and you can take them to school.” (Pirkei dd’Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 1)
The passage is almost inconceivable; the man who would become the great Rabbi Eliezer had not learned a word of Torah by the time he had reached his twenty-eighth year. His late start in the study of Torah gives us new insight into the attraction Rabbi Akiva, another notorious “late bloomer,” felt towards Rabbi Eliezer, and may explain why he became Rabbi Eliezer’s student.
But why did the young Eliezer not study? Apparently, his father was not opposed to Torah study: When Eliezer expressed his desire to study Torah, his father advised him to get married, have children and bring them to the beit midrash. Why did Hyrcanus not do the same for his son Eliezer? Moreover, why was Eliezer left plowing rocks while the other members of the household plowed het fields? Why this exercise in utter futility?
Apparently, Eliezer had been deemed incapable. His father most likely had tried to educate him when he was young, to no avail; Eliezer was not educable. In fact, he was no even capable of plowing like the others, so his father decided to have his “incapable” son work alongside the others, to give them the feeling that he was like all the others, and to occupy him so that he would cause no damage. Eliezer was stationed off tot the side, to toil at “busy work,” plowing and planting on the rocks. When Eliezer began to cry, his father reasoned that despite his limitations, Eliezer was aware enough to notice that he was treated differently. Hyrcanus invited his “special” son to come and join the others, perhaps hoping, at best, that Eliezer could be “mainstreamed” in the family business. What Hyrcanus did not anticipate was that Eliezer dreamed of intellectual pursuits, that his hearts’ desire was to study Torah.
-pages 117-118
Hyrcanus tries to tell his son that “his ambitions are unrealistic” and the “best he can hope for is to have children more capable than he” (119). Eliezer cries and Elijah the Prophet appears tot him. Elijah tells him that if he wants to learn Torah, he should go to Jerusalem to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai.
Eliezer goes and weeps before Rav Yohanan. Rav Yohanan asks him “Have you never learnt to read the Shema, or the tefilla or the grace after meals?” Eliezer replied, “No.” So Rav Yohanan taught him those three prayers. Eliezer wept again and Rav Yohanan taught him Torah, two halakhot every day of the week.
Rabbi Kahn comments:
How, we might well ask, could a person born and raised in Judea be so ignorant that they do not know the Shema? While it is quite impossible to render a diagnosis thousands of years latter, the answer to all of these questions seems unavoidable: Eliezer was deemed incapable of learning.
(Note that Rabbi Kahn heard this suggestion independently from Rabbi Noach Weinberg zt”l and Rabbi Yitzchok Cohen ybl”a.)
-page 120
But Eliezer wanted to learn. His soul thirsted for it. And the impossible happened- he mastered it.
The sons of Hyrcanus told their father to go up to Jerusalem and disinherit Eliezer. Hyrcanus did this, except that when he came up he found his son transformed- an erudite, incredible sage with the ability to teach “more Torah than was revealed to Moses at Sinai,” a statement corroborated by the fact that “Rabbi Eliezer emitted the same glow that adorned Moses when he descended from Mount Sinai with the Torah (124).”
Rabbi Kahn then makes an exceptionally important statement:
The Torah as it exists on earth is not the miraculous Torah of Rabbi Eliezer- Rabbi Eliezer’s Torah knowledge belongs to heaven- for it came directly from heaven, and did not pass through the normal filters of human understanding. Rabbi Eliezer’s Torah was from a different tradition than that of the rest of the rabbis, and it was this “different” Torah they rejected. The other element which is interesting is the pushing aside of Rabbi Eliezer. As a child he stands alone on his side of the field. His brothers encourage their father to disinherit him, to push him aside. Years later, his colleagues succeed in pushing Rabbi Eliezer away- even though they seem to know that truth is on his side, and not theirs.
-page 125
Rabbi Eliezer remained separated from his colleagues after the episode of the Oven of Akhnai. When they heard his health was failing, they arrived at his home but kept their distance. See Sanhedrin 68a.
Rabbi Eliezer had incredible knowledge he was unable to pass on - because his colleagues ostracized him. When he died, Rabbi Akiva said “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof; I have many coins but no money changer to accept them.”
There is so much tragedy in his story. Lost knowledge and so much sorrow as the result of one dispute. Additionally, Sanhedrin 68a “links the calamities suffered by that generation to the treatment of Rabbi Eliezer by his peers (131).”
The case of the oven of Akhnai “presented the impossible tension of procedure versus substance, the search for truth versus the search for peace, the rule of the majority- even if it may be incorrect- versus personal integrity (131).” There was massive collateral damage- “Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, the man who was estranged from his brothers, later became estranged from his colleagues. He lived so much of his life alone, abandoned and rejected, clinging to truth as he saw it, clinging to the precious Torah he had received directly from heaven (132).”
I think it would be fascinating to learn more about the lives of each of the sages and then view their contribution to the corpus of Talmud through the prism of their lives. Not to take away from their accomplishments, but because I think that would add depth to understanding how and why they analyzed or understood the texts in the way they did. Moreover, I think learning about this particular sage would be so impactful for students who struggle with learning differences or challenges- seeing that there was someone like them who was able to ultimately be successful could be very empowering.