Chapter 5: To Measure or Not to Measure
On “The Good Place” Eleanor is excited when she is polite for the first time without thinking, Tahani’s philanthropy doesn't score enough points with her parents or the algorithm, and Chidi doesn’t find pleasure in doing the most good. So on the podcast Jon has his first stomach ache and Sari Laufer (new rabbi on the team) helps us think more about where measuring goodness does and doesn’t make sense. Oh, and where intellectual vs. sensual pleasure fits in!
This episode’s texts are long so they are below after this one deeper dive (a sermon from Jon, better maybe for this episode than the last one), and this link to our Hosts and how to follow them!
Also, here’s that last scene from “The Breakfast Club”:
Texts (for more background head to our Jewish Lexicon):
Rabbi Moses Maimonides
Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:1-5
(follow the link to the complete text; here are selected quotes)
Each and every one of the sons of man has merits and wrongs. One whose merits exceed wrongs is a tzaddik (“righteous” person), and one whose wrongs exceed merits is an evildoer; if both are evenly balanced, one is in-between…
When the merits and wrongs of a person are weighed neither the first nor the second time is taken into consideration, but from the third time onward; if one’s wrongs from the third time onward exceed one’s merits, then those two wrongs, too are added, and the person is judged on all; but if one’s merits balance one’s wrongs from the third wrong onward, all of one’s wrongs are wiped off one by one, as the third wrong is counted as the first for the two long since had been forgiven, so is the fourth considered thereafter first, as the third long since had been forgiven, and this way till end of the wrongs.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 33b
(again more complete text at the link; here is a selection, with one misogynistic section edited out)
Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon were sitting, and Yehuda, son of converts, sat beside them. Rabbi Yehuda opened and said: How pleasant are the actions of this nation, the Romans, as they established marketplaces, established bridges, and established bathhouses. Rabbi Yosei was silent. Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai responded and said: Everything that they established, they established only for their own purposes. They established marketplaces, to place prostitutes in them; bathhouses, to pamper themselves; and bridges, to collect taxes from all who pass over them. Yehuda, son of converts, went and related their statements and they were heard by the monarchy. They said: Yehuda, who elevated the Roman regime, shall be elevated; Yosei, who remained silent, shall be exiled to Tzippori; and Shimon, who denounced the government, shall be killed.
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son, Rabbi Elazar, went and hid in the study hall. Every day Rabbi Shimon’s wife would bring them bread and a jug of water and they would eat… They went and they hid in a cave. A miracle occurred and a carob tree was created for them as well as a spring of water. They would remove their clothes and sit covered in sand up to their necks. They would study Torah all day in that manner. At the time of prayer, they would dress, cover themselves, and pray, and they would again remove their clothes afterward so that they would not become tattered. They sat in the cave for twelve years. Elijah the Prophet came and stood at the entrance to the cave and said: Who will inform bar Yochai that the emperor died and his decree has been abrogated?
They emerged from the cave, and saw people who were plowing and sowing. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: These people abandon eternal life of Torah study and engage in temporal life. Every place that Rabbi Shimon and his son Rabbi Elazar directed their eyes was immediately burned. A Divine Voice emerged and said to them: Did you emerge in order to destroy My world? Return to your cave. They again went and sat there for twelve months. They said: The judgment of the wicked in Gehenna lasts for twelve months. A Divine Voice emerged and said to them: Emerge from your cave. They emerged. Everywhere that Rabbi Elazar would strike, Rabbi Shimon would heal. Rabbi Shimon said to Rabbi Elazar: My son, you and I suffice for the entire world, as the two of us are engaged in the proper study of Torah.
As the sun was setting on Shabbat eve, they saw an elderly man who was holding two bundles of myrtle branches and running at twilight. They said to him: Why do you have these? He said to them: In honor of Shabbat. They said to him: And let one suffice. He answered them: One is corresponding to: “Remember the Shabbat day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8), and one is corresponding to: “Observe the Shabbat day, to keep it holy” (Deuteronomy 5:12). Rabbi Shimon said to his son: See how beloved the mitzvot are to Israel. Their minds were put at ease.
Rabbi Pinchas ben Ya’ir, Rabbi Shimon’s son-in-law, heard and went out to greet him. He brought him into the bathhouse and began tending to his flesh. He saw that Rabbi Shimon had cracks in the skin on his body. He was crying, and the tears fell from his eyes and caused Rabbi Shimon pain. Rabbi Pinchas said to Rabbi Shimon, his father-in-law: Woe is me, that I have seen you like this. Rabbi Shimon said to him: Happy are you that you have seen me like this, as had you not seen me like this, you would not have found in me this prominence in Torah. At first, when Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai would raise a difficulty, Rabbi Pinchas ben Ya’ir would respond to his question with twelve answers. Ultimately, when Rabbi Pinchas ben Ya’ir would raise a difficulty, Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai would respond with twenty-four answers.
Rabbi Shimon said: Since a miracle transpired for me, I will go and repair something for the sake of others in gratitude for God’s kindness…
…and once again this teaching of Reb Zusya of Hanipol, a chassidic rebbe: “When I arrive at the World to Come they will not ask me, “Why were you not Moses?’ but ‘Why were you not Zusya?"‘“
