Daf Yomi, Marriage Counseling, Psychotherapy, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Torah and Psychology
Our Gemara on Amud Aleph makes reference to a verse in Yechezkel (45:18) that one day Eliyahu HaNavi will explain.
The Rashba (ibid) raises a question. If we are referring to the Messianic future, whereby there will be resurrection of the dead, why have Eliyahu explain it? Why not have Yechezkel himself explain it? One answer the Rashba offers is that Eliyahu’s arrival, which occurs at the beginning of the Messianic era, may precede the period of resurrection of the dead by years, and therefore many of the halachic questions regarding Yechezkel’s text would not yet be resolvable through consulting Yechezkel himself.
Thinking about this passage, I wonder if we might suggest something different. In one of my favorite Aggados, Moshe Rabbenu is described as time-traveling into the future and attending Rabbi Akiva’s shiur. The Gemara (Menachos 29b) tells us that Moshe sat in the eighth row and could not follow what was being taught. Moshe became distressed. Rabbi Akiva’s students asked him upon what authority he based the teachings of the shiur. Rabbi Akiva replied: “A halacha given to Moshe from Mount Sinai.” This comforted Moshe and restored his spirits.
This paradoxical Gemara seems to resemble the Jewish equivalent of Roland Barthes’ principle of literary and artistic criticism: once a work is created, it takes on a life of its own, allowing readers to interpret it through their own perspectives and experiences.
If so, we may arrive at a new answer to the Rashba’s question. If Moshe himself did not unlock every interpretation contained within the Torah he received, kal v’chomer Yechezkel stood in a similar relationship to his prophecy. Though he was both author and transmitter, he may not have perceived every latent meaning embedded within his words. Accordingly, even if Yechezkel were resurrected, Eliyahu HaNavi’s interpretation would still provide necessary clarification, as Eliyahu is granted a unique Messianic role in resolving unresolved elements of tradition.
To be fair, however, most commentaries do not read this Gemara so radically. Rashi (ibid), for example, explains simply that Rabbi Akiva was teaching Torah that Moshe would later learn. Yet this explanation itself raises difficulty: what, then, was the purpose of Moshe’s journey? Even according to Rashi, hearing Rabbi Akiva’s shiur must somehow have potentiated Moshe’s later understanding.
There is precedent for such an idea. The Gemara (Niddah 39b) teaches that every fetus learns the entire Torah in utero, only to forget it upon birth when struck by an angel. The obvious question arises: what is the purpose of learning it if it will be forgotten? It must be that prior exposure enables later relearning with greater ease. Similarly, hearing Rabbi Akiva’s shiur may have enabled Moshe to later grasp dimensions of Torah already latent within revelation.
Yet if Moshe learns from Rabbi Akiva Torah that Rabbi Akiva learned from Moshe—in order for Moshe himself to understand Torah—that creates a genuine time-travel paradox. The earlier Moshe learns from Rabbi Akiva, who learned from a later Moshe, enabling that later Moshe to transmit Torah that Rabbi Akiva would ultimately teach back to Moshe.
A different approach appears in the introduction of the Tosafos Yom Tov to his commentary on Mishnah. He advances beyond Rashi but still stops short of this thesis. Moshe, he explains, was shown the entirety of Torah but was not granted the ability to transmit every derivation explicitly. Later sages therefore uncovered new derashos embedded within that original revelation. Even here, however, we must still explain the value of Moshe witnessing Rabbi Akiva’s teaching, and the same explanation as we used for Rashi may apply.
The Shalah (Aseres Hadibros, Shavuos, Torah Ohr 3), however, presents an idea more compatible with this approach. The entirety of Torah was indeed given to Moshe in total form, yet later sages were able to deduce new implications from that corpus.
Indeed, despite Rashi and Tosafos Yom Tov, Midrash Tanchuma (Chukas 8) explicitly states: “Things that were not revealed to Moshe were revealed to Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues.” There is also a Rashi (Sanhedrin 36b, “Ki Ka’amar”) that also implies that after Moshe’s transmission of facts, sevaros (logical deductions) are made independently.
I once heard an excellent mashal explaining this from Professor Roi Yozevitch. Children raised in homes where parents speak grammatically correct language often develop flawless linguistic intuition. They grasp syntax and structure completely, yet cannot formally teach grammar rules. They possess total knowledge without analytic articulation. So too, Moshe may have received the entirety of Torah intuitively, capable of answering any question posed, while later sages still needed to construct and formalize its analytical structure.
If this thesis is correct, we may argue that Yechezkel himself did not necessarily know the full interpretation of his prophecy, and it is therefore entirely reasonable that Eliyahu HaNavi will one day clarify and expand its meanings.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation
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Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R, LMFT, DHL is a psychotherapist who works with high conflict couples and families. He can be reached via email at simchafeuerman@gmail.com