James Naismith is credited with inventing basketball, but a primitive version seems to have existed in Talmudic times. “Rav Mordechai asked Rava: [Given] a column in a public area that is ten handbreadths tall and four wide (and thus considered a private domain), and one threw an object, and it landed on top; what is the law?”
One may not carry—or throw—an object from a public to a private domain or vice versa on Shabbat. Throwing an object from the street to this platform should be forbidden, as one has transferred the object from a public to private domain. However, in order for the object to land on the platform, the object must have risen above it. While in a private domain, the air rights extend to the heavens, this is not the case in a public domain, where any area above ten handbreadths is considered a no man’s land (makum patur). One is permitted to carry from such an area to both private and public domains. Rav Mordechai was asking whether an object that is thrown from a private to public area via this exempt space might render the action permissible.
Rava responded based on a Mishnaic teaching that this action would still be forbidden. Apparently unsatisfied with his response, Rav Mordechai sought a second opinion. Rav Yosef gave him the same response; namely, that based on the Mishnah, it is forbidden. Still not satisfied, Rav Mordechai asked Abaye, who responded in exactly the same fashion, saying that the Mishnah forbids it. At this point, Rav Mordechai had enough. He exclaimed, “You are all spitting the same spit!” Rav Mordechai asked three different rabbis, but instead of three independent opinions, he received the same opinion three times—rendering the last two opinions unnecessary.
Jewish learning requires fierce independence. Originality, creativity and dissent are the mechanisms by which halacha can develop. Parroting what others have said may spread the words of Torah, but carries little weight in helping to decide the law, or to advance and properly apply it. Even in those situations where a “majority vote” is called for, a (learned) student who simply follows the decisions of his teacher would not have his vote counted. Their two opinions are really just one.
I vividly recall Rabbi Soloveitchik stating that to know something because your rebbe said so means nothing. One must understand it independently, and only then has one really learned anything.
It is to be expected that students will often hold the same views as their teachers. Yet there is absolutely no requirement to do so, and our tradition is full of cases where students rule differently than their teachers. “In the place of desecration of G-d’s name, one does not given honour to one’s teacher”. The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 242?) sets out the parameters by which one may—actually, must—disagree with one’s teacher. For a beautiful elaboration of this point, please see the introduction of Rav Moshe Feinstein to his Iggrot Moshe.
It is for this reason that generally, in a court of law, the least knowledgeable of the judges is to speak first; we want him to express his own opinion, not the view of those wiser than he. And in a well-known ruling, a court in which no one argues on behalf of the accused (leading to a unanimous conviction) grants the defendant his freedom.
Of course, there are times when there is little more to say than what others have said before. The three rabbis were correct, and quoted the only source they knew to forbid it. Yet the notion of groupthink is (or should be) foreign to Judaism.
As has often been pointed out, one of the exciting aspects of Talmud study is seeing the unbelievable range of opinion, ideas and thoughts quoted for posterity. While in practice, we may not accept all of them, they are all worthy of being studied seriously.
