לשתי כתותTwo Camps at the Gate

li-shtei kittotIn Gamatria ↗

Let one from each camp argue, and the truth will show.

Irgas opens with a story. In the days of the judges there came a famine for hearing the word of God, and Israel split into two camps. One held that the Torah has only its plain sense, so a lifetime belongs to the debates of Abaye and Rava and to the law. The other held that beneath the revealed text lies a hidden inside, in the mitzvot and in the details of the stories, and that knowing it is the goal. The nasi Zechariahu ben Yevarechyahu proposes a debate: Shaltiel for the Talmudists, Yehoyada for the kabbalists. Shaltiel doubts it can work, since kabbalah rests on faith in its sages. Yehoyada answers that kabbalists question their sources as sharply as halakha. His terms: concede what you cannot refute, and read the sages by their plain sense.

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