The Harmful Religious Emotion

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

Toby: I listened to a shiur where the lecturing rabbi mentioned a story in the Gemara about a rabbi who had a very beautiful daughter and prayed to Hashem that she should die so that she wouldn’t cause men to sin because of her beauty. The rabbi giving the shiur said, “It’s very difficult for us to understand this story because the rabbi who prayed that his daughter should die was on a very high spiritual level, and we are not on that level. Therefore, it’s hard for us to understand his actions from our perspective.”

I’m wondering how you would interpret this Gemara.

Rabbi: Context is crucial. The rabbi to whom you were listening made a mistake about R. Yosei from Yokeret by not properly analyzing the gemara or researching Gemara’s commentaries:

Taanis 24a:

Rav Ashi said to Rabbi Yosei bar Avin, “And didn’t the Master (you) sit before and frequent the study hall of Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret?” Rabbi Yosei bar Avin replied, “Yes.”  Rav Ashi asked further, “And what is the reason that the Master left him and came here?” Rabbi Yosei bar Avin said to him, “I was concerned and departed because he is so severe and unforgiving. He is a man who has no mercy on his own son and daughter. How, then, could he have mercy on me?”

What is the incident involving his son? One day Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret hired day laborers to work his field. It grew late and he did not bring them food. The workers said to the son of Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret, “We are starving.” They were sitting under an unripe fig tree, so the son said, “Fig tree, fig tree, yield your fruits so that my father’s workers may eat.” The fig tree yielded fruit, and they ate.

In the meantime, his father came and said to the workers, “Do not be angry with me for being late, as I was engaged in a mitzva, and until just now I was traveling for that purpose and could not get here any sooner.” They said to him, “May the Merciful One satisfy you just as your son satisfied us and gave us food.” He said to them, “From where did he find food to give you?” They said, “Such-and-such an incident occurred.” Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret said to his son, “My son, you troubled your Creator to cause the fig to yield its fruit not in its proper time, so too, you will die young.” And indeed, his son died before his time.

What is the incident involving Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret’s daughter? He had a very beautiful daughter. One day he saw a certain man piercing a hole in the bush surrounding his property and peeking at his daughter. Rabbi Yosei said to him, “What is this?” The man said to him, “My teacher, if I have not merited taking her in marriage, shall I not at least merit to look at her?” Rabbi Yosei said to her, “My daughter, you are causing people distress. Return to your dust, and let people no longer stumble into sin due to you.”

Blindly accepting such stories and not searching for their intended deeper meaning, we do an injustice to Torah, and Jews seeking truth. The characters of the story may be true, but the accounts are allegories. One indication that these stories are allegorical is that the rabbi's son “miraculously” produced fruits. Second, why is his name Rabbi Yosei from “Yokeret?” Rabbi Yosei bar Avin means he was Avin’s son, the correct name format, as seen in all Gemara personalities: “Rabbi X bar X.” Why then isn’t the other rabbi named after his father as well? This place “Yokeret” may be a clue. 

Yokeret or yakar, means “precious.” By Gemara naming this rabbi Yokeret, it indicates his overly precious and obsessive values that were misplaced. He cared less about his children than about a religious emotions he held most precious. He felt his son’s great efforts to feed hungry workers (miraculously creating fruits) were not as important as respecting God’s natural laws. He raised nature over man’s needs. But as his son did nothing wrong, the rabbi was wrong to condemn his son for helping others. The son dying early means his father’s ridicule distressed him greatly. In other cases, Gemara uses death to refer to harming another fundamentally, but not miraculously causing death.

Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret also demonized man’s sins over his daughter’s feelings, a girl in no way responsible for men who cannot control their lusts. His daughter should have been treated more importantly than strangers for whom he is not responsible. 

Man possesses a religious emotion, and he can distort Torah’s priorities in favor of satisfying a feeling of being overly-religious. A person in shul may daven loudly and shuckle fiercely to display his religiosity to others, but arrogance is wrong, and such acts make one less religious. Here, one uses religion for egoistical purposes. There are many expressions man finds to gain peer approval, when he should in fact seek only God’s approval. Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret wrongly prioritized man sinning, when he should have prioritized Torah’s value of treating children properly. Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret erred by not following Torah’s priorities.

The lecturing rabbi you listened to also failed to follow the Torah method. That is, there are fundamentals truths that are never compromised. One is the principle of Reward and Punishment which has clear parameters for defining guilt and merit. Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret’s daughter was without guilt. How can one's appearance, which is outside of one's control, be a reason to condemn a person? This alone must teach the reader that Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret was wrong. And furthermore, a woman is not asked to restrict her beauty until after she's married, when only then she covers her hair. Chayei Adam comments that Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret was wrong. He cites how, during the famine, when Abraham had to descend to Egypt, which had food, he turned to his beautiful wife Sarah and asked her to say that she was his sister and not his wife so the immoral Egyptians shouldn't kill him to take Sarah. But Abraham did not say to his wife, “Since you're beautiful you should die and not cause men to sin.”  Chayei Adam was right. This biblical incident exposes Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret as gravely wrong, unlike the lecturing rabbi you heard.

With such stories, Gemara follows God's Torah principle of sharing the flaws of our leaders. God does not hide the sins of our prophets or biblical personalities. Here too the Gemara also is teaching that rabbis make errors. Rabbi Yosei bar Avin said, “Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret is so severe and unforgiving. He is a man who has no mercy on his own son and daughter.” So the very account in our Gemara opens with an accusation of Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret. Thereby, to suggest Rabbi Yosei from Yokeret “is on a very high spiritual level” and beyond reproach, is a misinterpretation. Torah focuses on God, not man. Gemara isn’t a history book, it shares stories both literal and metaphoric that contain deep lessons discovered only after careful analysis. But all too often today, rabbis read the surface information only, understanding it literally. They ignore Maimonides and his son’s words teaching that Gemara’s stories many times are allegorical, requiring interpretation by trained minds.